Woman sentenced to six years in prison for Christmas Day murder

Marylue Wigglesworth appears in two pictures

Marylue Wigglesworth (Atlantic County District Attorney).

A New Jersey woman who shot and killed her abusive husband on Christmas Day 2022 has been sentenced to several years in prison, the Garden State court announced this week.

In early June, 53-year-old Marylue Wigglesworth accepted a plea deal in a second-degree manslaughter case related to the December 25, 2022, killing of 53-year-old David B. Wigglesworth. The man was a union member, Republican Party activist and former candidate for local office in Mercer County.

On Tuesday, she was sentenced to six years in prison. Under the terms of the No Early Release Act, she only has five years and one month left to serve before she can be released on parole.

The minimum sentence for second-degree manslaughter in New Jersey is five years in prison. Although Wigglesworth was over-sentenced, she negotiated with prosecutors so that neither side would seek more or less than six years. And, perhaps more importantly, she avoided the uncertainty of a trial at which she would likely have been charged with premeditated murder.

But there was never any doubt – or argument to the contrary – that Wigglesworth himself had pulled the trigger.

The woman, who has since been convicted, has repeatedly stressed that she was “afraid for her life” when she killed her husband on the night in question – she acted in self-defense. She was originally charged with cold-blooded murder and her defense attorney long insisted that overzealous prosecutors had accused her of “too much.”

In January 2023, Atlantic County Assistant Prosecutor Seth Levy told the Superior Court that David Wigglesworth was “naked and in bed with the television on” when he was shot by his wife – and portrayed the shooting as an act of cruelty.

Defense attorney Melissa Rosenblum responded that her client had been abused by her husband that night, including bruises and injuries to her arm and upper body. She also claimed that the police had withheld important evidence from the defense for a period of time.

“What the state did not do and did not state, Your Honor, is that when she spoke to police, she admitted that she shot him,” the attorney said. “She stated to officers at least six times that there was a struggle and an altercation. They never took any photographs of her that night to see her injuries or bruises, or at least I did not get any, Your Honor.”

Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Patricia M. Wild, in turn, twice denied the defendant bail on the grounds that the charges were “serious” and that “incarceration” was “likely” to occur in New Jersey for violent crimes – even though the court's original denial of bail was systematically overturned by an appeals court in February 2023.

There is no bail system in New Jersey. For less serious crimes, release before trial is expected. For more serious charges, such as murder, prison time is expected.

On Valentine's Day 2023, Marylue Wigglesworth was again denied bail – as the court upheld law enforcement's account of the timing and manner of the shooting, including the claim that the woman's husband was “naked in bed” when he was killed.

As she described the night's events, the defendant shook her head vigorously, only to let it fall again, obviously disappointed. Her hair fell into her face and she sat silently as she heard the news that she would remain in custody.

Because the woman accepted the deal, the Atlantic County prosecutor's interpretation of the night of the killing was consistent to a significant degree with the version of events the woman had been putting forward all along.

“During her confession, the defendant stated that she and her husband had an argument prior to the shooting,” a press release said Wednesday. “The victim, David, physically assaulted the defendant and threatened her with a firearm he kept in her bedroom. Immediately after making the threat, the defendant shot the victim with the firearm used in the attack. Officers investigating the murder documented significant bruising throughout the defendant's body following the murder, indicating that she was the victim of an assault.”

Law&Crime has reached out to Marylue Wigglesworth's attorney for further comment and details on this story, but no response was received at the time of publication.

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Woman sentenced to six years in prison for Christmas Day murder

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