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Texas Air Force Major To Serve Additional Five Years For Burning Wife's Body To Conceal Evidence, On Top Of Manslaughter Conviction
Andre McDonald, an Air Force Major in San Antonio, signed a plea deal to serve five years for tampering with evidence on top of his 20 years for manslaughter in the death of his wife Andreen.
A Texas Air Force Major will serve an additional five years in prison in connection to the killing of his wife in front of his special needs daughter in their home.
San Antonio District Court Judge Frank Castro added time to Andre McDonald’s sentence on Wednesday as part of a plea deal McDonald signed for tampering with evidence in his wife Andreen McDonald’’s death, according to Law & Crime. Earlier this month, the same judge sentenced McDonald to the maximum 20 years for manslaughter in his wife’s death, Oxygen.com reported.
Prosecutors argued for the five years to be stacked cumulatively with the previous 20 years.
“The egregious nature of this case — all of the tampering that Mr. McDonald did — was an attempt to try to deceive the court and an attempt to try to deceive the jury in trying to cover his actions in causing the death of his wife,” prosecutors said, according to Law & Crime. “Based upon the egregious nature of what was conducted, we feel that stacking the cumulative sentence is appropriate in this case.”
McDonald’s defense attorney argued that he was already serving the maximum sentence for manslaughter and had taken responsibility for his actions. But the judge agreed with prosecutors, ordering McDonald to serve the tampering with evidence sentence after the completion of his manslaughter sentence, according to Law & Crime.
“I know there’s got to be some good in you because of the life you lived as a father prior to this, and sometimes good people make a bad — or huge — mistake,” the judge said Wednesday, Law & Crime reported. “But we’re 13 days away from when you killed your wife and the mother of your child, and I hope you think about that on the 28th of February coming up and every day that you’re in prison.”
McDonald testified during his trial that he killed his wife in self-defense after an argument about money in which he told his wife, Andreen, he was filing for divorce. He told the jury he decided to get rid of his wife’s body so his daughter wouldn’t find it in their home — putting the body in plastic bags and throwing it on a rural property. He later went back to the body, poured gas on it and set it on fire, as well as hit it with a hammer, to try and conceal it more, according to Law & Crime.
“I want the people out there to know that Andreen McDonald’s family approved of this [plea deal],” McDonald’s defense attorney, John Convery, told San Antonio NBC station WOAI. “They want closure. They want finality. And this brings the tragic matter to a close.”
However, the defense plans to appeal his manslaughter sentence, according to San Antonio ABC station KSAT.
