California man sentenced after murdering wife, propping dead body up on Christmas as kids unwrapped presents
A California man will spend at least 15 years behind bars for the gruesome Christmas present he gave to his kids: their mother’s dead body.
William Wallace, who was convicted of second-degree murder in April for the 2011 death of 26-year-old Zazell Preston, was sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in prison, with credit for the nine years he’s already spent behind bars.
“He beat and tortured my daughter and at the same time mentally assassinated her children,” Preston’s mother, Saidell, said during the hearing Friday, according to the Orange County Register. “He showed her no mercy. Let’s show him no mercy.”
Sometime between between Dec. 24 and Dec. 25, 2011, Wallace attacked Preston, pushing her onto a glass table, then asking her then-8-year-old daughter to help pull glass out of her body, the now-18-year-old girl testified. Wallace then dragged Preston into the bathroom and dropped her against the toilet.
“After she hit the toilet, and I think she was passed away, he just took her to the bedroom and put her down to sleep while she was deceased,” the daughter said, according to the Orange County Register. “That is what I remember, because she was cold.”
On Christmas morning, Wallace dragged Preston’s dead body out to the living room and propped her up on the couch with sunglasses on while her 3-year-old and 8-year-old daughters from a previous relationship and her 7-week-old son with Wallace opened presents.
“Mommy ruined Christmas, she got drunk and ruined Christmas,” Wallace told the children, according to prosecutors.
Other relatives testified that Wallace had repeatedly abused and threatened to kill Preston, who was studying to be a domestic abuse counselor before she was killed.
