A Batesville woman was sentenced to four years in prison Monday morning after pleading guilty last week to murdering her husband.
Arbie Jo Buckley was sentenced to four years incarceration and 10 years probation for the 2001 murder of husband George House.
Buckley, 42, pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter last week.
Circuit Judge Andrew C. Baker handed down the sentence after a two-hour hearing at the Panola County Courthouse in Sardis.
A Panola County jury convicted Buckley of capital murder in 2002, but that conviction was reversed by the state Supreme Court.
A grand jury indicted Buckley for murder last summer.
According to court documents, Buckley went to the Panola County Sheriff’s Department on October 27, 2001 and demanded that deputies remove George House from their home.
Deputies refused to help Buckley, saying they had no legal right to do so, and about two hours later – according to District Attorney John Champion – the trailer at 4817 Old Panola Road was engulfed in flames.
At the sentencing hearing, Baker listened to a parade of witnesses for Buckley, including friends, family members and neighbors who testified about her abuse at the hands of George House.
House was a crack addict and an alcoholic, the witnesses said, but he and Buckley seemed inseparable in a marriage that neither belonged in.
The defendant’s sister, Kay Buckley Houston, testified that both House and Buckley were mentally ill, and at one time the defendant’s mother, Lorine Johnson, had her daughter committed to the Miss. State Hospital at Whitfield to get her out of the "dangerous situation" with House.
House once raped his wife, and she bore a child from that violent assault, Houston and other witnesses testified.
Houston described her sister as a "battered woman" and asked Baker to sentence her to probation.
Buckley also testified in the hearing, telling the court she had a "lovely" marriage with House, her "soul mate," but that he drank and used crack cocaine, beat her and threatened 23 times to kill her.
Asked by her attorney, Leon Johnson, if she ever fought with House, Buckley said, "No fights. He beat on me."
Buckley asked Baker to drop the charges against her.
"I’m not as guilty as people say I am," she said.
District Attorney Champion presented one witness for the prosecution, Martha May Wall, George House’s sister.
According to Wall, the family took House off life support after doctors said he had "zero chance" of living.
The burns covered most of his body, the sister testified, and he lived for 35 days at The Med in Memphis.
Wall told Baker that Buckley should receive the maximum punishment, which was 20 years in prison.
"I was in a bad relationship, and I got out," Wall told the courtroom. "I didn’t take his life."
Champion had asked for the maximum 20-year sentence against Buckley. While she probably didn’t intend to kill her husband, he said, she set him on fire, which resulted in his death.
"She has a sickness but took another person’s life," Champion told Baker.
Convinced from court testimony that House had beaten and terrorized his wife over the years, the judge said Buckley "had a right to be afraid" of House.
That fear, however, was no excuse for taking his life, the judge said, and consequently he handed down the four-year prison sentence.
"I’m surprised this tragic end didn’t come sooner," Baker told the courtroom.
