Prosecutors are prepared to call more than 80 witnesses during the upcoming murder trial of Mark Wilkinson, the United Airlines pilot charged with strangling his estranged wife during a quarrel and then sawing off her legs in an attempt to conceal her body, it was disclosed Tuesday.
Cook County Judge Michael F. Czaja disclosed the prosecution`s list of 86 potential witnesses while addressing a panel of prospective jurors in the Rolling Meadows branch of Cook County Circuit Court. Opening statements in the case are expected to be delivered Thursday.
Wilkinson, 37, has been held without bond in Cook County Jail since his arrest in the slaying of Gilda Wilkinson on May 26, 1991, in Hoffman Estates. He has pleaded self-defense to the first-degree murder and concealment of a homicide charges filed against him in the death, court documents show.
If he is convicted of the Class X charges, prosecutors have indicated, they will seek the death penalty. Wilkinson was in attendance Tuesday while prosecutors and defense attorneys privately screened the potential jurors on their attitudes toward the death penalty.
Potential witnesses listed by Assistant State`s Attys. Joseph Kazmierski and Catherine Nauheimer include 23 officers from the Hoffman Estates Police Department, who investigated Gilda Wilkinson`s death after discovering her dismembered body on the garage floor of the couple`s home.
Also listed are eight officers from the Grundy County sheriff`s office, who helped apprehend Wilkinson on May 30, 1991, at the Grundy County Airport, where he had allegedly fled in a plane stolen from the Du Page Airport after the killing.
Other potential witnesses include Wilkinson`s parents, to whom he allegedly wrote a 15-page letter in which he admitted killing his estranged wife; an Oak Forest woman whom Wilkinson was dating prior to his arrest; and eight residents of Hoffman Estates, some of whom are expected to describe hearing the sound of an electric saw coming from Wilkinson`s garage.
Prosecutors contend Wilkinson sawed off both of his estranged wife`s legs at the knees after strangling her. The dismemberment was part of a plan to hide the woman`s body after the killing, they say.
The heart of both the prosecution and defense case, ironically, are expected to center on the 15-page handwritten letter that police found in Wilkinson`s car after his arrest.
In the letter, Wilkinson, a United Airlines pilot since 1986 who had filed for divorce from his wife in March 1990, admitted that he strangled her during a domestic dispute. But he said he only did so after he had been punched and bitten.
”I had enough,” Wilkinson allegedly wrote to his parents. ”I slapped her and strangled her.”
Prosecutors also are expected to disclose the contents of a computer printout found in the couple`s Hoffman Estates home that allegedly detailed Wilkinson`s plans for disposing of the body, concocting an alibi and fleeing the area.
Defense attorney Anthony Pinelli has repeatedly refused to discuss his defense strategy in the case, but his potential witness list includes at least two psychiatrists who examined Wilkinson after his arrest and were asked to determine his sanity at the time of the crime.
Although Pinelli listed self-defense as his expected strategy in Wilkinson`s trial, defendants are allowed to switch strategies at any time during a trial, legal experts say.
Other potential defense witnesses include a pastor at an Arlington Heights church, a Cook County assistant public defender, and two doctors and a nurse at Woodstock Memorial Hospital in McHenry County.
