BOISE - A man who was a teenager when he clubbed his mother to death and then repeatedly stabbed her at her Boise home on Jan. 24, 2007, will be re-sentenced for the crime, the Ada County Prosecutor's Office said Tuesday.
Ethan Windom, who was 16 at the time of the murder, struck 42-year-old Judy Windom in the head with a club that he made by attaching weights to one end of a dumbbell. He then stabbed his mother's dead body in the throat, chest and abdomen - and finally in her exposed brain.
Prosecutors said shortly after the murder that Windom killed his mother - who was a former KTVB Channel 7 employee and also a special education teacher at Eagle High School - as part of a plan.
He was charged as an adult with first-degree murder, but eventually pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.
A series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings called into question whether fixed life sentences are unconstitutionally cruel and unusual when imposed on juveniles, who are under the age of 18 when they commit the offense.
Windom filed a petition in state court for post-conviction relief, claiming that his youth and immaturity weren't considered by the sentencing court, but the petition was dismissed as untimely by the district court.
The Idaho Supreme Court reversed that decision and ordered Windom to be re-sentenced, and the state appealed the order to the U.S. Supreme Court. The application was denied on Feb. 20, 2018.
The prosecutor's office said a sentencing hearing will be scheduled in accordance with the opinion, and a status conference is set for 2 p.m. April 13. Ada County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Shelley Akamatsu said Windom won't be transferred to appear for the conference.
