Howes gets 20 years for murder of husband
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Defendant ran over victim with vehicle
By TRAVIS MORSE
Melissa Howes
MOUNT VERNON — Melissa Howes pleaded guilty in Jefferson County court this week to the first degree murder of her husband last year, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors say that Howes, 55, of Centralia, pushed her 49-year-old husband, Jeffrey Howes, to the ground and then ran him over with a vehicle in the Dollar General parking lot in Dix. The incident occurred on Sept. 2, 2024.
Howes appeared in local court on Tuesday, March 11 for a pretrial hearing, at which time it was revealed that a plea agreement had been reached. Howes agreed to plead guilty to one count of first degree murder and one count of aggravated driving under the influence in this case. In exchange for that plea, her remaining charges of murder and aggravated DUI were dismissed.
As per the plea agreement, Judge Jerry Crisel sentenced Howes to 20 years in prison for first degree murder. Howes received a conviction only (no sentence) on the DUI charge. She was also sentenced to three years of mandatory supervised release, and was given credit for 191 days of pretrial incarceration, local court records state. Howes will have to serve 100% of her sentence.
“After discussing the matter with the victim’s family, we accepted the defendant’s offer to plead guilty under terms that will see her incarcerated until she is approximately 75 years old,” said Jefferson County Assistant State’s Attorney Caleb Cross. “We hope this will help bring the family some sense of closure, and we would like to thank the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office for their hard work on this case.”
After the incident last year, Howes was initially only charged with aggravated DUI. Later, however, formal murder charges were also filed against her by the Jefferson County State’s Attorney’s Office. There was video evidence allegedly showing the defendant shoving her husband down in the parking lot, after which she allegedly got into the vehicle, backed up and pulled forward, running him over.
According to Sentinel archives, the incident was reported at 8:05 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, at the Dix Dollar General, 101 S. Main St. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office incident logs state that there was a “person vs. car” accident and that the person was “under the car.”
Media reports at the time indicated that a sheriff’s deputy and bystander were able to jack up the car and get the vehicle off of the man, later identified as Jeffrey Howes. The victim was in cardiac arrest and CPR was initiated by Jefferson Fire Protection District, with ambulance personnel later joining the effort.
Jeffrey Howes was taken to SSM Health Good Samaritan Hospital in Mount Vernon, where he was later pronounced dead, the archives state.
