CRIMINAL INJUSTICE: A domestic abuse survivor imprisoned for life for the murder of her abuser
TULSA, Okla. (KFOR) — News 4 is launching a new series of reports about justice in Oklahoma, specifically criminal justice for Oklahoma women.
According to several national publications, Oklahoma has the lowest score in the nation for women's healthcare and women's safety, the highest number of domestic violence crimes against women per capita and the second highest rate of incarceration for women.
News 4's Ali Meyer takes an in-depth look at a case that has sparked a movement in Oklahoma.
It's a murder from 1998. The defendant is a woman who told police she killed her abusive ex-boyfriend to save her own life.
April Wilken's whirlwind romance with Terry Carlton began at Don Carlton Acura in Tulsa.
Wilkens went to the dealership to buy a car.
She was smart and beautiful, with a Masters Degree from Northwestern University in Chicago.
Wilkens ran her family's prosthetics business.
Carlton was the wealthy son of a car dealership franchise millionaire.
They met in the fall of 1995. They were engaged by Christmas.
Wilkens remembers, the first time her fiancé hit her, they were vacationing in Rome, Italy.
It was a luxury trip for some employees at Don Carlton Honda, paid for by a local television station because the dealer spent top dollar on car commercials.
The next 18 months would bring three emergency protective orders and a dozen calls to police for help.
Wilkens called off the wedding as the violence spiraled out of control.
She recorded a phone conversation between herself and Terry Carlton where he admitted to rape, abuse, choking and other violence.
"Her story is like so many other stories of women in Oklahoma," said YWCA domestic violence expert, Angela Beatty. "People often say, 'Why doesn't she leave? She just needs to leave.' Well, leaving is the most dangerous thing you can do. Domestic violence is all about power and control and maintaining that control in that relationship. So if someone says, 'I'm no longer going to let you control me. I'm no longer going to let you to have this power over my life,' then that's when you become in the most danger."
April Wilkens was so terrified of her boyfriend, she wore a panic button around her neck.
When he found out, April believes Carlton cut the phone line to her home, so her security system would no longer alert the police.
Tulsa Police reports lay out a pattern of domestic terror; an abusive fiancé accused of rape, assault, robbery, stalking, blackmail and revenge porn.
"The neighbors all knew" remembers attorney Lynn Worley. "They knew he had this distinctive car, and they knew that she put up this huge stockade fence around her property because he was climbing in and breaking into the back door. It's almost so unbelievable, that it seems like fiction. How can this be real?"
On April 28, 1998, Wilkens' home had been ransacked by her ex-boyfriend again.
She was too afraid to fall sleep, and so she went to Carlton's home in the middle of the night.
She says she went to beg for a clean break. She wanted out of the relationship for good.
News 4 has obtained never-before-seen footage of the Tulsa Police interrogation of April Wilkens.
She told detectives, "He trapped me upstairs. Then he raped me, beat me, pounded me on the head. (He) told me he was going to kill me, crack my neck. He had (the gun) there ready for me after he raped me because his intention, he said, was to kill me."
Wilkens' told officers Terry Carlton raped her at gunpoint, put her in handcuffs and while he was shooting up drugs she stole his gun to protect herself.
"I took the gun out of the nightstand, and I put it in my back pocket... my intentions were not to shoot. It was to protect myself. Basically, I was fighting for my life, and he was coming at me. He was bigger and stronger and had he got the gun away from me, he would have killed me. He has a history of coming to my house and barging in the back. My house is ransacked right now."
Wilkens emptied the magazine.
She fired eight bullets at Terry Carlton. He bled out on the floor of his own basement.
"I have zero doubt about whether or not she was in mortal fear for her life at the time when she pulled the trigger," said attorney Colleen McCarty of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.
The Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice is a non-profit organization focused on criminal justice reform, juvenile justice, education justice and election justice.
On the night of Terry Carlton's murder, April Wilkens waited with his body until police arrived.
Twenty four hours later, the Tulsa County District Attorney charged her with first degree murder, pre-meditated intent to kill.
Tulsa Police refused Wilkens a rape exam until after her police interrogation.
She was arrested following the rape exam and spent the next year in jail awaiting trial.
