UPDATE, OCT. 5, 5:24 P.M.: From the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA) statement on Omaima Nelson's parole denial this afternoon:
“The victim's daughter Margaret Nelson was also present at the hearing
and told the [parole] Board how her father was taken from her when she was a
15-year-old high school sophomore and how he has missed her growing up
and becoming a mother.”
]
Before denying her parole, the OCDA continued, the board “took into consideration the facts
of the case, Nelson's criminal history, and her lack of responsibility,
remorse, rehabilitation, and self-improvement.”
It seems Nelson has kept herself busy behind bars.
“The Board also cited
reports that she has continuously engaged in the habit of having
relationships, including conjugal visits, with older men while
incarcerated for financial gain,” states the OCDA.
At least she hasn't eaten any of them. Yet.
Nelson will next be eligible for a
parole hearing in 2026.
UPDATE, OCT. 5, 4:59 P.M.: The Board of
Parole Hearings, California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitations, meeting at the Central California Women's Facility
in Chowchilla, today denied parole for Omaima Aree Nelson. Like Nelson's Thanksgiving weekend 1991
crime–dismembering, disemboweling, cooking and freezing the body of
her new husband and later eating parts of his body–the 43-year-old
former Egyptian model's second bid for parole has garnered
international attention.
And an old nude black-and-white.
And a plea from PETA.
Nelson's request for parole was opposed
in person by the prosecutor who put her away, Orange County Senior
Deputy District Attorney Randy Pawloski. Nelson was sentenced on March
18, 1993, to 25 years to life in state prison for second degree murder, with a
sentencing enhancement for personal use of a knife and, in a separate
incident, assault with a firearm.
In that second case, Nelson also bound
her victim on the pretense of bondage sex, as she had done with the
late William E. Nelson, her husband of three weeks.
Pawloski cited Omaima's heinous
crimes, extensive criminal history, prison rules violations and
failures to rehabilitate, show remorse or take responsibility for her
crimes as reasons to keep her locked up, claiming she would be a
threat to public safety.
Nelson insists that she murdered,
decapitated, dismembered, and disemboweled her husband in
self-defense. And her one-time lawyer told the Los
Angeles Times before the parole hearing that Nelson should be set
free.
“She has served 20 years and she deserves parole,”
Thomas Mooney reportedly said. “The notoriety of this case is
what she did with the body after she killed him. But she killed
because she was abused. The psychiatrist testified at trial [that] in
his over 20 years of experience she was in the most psychotic state
he had ever seen.”
In her 2006 request for parole, which was also denied, Nelson told the board she had
found salvation as a “born-again” Christian, the Associated
Press reported. “I felt that I was doing the right thing
by exercising this judgment as I was killing him,” she said
during the parole hearing. “I'm not denying that I did what I
did and I'm very sorry for the . . . family.”
UPDATE, OCT. 4, 11:12 A.M.: The Orange County Distrrict Attorney's office (OCDA) is not only opposing the parole of Omaima Aree Nelson based on the Egyptian-born cannibal's extensive criminal history before the grotesque crimes that put her away, nor is it just the Thanksgiving weekend 1991 dismembering, disemboweling, cooking, freezing and partial eating of her husband of three weeks. As the OCDA statement after the jump reveals, prosecutors also cite Omaima's behavior while incarcerated, which has included violations for fighting inmates, battering a staffer, hiding contraband, stealing, arguing and something unheard of for an ex-fashion model: “not being in compliance with grooming
standards.”
October 4, 2011
OCDA TO OPPOSE PAROLE OF WOMAN WHO MURDERED HUSBAND OF THREE WEEKS BY DISMEMBERING, DECAPITATING, DISEMBOWELING, COOKING AND FREEZING BODY IN 1991
SANTA ANA – Orange County District Attorney (OCDA)
Tony Rackauckas is
opposing the parole of a woman who killed her husband of three weeks
over Thanksgiving weekend in 1991 by dismembering, disemboweling,
cooking and freezing his body. Omaima Aree Nelson, 43, is currently
being held at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, CA.
Nelson was sentenced March 18, 1993, to 25 years to life for second
degree murder, with a sentencing enhancement for personal use of a knife
and, in a separate incident, assault with a firearm. Nelson is
scheduled for a parole hearing tomorrow, Oct. 5, 2011, at 10:30 a.m., at
the prison before the Board of Parole Hearings, California Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitations.
