Man who bludgeoned Yakima Arcade clerk gets 34 years

YAKIMA, Wash. -- A drug addict who robbed an adult bookstore after savagely beating the store clerk to death with a socket wrench was sentenced Tuesday to 34 years in prison.

A lawyer for Aaron Wilsey, 40, said his client suffers from a host of "functional deficits" and was at wit's end in March 2010, when he robbed the Yakima Arcade adult bookstore on Front Street.

Wilsey was in financial difficulty, he was sparring with his ex-wife over custody of their children, and he and his current wife were being evicted, Dan Fessler told the court. He further described Wilsey as a bipolar adoptee with signs of undiagnosed fetal alcohol syndrome as well as Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder and a "borderline" IQ.

"All the frustration, the inability to cope -- all those things were going on that night," he said.

Store clerk Edward Foster, 70, paid for it with his life, clubbed to death with a 1/2-inch drive socket wrench after Wilsey tricked him into coming out from behind his counter to check on a clogged toilet.

Facing life in prison without parole if convicted of aggravated first-degree murder, Wilsey instead pleaded guilty Tuesday to an amended charge of first-degree murder.

In exchange for the prosecution's offer, Wilsey agreed to a total sentence of 34 years in prison -- four years longer than the normal maximum for someone with Wilsey's minor criminal record but leaving a chance of release late in life.

In a short, numbly statement to the court, Wilsey said he was "sorry for what happened," but emphasized he was not a "cold-blooded killer."

Superior Court Judge Ruth Reukauf had a different take, however, saying the slaying was indeed cold-blooded and that Foster's death must have been agonizing.

"The reality is you took another person's life, and he died a brutal death," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," Wilsey replied. No one from his family -- or the victim's friends or family -- attended the proceeding.

Foster, a retired software engineer and Air Force veteran, was working at the store as a favor to a friend, his friends told the Yakima Herald-Republic in March 2010.

As captured on the store's video security system, Foster was attacked shortly after a short, slightly built man entered the store about 5:45 a.m. on March 23, 2010.

Deputy prosecutor Ken Ramm that while the attack itself occurred just off camera, the sound of Foster being beaten to death "was as unmistakable as it was sickening."

Ramm told Reukauf that after the attack, the assailant could be seen locking the door of the store and pulling the blinds before rifling the cash register.

He said the assailant then beat the groaning clerk, lying in a hallway, again. The assailant then fled, but not before helping himself to a sex toy behind the counter.

Wilsey was identified by day's end, after police released video footage of the assailant. In his apartment detectives found bloody clothes that had Foster's DNA. He also confessed.

The second beating, plus the fact that Wilsey clogged the toilet himself, suggested premeditation, a theory that is necessary to prove first-degree murder but is up to a jury to decide.

Had Wilsey been convicted of second-degree, or nonpremeditated, murder, he would have faced a sentence of 13 to 21 years under state guidelines.