McCarty filed an appeal on Wilkens' behalf.
"This case ended up being about how many times she fired the gun, and did she go over there? And when did she get there? And how crazy was she? And none of that matters," McCarty said. "Was she in mortal danger, in fear for her life at the time when she pulled the trigger? The answer is yes."
At trial, Wilkens was represented by another lawyer, who argued self-defense, battered woman syndrome.
"(Terry Carlton) was like twice her size. He was very violent towards her for two and a half years. He had he had a lot of mental health issues, and he was an addict," McCarty said. "He had track marks everywhere you could have track marks: between the toes, behind the knees, everywhere. The medical examiner testified that he was on heroin and meth at the time."
The prosecution painted another picture, of a mutually combative couple; romantic rage fueled by drugs and mental illness.
"I think that jury really had a pretty good view as to what had taken place," said Tulsa County District Attorney, Steve Kunzweiler.
Kunzweiler has reviewed the case, which was prosecuted by his predecessor, District Attorney Tim Harris.
At trial, April Wilkens testified on her own behalf.
The jury didn't buy her version of events. They found her guilty and recommended a sentence of life in prison.
"April Wilkins got a full-throated defense. She got to raise domestic violence. She got to raise all the abusive issues. She got to raise the drugs," Kunzweiler said. "That jury got to hear what the real story was, and that jury was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that she was not entitled to self-defense. They found her guilty."
The court heard testimony about the brutality, and the drugs.
But attorney Lynn Worley believes the defense failed, ultimately, because their argument was missing context about April Wilkens' state of mind on that terrible night.
Worley watched Wilkens' trial from the gallery.
She offered her help in Wilken's defense. Wilkens attorney declined.
"There was a huge gap in demonstrating, how do you get the point of where they were that morning in that house?" Worley remembers. "You've got two years of absolute up and down craziness where he was never held accountable ever."
Two years of sexual violence, protective order violations, burglary, battery, and Terry Carlton, the son of a wealthy, influential Tulsa businessman, only spent one night in jail on a charge of carrying a loaded weapon in his car.
"If (Terry Carlton) wasn't who he was, it never would have got to the point that it did," said Worley, who believes Tulsa Police routinely failed to recognize Carlton's criminal activity because he was a member of a powerful Tulsa family. "This was a way of life for him. He was an entitled person who was never held to account."
The audio recording of Carlton admitting to the domestic abuse of his girlfriend, April Wilkens, was not introduced in court.
That audio was never played for the jury.
April Wilkens has served 26 years in prison for pulling the trigger to save her life.
"I just thought I was going to die a really painful, painful, painful, slow, excruciating death, Wilkens remembers. "I didn't want to hurt (Terry Carlton). I didn't want to take his life. I just wanted to be safe."
Wilkens is now a born-again Christian.
She runs a prison ministry at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center for incarcerated women.
"At the end of the day, it's just a regret that I have that it ever got to that," Wilkens said. "You know, if the system was better at protecting us, it wouldn't get that far."
She is surrounded by women just like her, who made horrible mistakes while they were ensnared by drugs, manipulated by abusers and desperate for help that never came.
"It's scary. It's really frightening," she said. "There was a point where I got to where I didn't care anymore whether I lived or died. He would threaten my life, and I just didn't care. It was more preferable to be dead than it was to live through with him."
According to a recent study, 66 percent of incarcerated women in Oklahoma, experience domestic violence in the year leading up to their criminal charges.
Some women, like April Wilkens, are serving a life sentence for fighting back.
Wilkens has been eligible for parole since 2013.
She has been denied twice.
Both times the Tulsa County District Attorney's office protested her release.
This year, the Oklahoma Legislature passed a bill that would impact sentencing for domestic abuse survivors like April Wilkens, allowing a jury to consider their abuse during sentencing.
The Oklahoma Survivor's Act, SB1470, was vetoed by the governor.
In response, the House and Senate included the language of the Oklahoma Survivors Act to be included in another bill, SB1835, which passed the House and Senate overwhelmingly.
As of today, May 21, the Oklahoma Survivors Act bill SB 1835 has been signed into law by Governor Kevin Stitt.