Eight years after the remains of a Wister woman were found deep in the woods on an Oklahoma mountaintop, her father-in-law said in an interview with a New Jersey newspaper that his wife helped dispose of the body after his son killed Jody Rilee Wilson in 2009.
That revelation has led investigators in Oklahoma to issued a search warrant in the case based on events recalled by Jerry Wilson, Sr., in a May interview earlier in the year.
The two affidavits were used to execute search warrants last week in the cold case, which appears to be thawing after authorities filed court documents calling it a murder for the first time.
The search warrants were seeking DNA from Jody’s husband, Donald Lee Bocephus “Bo” Wilson, 39, and his mother, Kathy Wilson, 57. No charges have been filed and no arrests have been made. The investigation continues, Oklahoma authorities said Tuesday.
An Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent said in an affidavit filed in court on Aug. 16 that Jerry Wilson, Sr., related to authorities that his son told him years ago that he had used “a plastic bag or a piece of plastic to put over Jody’s face and smothered her to death.”
Wilson, Sr., also told authorities that his estranged wife, Kathy, participated in covering up evidence of the alleged crime.
A judge approved the execution of the warrants last week, saying in the order that he found probable cause to believe “evidence of 1st Degree Murder” would be found. Authorities, according to court papers, were looking to compare the DNA with evidence found in Jody Rilee-Wilson’s SUV, which had been found in the parking lot of the Pig Out Palace, about 100 miles from where she lived with her husband in Wister.
Wilson, Sr., has long been estranged from his ex-wife Kathy for years and lives in a Texas nursing home. His latest revelations are the basis for the new activity in the eight-year old unbsolved mystery.
Jody Rilee-Wilson’s body was found on May 8, 2009, by a para-glider flying over Poteau Mountain,less than 20 miles from where she had been living. She was last seen alive on May 5 of that year, the same night that her husband and in-laws took the couple’s 3-month-old daughter, Annabelle, to attend a funeral in New Mexico.
Rilee-Wilson, a New Jersey native, moved to Poteau in 2008 to live with a great-aunt, and shortly thereafter met her future husband, a mechanic for a natural gas company.
The wedding was held in September, and their daughter, Annabelle, was born in January. The couple lived in a trailer near Bo Wilson’s parents in Wister.
Friends said she was happy in the weeks leading up to her death, thrilled to be a mother and excited about a new job selling Avon products.
But one of Jody’s closest friends contends that Jody had argued with her husband and was considering a move back to New Jersey with Annabelle.
Wilson, Sr., said that Jody was planning to take Annabelle and visit her parents in Roxbury and that his son did not want her to go.
“He was afraid that she wouldn’t come back,” Wilson, Sr., told investigators.
Wilson, Sr., said he remembers Kathy Wilson telling him: “We got to go haul this body off” or “We got to go get rid of a body.”
He said he didn’t ask additional questions before his wife left the house. He had been busy, he said, playing with Annabelle, dangling rosary beads in front of her.
More details of this breaking story will added as information becomes available.
