Woman with ties to area pleads guilty to murder

A Colorado woman with ties to Eastern Arkansas was sentenced to 30 years in prison this week after pleading guilty to seconddegree murder.

Cynthia Elaine Wilkinson, 58, of Grand Junction, Colo., entered the plea Wednesday to an amended count of second-degree murder. The plea agreement stipulates 30 years in prison for the charge that could carry a maximum sentence of 48 years, according to a report in the Loveland Reporter Herald in Loveland, Colo.

According to reports, Wilkinson previously lived in Wynne and has family still living in the area.

Wilkinson is accused of murdering Derek Michael Brock, whose body was dismembered and dissolved in acid in 2016. She was arrested in May 2022.

The affidavit filed by the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office reveals Jesse Wilkinson, who claimed to be the woman’s husband and is serving time in prison for an unrelated murder, told a detective he had information on Brock’s murder.

Jesse Wilkinson, according to the affidavit, claimed that Cynthia Wilkinson told him she had killed Brock in his own home in Red Feather Lakes. He said she gave him two different versions of the death. In one version, Cynthia Wilkinson allegedly told Jesse that she knowingly gave Brock a lethal dose of narcotics. In the second, she said she and another man had tied Brock down and intentionally injected him with narcotics until he died, the affidavit said.

She said they first stored Brock’s body in a vehicle outside a home near La Junta, before eventually moving it back to Red Feather Lakes, the affidavit shows.

Jesse Wilkinson also claimed that Cynthia Wilkinson said she and a man named Charles Gabel eventually drove the body back to the Red Feather home, where it was stored in a freezer and then later dismembered with a chainsaw and stored in a barrel of taxidermy fluid. She would eventually go on to tell Jesse Wilkinson, the affidavit said, that

the body was dumped off the side of a dirt road not far from the home, adding that Brock “would never be found.”

The affidavit adds that Jesse Wilkinson said he spoke with Gabel a year prior to the interview he gave to detectives, during which Gabel confirmed this happened, according to the Reporter Herald.

Jesse Wilkinson told investigators that following Brock’s murder, Cynthia Wilkinson took possession of all of Brock’s possessions including the home in Red Feather Lakes, his vehicles and all other items from the home, according to the affidavit. He also claimed Cynthia Wilkinson had told him that she tried to make it look like Brock was still alive by renewing his driver’s license online.

The more than 20-page affidavit goes into great detail about the investigation, during which the detective spoke with a number of individuals, investigated property records and police reports to try and locate Brock and delved into the case to find out what happened.

Throughout his investigation, Cynthia Wilkinson had told investigators that Brock had gone to Canada to go fishing adding he was a “mountain man” and wanted to live off the grid, the affidavit said. During the same time, the affidavit claims, Cynthia Wilkinson told other people different stories about Brock’s whereabouts.

In February, Gabel gave Larimer County Sheriff’s investigators a full account of his involvement after he was granted immunity from prosecution, according to the affidavit. Gabel said he had assisted Cynthia Wilkinson in disposing of Brock’s remains. He said she asked him for help following the alleged murder, and that she was driving a truck with three black trash bags that he described as leaking and smelling like “death.”

He said he helped Cynthia Wilkinson re-package the trash bags before transferring them from Colorado Springs to the Red Feather home, where the bodily remains were placed in a freezer in the home’s garage and left there for “some time,” the affidavit shows.

Gabel, who admitted that he was using meth heavily at the time, said Cynthia Wilkinson paid him $10,000 to “fully destroy” Brock’s body. According to the affidavit, Gabel said he ultimately used a knife and hammer to dismember the body before putting the remains in a barrel with acid that he had heated using a camping stove. He claimed the acid dissolved Brock’s remains, which he then poured into the drain of the garage in Brock’s home.

During the hearing on Wednesday, before 8th Judicial District Court Chief Judge Susan Blanco, Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Hardouin began the sentencing by calling up members of Brock’s family to speak before the judge, starting with Gail Brock, Derek’s daughter, according to the Reporter Herald.

She said that it had been nearly a year since she found out that her father was dead and what had happened to him, saying through tears that “none of life’s trials could have prepared me for this news.”

She said she constantly wonders what her father was thinking and feeling before he died, adding that Wilkinson not only robbed them of their family member, but destroyed his body so he could not be buried or cremated, and took what belonged to him.

“Evil walks among us and takes human form in your existence,” she said. “You will never get the punishment you deserve here on Earth. Hell is reserved for people like you. I will celebrate when the devil comes to your cell to take your last breath.”

Betty Belcher, Brock’s ex-wife, said that a 30-year sentence was a “slap in the face” to what she felt Wilkinson deserved. She said that while Wilkinson’s family will still get to see her and talk to her, Brock’s family will never get to hear from him again.

“I never thought in my entire life I would ever say this, because life is so precious, but I hope she dies a slow, miserable death behind bars,” she said. “I want every moment of her miserable life and every breath she takes and every time she closes her eyes … I want her to see Mike’s face. And most of all I want her to see every moment of torture she put on his body to steal what he had. I hope it haunts her forever. Death will surely find such evil, it is going to find her.”

Hardouin said that, in his time as a prosecutor, he has never handled a case with facts like this one. He said, though, that in discussions with Brock’s family and Wilkinson’s defense team, the decision was made to offer a deal instead of going to trial; one reason cited was that some information on the case came from Jesse Wilkinson who is currently serving time in prison for an unrelated murder, making him a witness with questionable credibility.

He added, quoting a former court judicial officer, that sentencing was the close approximation of justice.

“True justice would be somehow rewinding the clock to the middle of April 2016 and stopping what happened,” he said. “Unfortunately … (we) can’t offer them that. We will never be able to offer them true justice.”

Erin Crowgy, one of Wilkinson’s attorneys, agreed with Hardouin that the plea agreement was appropriate.

She added that it had been a pleasure getting to know Wilkinson, describing her as a mother, grandmother and someone who cares deeply about those she loves and wants to save them from the stress, anxiety and heartache that would come at trial.

“The agreement we have entered avoids the challenges both logistically and emotionally of trial for all involved,” she said.

Wilkinson did not say anything on her own behalf.

Blanco began by expressing her sympathies to Brock’s family and her thanks to those who investigated the case. She said that events like this are incredibly sad because Brock was not only a loved person, but a member of the community.

“It is very difficult to hear what happened in this case, because the same way the court honors the dignity of people who come before the court who are accused … it is a challenge to understand how something so heinous and terrible could happen in our community,” she said.

She agreed with Belcher, saying that it does not feel like 30 years could be enough time for “something so heinous.” She added that for it to seemingly have been over money and property is baffling.

“How this could possibly be worth all of this? I could not possibly understand,” she said.

Blanco ultimately accepted the agreement and sentenced Wilkinson to 30 years in the Department of Corrections with five years of mandatory parole and 336 days of credit for time served.

Wilkinson was initially charged with two counts of first-degree murder after deliberation, theft ranging between $100,000 and $1 million, three counts of forgery and four sentence enhancers of being a habitual criminal. The other charges in the case will be dismissed in the agreement, the Reporter Herald reported.