Andrea Johnson/MDN The house across the street from Longfellow Elementary where Angila Wilder was murdered on Nov. 13, 2015, is pictured on Thursday.

A jury began deliberating Friday morning in the Wilder murder trial and returned a speedy guilty verdict.

Richie Edwin Wilder Jr., 30, was convicted of stabbing or cutting his ex-wife Angila Wilder 44 times in the face, neck and upper chest during the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2015 in the bedroom of her home at  519-16th Street NW. Some of the wounds were three or four inches deep. Angila Wilder would have bled to death within minutes.

“That’s personal,” Ward County Deputy State’s Attorney Kelly Dillon told the jury during closing arguments on Friday. “That’s someone standing over her, or kneeling over her, in close proximity… That’s someone who is very angry at Angila.”

Wilder’s defense attorney, Kerry Rosenquist, argued that it made no sense for Wilder to murder his ex-wife four years after they divorced and said the issues between them were largely resolved. Rosenquist noted that Angila Wilder also had a turbulent relationship with her current boyfriend, Chris Jackson.

Ward County Deputy State’s Attorney Kelly Dillon said the acrimonious relationship was ongoing. Richie Wilder Jr. and Angila Wilder still frequently battled over their two children and a judge ordered them to communicate only via email. On the day before she was murdered, Angila Wilder had emailed Richie Wilder Jr. a link to an article about narcissistic fathers and said it would help him. Their daughter told Richie Wilder Jr. the day before the murder that she didn’t know which of her parents to believe. Richie Wilder felt he had had a breakthrough in his relationship with his daughter during that conversation.

Richie Wilder, who worked as a CNA at Trinity Hospital, adopted Angila Wilder’s daughter from another relationship and had a son with Angila who was 4-years-old at the time of the murder. They shared custody, with each parent having the children for one week and then switching off. The two children were staying with Richie Wilder, his wife Cynthia and their toddler daughter in their apartment on the night of the murder.

Angila Wilder and her 2-year-old son with Jackson were alone in her house in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2015. Jackson was working an overnight shift at Walmart that night.

Dillon also outlined the physical evidence in the case. She told the jury that Richie Wilder’s DNA was found underneath Angila Wilder’s fingernails and her blood was found in the car Richie Wilder Jr. drove home from the murder scene. She said Richie Wilder Jr. had a long scratch on his cheek a few hours after the murder when he was interviewed by Minot police. Richie Wilder Jr. claimed he got the scratch when he was rough-housing with his son, but later told police he had been at the crime scene and Angila Wilder scratched him.

Wilder came up with different suggestions over the past year about who really committed the murder.

In an interview in March, Richie Wilder Jr. tried to finger Angila’s current boyfriend Jackson as the real killer, but police had time-stamped surveillance footage showing that Jackson was at work at Walmart at the time of the murder.

Richie Wilder claimed in the March interview that Jackson had approached him on Oct. 27, 2015 during a custody exchange at Longfellow Elementary. Jackson allegedly wanted Wilder to help him prove that Angila Wilder had been cheating on him with another man. Wilder said Jackson wanted to use that evidence to get full custody of his 2-year-old son with Angila Wilder. In return for Wilder’s help,  Jackson allegedly gave him photos proving that Angila Wilder had taken her two children with Wilder out of state in violation of their custody agreement and offered to help Wilder get full custody of his son and daughter with Angila. No exchange of photos or other property was seen between Jackson or Wilder on a surveillance video for the Longfellow entrance on Oct. 27, 2015 that was obtained from the Minot Public Schools.

In March, Wilder also told police that Jackson called him early on the morning of Nov. 13 to tell him Angila Wilder was with a strange man at their house. Wilder said he went to pick up Jackson from his job at Walmart and the two men drove to Angila Wilder’s house. They went up the stairs to Jackson and Angila’s bedroom and saw two figures in the bed. Angila Wilder was alone in the bed; the other form turned out to be a stuffed body pillow. Richie Wilder Jr. claimed that Jackson attacked Angila Wilder and he eventually realized that Jackson was stabbing her violently while Angila Wilder yelled. Afterwards, Jackson allegedly threatened to kill Richie Wilder’s new wife and their toddler daughter if Wilder reported the crime to police. Wilder told police he drove Jackson back to Walmart, went home and stayed silent about what he had seen. Police then told him that wasn’t possible since they had proved Jackson’s alibi.

Paul Madriles, Wilder’s cell mate at the Ward County Jail between February and March, testified that Wilder claimed he had been framed and it had something to do with insurance money. Wilder told Madriles he went over to his ex-wife’s house in the early hours of the morning and found her lying there. He checked her pulse and someone came out of the closet with a knife, marched him to his car and threatened to kill his new wife and child if he told anyone. Wilder told Madriles that he thought another inmate at the jail, a big Native American man, was the real killer.

Jeremiah Tallman, who was Wilder’s cellmate at the jail this fall, testified that Wilder confessed to him that he had committed the murder. Wilder told Tallman that he had “stabbed the hell” out of his ex-wife, said he ditched his bloody clothes in a dumpster and threw the knife he stabbed her with into a ditch. Dillon said Tallman was acquitted of murder five years ago and Wilder might have been trying to get tips from Tallman about how to beat a murder charge. Tallman was in jail this fall on charges that he allegedly abused and terrorized his wife. Dillon said Tallman gained no benefit from testifying against Wilder.

“Richie  Wilder and only Richie Wilder was responsible for Angila’s death,” Dillon, the deputy state’s attorney, told the jury during closing arguments.

Rosenquist told the jury that Richie Wilder Jr. knew he had been framed and made statements to the police because he was trying to get them to keep investigating the case.

Rosenquist said Jackson and Angila Wilder also fought frequently and Jackson had been suspicious she was cheating on him.

Angila Wilder was about one month pregnant when she was murdered. Paternity testing done on the fetus showed that Jackson fathered the unborn child, Dillon told the jury.

Andrea Johnson/MDN
The house across the street from Longfellow Elementary where Angila Wilder was murdered on Nov. 13, 2015, is pictured on Thursday.

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