Jury Finds Woman Guilty of Conspiracy for Financial Gain in Husband’s Murder

A 26-year-old Lakewood woman was convicted in Orange County Superior Court Tuesday of conspiracy and murder for financial gain in her husband’s death, which triggers an automatic sentence of life without parole.

Anita L. Ford, one of four defendants in the death of her husband, Barry Alan Ford, 31, had offered to plead guilty to first-degree murder if prosecutors would drop the special circumstances, which included financial gain and lying in wait. That would have meant a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. But prosecutors refused.

Barry Alan Ford was found shot to death in an industrial park in Huntington Beach on Sept. 3, 1984. Anita Ford and her brother, George H. Wright, were arrested nearly two months later, after a witness told police that Ford had admitted her role in her husband’s death.

Wright and another defendant, John B. Aldridge, are awaiting trial. A fourth defendant, Lionel J. Cashman, agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter in exchange for his testimony. Later, he will be sentenced to seven years in prison.

Cashman testified that he, Aldridge and Wright lured the victim to the industrial park on the ruse of having car trouble. Then Wright shot him, Cashman testified.

But Cashman said it was the victim’s wife who set up the plan and offered to pay them to kill her husband.

No Display of Emotion

The Fords had two children, a boy now 10 and a girl now 7, who now live with Anita Ford’s sister.

Ford did not display any emotion when the jury verdict was read in Judge Donald A. McCartin’s courtroom in Santa Ana. But as she was leaving, she shrugged at a court clerk she had befriended.

She asked her attorney, Gary M. Pohlson, to make sure McCartin did not sentence her on July 30, her 27th birthday. McCartin set sentencing for July 31.

Pohlson was downcast about the verdict.

“I knew we were going to lose on the first-degree murder, but I thought we would win on the special circumstances,” Pohlson said. “If she did participate in her husband’s murder, I had hoped we could convince the jury it was just because she hated him.”

Ford testified that she and her husband had a strained relationship and that he was abusive toward her and the children. She denied killing him or participating in a plan to do so but said her brother, George Wright, told her after her husband’s death that he had killed him.

Man’s Mother ‘Relieved’

The victim’s mother, Betty Ford of Lakewood, said after the jury verdict that she was “relieved.”

She said the couple had married in 1978 but that she had never been very close to her daughter-in-law. But the mother said she did not suspect her of being involved in the killing of her son until several weeks after his death.

She also said her concern now is for her two grandchildren: “They were told two weeks ago that their mother was going to prison, and they would not see her again. They won’t be told why until they are older.”

Aldridge and Wright are scheduled to be tried separately, beginning next month.

The jurors deliberated less than a full day, which is highly unusual for a special-circumstances case.

But Pohlson said the evidence against his client was “considerable.” One witness testified that she had confessed the entire plan to him, and another witness testified that Anita Ford tried to get him to kill her husband.

It wasn’t until four months ago that prosecutors decided against seeking the death penalty for any of the defendants.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Douglas H. Woodsmall said two reasons for not seeking a death sentence against her were that Ford is a woman and a young mother.

“The question was whether there was a reasonable chance of winning a death verdict from a jury,” Woodsmall said. “We didn’t think a jury would put a woman to death in these circumstances.”