Bubbaworld

Vicki Leigh Chiles has been convicted of the first-degree murder of two-year-old Joshua Minton on May 17, 2007.

After deliberating for about 3-1/2 hours, an eight-woman, four-man Tulsa County jury found Chiles guilty as charged and recommended a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Chiles did not testify in her own defense and the defense called no witnesses what-so-ever.

Early in the investigation Chiles admitted in a taped interview with Tulsa Police detectives that she had bound Joshua’s hands with masking tape and put masking tape over his mouth. The tape of that interview was played during the trial. With Chile’s admission of taping Joshua’s mouth and hands there was little recourse for any defense.

Chiles’ lawyer during closing arguments attempted to convince the jury that Chiles did not intend to kill Joshua Minton, going so far as to claim that Chiles is “not guilty of first-degree murder”.

Reality is that by her own admission Chiles is guilty of first-degree murder. Two facts bear this out. First is Chile’s taped confession in which she admitted that she did indeed bind Joshua Minton’s hands and mouth with masking tape. And second Oklahoma’s murder statute which states in part:

A person commits murder in the first degree when the death of a child results from the willful or malicious injuring, torturing, maiming or using of unreasonable force by said person or who shall willfully cause, procure or permit any of said acts to be done upon the child pursuant to Section 7115 of Title 10 of the Oklahoma Statutes. It is sufficient for the crime of murder in the first degree that the person either willfully tortured or used unreasonable force upon the child or maliciously injured or maimed the child.

There is no “wiggle room” for a claim that Chiles did not intend to murder Joshua Minton, as intent does not even figure into the provision of law under which Chiles was convicted.

Don’t believe it?
The see for yourself in the Oklahoma Statutes.

Vicki Leigh Chiles was in fact guilty of the first-degree murder of Joshua Minton.
About the only question left is in regard to the sentence of life without the possibility of parole, did she get off too light?