The man accused of the October 2015 robbery of a Knox man will have to wait until at least Monday to learn his fate. Jason Cooke is charged with hitting Sescoe Wireman in the head, and taking money, prescription medication, an Indiana ID card, and multiple credit cards from him. Wireman died a few days later, but a murder count against Cooke was dropped last February.
Cooke planned to plead guilty to a Level 2 felony count of robbery in September, but his plea agreement was rejected by Starke Circuit Court Judge Kim Hall. It called for a 15-year sentence in the Indiana Department of Correction.
On Thursday, an amended plea agreement was presented in Circuit Court. It would extend the proposed sentence to 20 years. But before accepting the agreement, Judge Hall said he wanted some more information.
One of his concerns had to do with why exactly the murder charge had been dropped. During Thursday’s hearing, the court heard testimony from Dr. Elizabeth Douglas, the forensic pathologist who conducted Wireman’s autopsy. She explained that she found no lethal injuries from the alleged incident. Instead, she believes he died of a heart attack.
While Douglas said that heart attack could have been caused by the emotional stress of the event, it’s also possible that it was caused by preexisting health conditions. She explained that in order to rule Wireman’s death a homicide, she would have to have proved that he was literally “scared to death.”
However, Hall pointed out that Bourff could have let the murder charge stand with the current evidence and let a jury decide. The judge wanted to research similar cases that have gone to trial. Hall also asked for more time to review Cooke’s prior criminal history, which he cited as an aggravating factor.
During Thursday’s hearing, Hall also asked Cooke for some evidence to support his guilty plea. Cooke explained that he was under the influence of heroin during the alleged incident and doesn’t have an independent recollection. However, he believes he’s guilty based on other people’s accounts of the event, including a witness’s statement, DNA evidence that appears to show that Wireman’s blood was on his clothes, and the alleged discovery of Wireman’s property in Cooke’s hotel room in Plymouth.
Cooke later told the court he was sorry, and that the alleged incident never should have happened.
Judge Hall said he plans to make a decision during a hearing to be held Monday at 1:15 p.m.
