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Airman Gets Life In Prison For Murdering Colleague, Wrote In Journal ‘I Just Like Killing’
"I just enjoy killing. Simple as that," he wrote in one entry.
An airman who detailed in a journal how much he enjoyed murdering a colleague at a U.S. Air Force base has been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Airman 1st Class Timothy M. Wilsey, of Valdosta, Georgia, pleaded guilty April 5 to the murder of Airman 1st Class Rhianda N. Dillard at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, the Air Force said. He also pleaded guilty to desertion. The Air Force also gave him a dishonorable discharge and reduced his rank to the lowest possible.
Dillard, 20, was found dead August 1, 2016 in her dorm room at Offutt. Weeks after her murder, Wilsey, then 20, was arrested in connection with her death. Police found a journal in which Wilsey wrote with no remorse about the slaying.
He explained how he sat next to Dillard on her dorm bed, trying to work up the nerve to attack her. After two failed attempts, he put her in a headlock, sat on top of her and choked her to death, he wrote. After killing her, he stole a pack of Oreos from her room, according to the Omaha World-Herald. Police said he was sporting a Joker T-shirt, an outfit that was planned for the occasion.
“I thought it would be funny to wear a shirt of a sociopathic serial killer while committing a murder,” a journal entry said, according to the Valdosta Daily-Times. Police said Wilsey also wrote, “I just enjoy killing. Simple as that.”
Wilsey explained in his journal that he had been thinking about killing for a while and that he targeted his victim because he felt she had few friends. Below is the last public photo Dillard posted on Facebook before her death.
After the killing, Wilsey went missing. Two weeks later he was found in Emporia, Virginia, where he was arrested and returned to the base. He has been held there ever since.
“I’m very sorry for everyone I hurt,” Wilsey said after his guilty verdict, according to the Omaha World-Herald. “I apologize to Airman 1st Class Dillard’s family, to my family, and to the Air Force.”
Dillard’s mother told the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi that she felt the apology was insincere.
[Photo: Offutt Air Force Base]
