King County, Wash. — Clifford Reed will get just three-and-a-half years in prison for the death of Sandi Johnson. The two were coworkers at a Kent car dealership. She disappeared in 1996; her body was found eight years later.
Friend after friend of Johnson pleaded in a King County courtroom Friday.
"Why? Why were his hopes and dreams more important than Sandi's?” Vicky Sulkerson said.
"Sentence Mr. Reed to the maximum penalty allowed,” Seana Barker begged the judge.
Then another person who calls himself a friend, the shackled man in the wheelchair convicted of her killing, pleaded too.
"I certainly did not kill Sandi,” Reed told the court.
Reed said he cared for Sandi as much as the others. There was never any DNA evidence so prosecutors had to make a deal. Reed agreed to a lesser charge of manslaughter, never admitted guilt, and faced at most 41 months in prison, which is what he got.
"Today as you are here before me you are guilty, and I'm imposing a sentence based on that finding of guilt,” explained Superior Court Judge Mary Yu.
Johnson's husband is angry.
"We're getting through it. It's not easy. That's about all I have to say,” Greg Johnson said outside the courtroom.
Her two grown children, 3 and 5 when she died, were too emotional to say anything. Friends said the 18-year wait is killing Sandi's father, who has terminal cancer.
"It is so ironic that through Mr. Reed's actions her father receives the death sentence and Mr. Reed does not,” another woman who made a victim impact statement said.
Reed will also get credit for 494 days of time served. Reed will spend just over two more years in prison.
KIRO
