FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
| Date: | March 06, 2018 |
| Contact: | Shelley W. Akamatsu (208) 287-7700 |
| RE: | State v. Ethan Windom |
Ethan Windom, of Boise, will be re-sentenced for the brutal murder of his mother at her Boise home in 2007. Windom, 16, repeatedly struck his mother’s head with a club that he had fashioned by attaching weights to one end of a dumbbell. After his arms tired from the weight, he then stabbed her dead body repeatedly in the throat, chest, and abdomen and finally thrust a knife into her exposed brain. Windom pled guilty to murder in the second degree and the district court sentenced him to life without the chance of parole.
Windom filed a petition for post-conviction relief in state court claiming the sentencing court didn’t consider his youth and immaturity in 2007 as required by a new U.S. Supreme Court case. The district court dismissed his petition as untimely. In July 2017, the Idaho Supreme Court reversed the district court and ordered Windom to be re-sentenced. The State appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The application was denied on February 20, 2018.
A sentencing hearing for Windom will be scheduled by the court in accordance with the opinion. A status conference has been scheduled for April 13, 2018, at 2:00 p.m.