A Howard County judge sentenced a Columbia man to life in prison Wednesday after police said he attacked his estranged wife with a machete earlier this year.
Circuit Court Judge Lenore Gelfman broke with state sentencing guidelines, which recommended no more than 20 years in prison, when she sentenced Frederick Evrod Jones, 54, to the maximum penalty allowed by law.
A Howard County jury convicted Jones Oct. 12 of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault and violation of a protective order.
At Jones? sentencing hearing, Howard County Senior Assistant State?s Attorney Susan Weinstein told the court that but for the intervention of her neighbors, Natalyn Tart-Jones “would be dead today.”
“This was an extremely heinous, extremely personal attack,” Weinstein said.
Deputy Public Defender Louis P. Willemin acknowledged that Jones had committed “this terrible act,” but stated, “he is not a terrible man.”
Willemin referred to a number of letters written by friends and family of the defendant, asking for mercy.
Following Willemin?s statement, Frederick Jones told the court, “I thoroughly regret what I did, and I am sorry.”
Tart-Jones took the witness stand to describe the impact of the attack on her life.
“I have a life sentence ? physically, emotionally,” she said. “I will never, never, ever get past this.”
Prosecutors say that Jones sneaked up to his wife?s condominium on the 8700 block of Hayshed Lane in Columbia, hid in the bushes with a machete and then brutally attacked her at 8 a.m. as she left for work. They say he struck her repeatedly with a machete, causing deep cuts to her face, a fractured skull and serious damage to both hands.
