Plea deal for man who killed ex at Milton apartment could reduce his sentence by half
A man whose conviction for domestic-violence murder was overturned in 2021 took a plea deal Friday that could reduce his sentence by a decade, disappointing the victim’s relatives, who said they want a retrial.
Joshua Ellis pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Pierce County Superior Court for shooting his ex-girlfriend, Wendi Traynor, in 2017 at her Milton apartment. The 25-year-old woman was killed about a month after she left their home in Kentucky and moved back to the Puget Sound area.
Ellis, 33, had been found guilty in a jury trial in May 2019, and he was sentenced to a little more than 23 years in prison. But an appellate court agreed that the defendant didn’t receive a fair trial due to prosecutorial misconduct during jury selection. A three-judge panel found a deputy prosecutor invoked racial stereotypes and appealed to the prejudice of the jury. It overturned the conviction, and Ellis faced a fresh case.
Instead of a retrial, prosecutors and the defendant’s attorney from the Department of Assigned Counsel agreed that Ellis would plead guilty to the same charge, minus a deadly weapon enhancement, and prosecutors would recommend he be sentenced to 10 years, three months in prison.
“It is not right, and they want to cut his sentence in half, really? No,” said Traynor’s aunt, Sherrie Anderson Jones.
Judge André Peñalver said it was a difficult decision to accept the plea agreement because while state law has a place for victims and their families in the criminal process, including the right to be consulted on plea agreements, it is limited to that, in part because the defendant’s constitutional right to due process comes first.
In court filings, prosecutors noted that Traynor’s family was strongly opposed to the plea deal, but that the agreement took into account the risks of a retrial and the fact that Ellis has no other criminal history.
The first judge to sentence Ellis, a seasoned jurist of nearly two decades, called Traynor’s death an “execution.” According to previous reporting from The News Tribune, the defendant followed Traynor back to Pierce County, shot her in the head and then left her dead in her apartment for about a week until family discovered her.
Ellis is to be re-sentenced Oct. 20. Peñalver acknowledged that while prosecutors recommended a low-end sentence, he can hand down a different one. The standard range for defendants tried in similar cases is 10 years, three months to 18 years, four months in prison.
“We really want to see some justice for Wendy,” Traynor’s mother, Tammi Anderson Black, said outside the courtroom. “We have not seen any justice being served during this whole case.”
Traynor’s family retained celebrity attorney Anne Bremner to represent them during the plea hearing. She told Peñalver she’d not heard of any potential problems with evidence and that all evidence that was brought forward in the first trial could be introduced again, so there was no factual basis to change Ellis’ charges.
“So to come here, especially when the family objects so much, to come in and just say, ‘Well, we reached an agreement so therefore it should be accepted,’ I think is wrong,” Bremner said. “It’s an injustice.”
On one side of the courtroom gallery, at least 10 people showed up in support of Traynor. On the other, Ellis’ mother, who flew from Kentucky to attend the hearing, sat with several court observers and volunteers from organizations that support families going through criminal court.
One person sitting next to her was Ginny Parham, founder of Families Shoulder to Shoulder, an organization that she said aims to reunite families after incarceration. She said volunteers have attended 62 re-sentencing hearings since 2018 and have helped reduce the sentences of 28 people. Parham said she wants judges to focus on rehabilitation rather than retribution.
All people should be held accountable for their crimes, Parham said, but Ellis has already served years in prison, and she says a 10-year sentence is appropriate. She said from the perspective of victims’ families, prison sentences never carry enough time. Parham would tell them imprisonment doesn’t heal anyone.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misidentified Sherrie Anderson Jones with an incorrect last name.
This story was originally published August 18, 2023 at 5:10 PM.
