Republican voters in Indiana helped a candidate jailed on charges of killing his wife win a primary election for a township board seat.
Voters voted for Andrew Wilhoite, a man who, more than two months before the primary election, was arrested and charged with beating his cancer-stricken wife to death and dumping her body in a creek.
In March, Nikki Wilhoite had just finished her last round of chemotherapy. Around the same time, she found out that her husband had allegedly been cheating on her, so she filed for a legal separation.
On March 24, the couple began arguing about the affair and pending divorce when Mr. Wilhoit allegedly hit his wife with a gallon-sized pot of cement. Prosecutors say he then carried her body to a bridge near her home and dumped her.
the daily beast reports that after Ms. Wilhoite failed to show up for work, her colleagues became concerned and asked the police to conduct a wellness check. When police arrived at the home, three of the man’s children greeted them and said that Ms. Wilhoite was not home and that they could not contact her either.
At that time, Mr. Wilhoite arrived on his tractor and admitted to police that the couple had a fight. He claimed that his wife slept on the couch that night and that when he woke up, she was gone.
When the police learned from Mrs. Wilhoite’s father that she was going to divorce him, and he was concerned that Mr. Wilhoite had done something to his daughter, they became skeptical of the Republican candidate’s story.
They searched Mr. Wilhoite’s home and found blood on his sheets and pillows, as well as small beads around the door and inside the master bathroom and sink.
After confronting Mr. Wilhoite and questioning him about what happened, police say he eventually claimed that she had attacked him and later admitted to throwing “Elizabeth out the front door of the house” before throwing a “cement pot from the size of a gallon that had dirt on it. in her “that hit her in the face of her.
“Elizabeth fell to the ground and Andrew said he didn’t know what to do, so he took Elizabeth’s body, put it in his truck and dumped it in a nearby creek that is east of the residence,” prosecutors say. They also claimed that Mr. Wilhoite picked up the broken pieces of the pot and put them in a plastic bag.
He reportedly told investigators he didn’t know if his wife was still breathing when he dumped her in the creek and allegedly admitted he didn’t check.
Since then, he has been held in the Boone County Jail. Despite the existing evidence, he managed to win a primary for the town council. He received 60 votes and will appear on the November ballot for the Clinton Town Council.
If you are convicted, you will not be eligible to serve as an elected official.