Orange County Senior Deputy District Attorney
Randy Pawloski, who
originally prosecuted the case, will appear to oppose Nelson's parole.
Facts of the Case
Nelson met her husband, 56-year-old
William Nelson, two months before
getting married in November 1991. Over Thanksgiving weekend, between
Nov. 28, 1991, and Nov. 30, 1991, after three weeks of marriage, she
murdered and dismembered William Nelson. She cut off the victim's
genitals and then cooked the victim's decapitated head and placed it in
the freezer. She boiled William Nelson's hands in oil. She used the
garbage disposal to dispose of much of the body, and other body parts
were thrown out in the apartment building dumpster. Several body parts
were found in the trunk of a car and in the apartment.
Nelson was arrested on Dec. 1, 1991, by the Costa Mesa Police Department
after she contacted an acquaintance to help her dispose of the body.
During the trial, Nelson gave varying and conflicting statements as to
what had happened. The jury rejected her claim that her husband
repeatedly beat and raped her. Subsequent medical examinations and
photographs showed no signs of abuse or injuries to the inmate other
than those sustained while dismembering the victim.
Extensive Criminal History
The defendant was previously convicted of several crimes including two
counts of auto theft and shoplifting on Dec. 10, 1987, hit and run with
property damage on July 31, 1989, shoplifting and battery for biting a
security officer on July 10, 1989, driving under the influence on Jan.
24, 1990, driving without license on June 17, 1990, and assault with
firearm in November 1990.
Nelson has been cited for seven major rule violations while incarcerated
between 1993 and 2005 including fighting in the dayroom, battery on a
staff member, hiding contraband, stealing donated headphones, two
citations for mutual combat, and failure to comply with instructions.
She was also cited for eight minor rule violations between 1995 and 2004
including disturbing class by getting into a verbal argument, being in
possession of unissued property, being out of bounds, failure to report
to class, failure to report to an assigned job, using the telephone at
an unassigned time, laying on her bunk while prison staff took count of
inmates, and not being in compliance with grooming standards.
Inmate's Lack of Rehabilitation and Remorse and Continued Threat to Public Safety
The OCDA's parole opposition letter states that the murder was “carried
out in an especially heinous, atrocious, cruel and callous manner. The
victim was defiled and mutilated after the offense, and the motive for
the crime was inexplicable.”
The inmate has failed to complete any educational or vocational classes
while incarcerated and has failed to abide by prison rules. Her
extensive criminal history and prison violations not only indicate an
escalating pattern of criminal conduct and violence, but also
demonstrate the inmate's failure to rehabilitate. Nelson has never taken
responsibility for the crime and insists that she murdered,
decapitated, dismembered, and disemboweled William Nelson in
self-defense. She has never expressed any remorse. Her lack of
rehabilitation and remorse make her a threat to public safety if
released from state prison.
ORIGINAL POST, OCT. 3, 2:25 P.M.: And now more from Orange County
Senior Deputy Dist. Attorney Randolph J. Pawloski's statement to the state parole board opposing the release of Omaima Aree Nelson,
the Egyptian-born model who bludgeoned, skinned, chopped up and
ultimately ate parts of her husband of two months in their Costa Mesa
apartment: “There were suitcases and plastic bags soaked with dark
liquid from
his body parts. In the fry cooker there sat Mr. Nelson's hands and when
we opened the refrigerator there was Mr. Nelson's head with stab
wounds. She had his entrails in his Corvette and
she was trying to get an ex-boyfriend to yank out the dentures from the
head so she could dump it in the Back Bay.”
And now more from Omaima herself, as related at her original 1993 trial by a testifying psychiatrist (via the LA Times' Richard Winton):
In court, a psychiatrist testified that Nelson put on red shoes, a red
hat and red lipstick before spending hours chopping up her husband's
body. ” 'I did his ribs just like in a restaurant,' ” the psychiatrist
quoted Nelson as saying. She revealed she sat at the kitchen table with
her husband's cooked remains and said out loud: ” 'It's so sweet,
it's so delicious …. I like mine tender,' ” the doctor recalled.
More gruesome details, just in time for Halloween, are in our original post:
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.