Kelly Sue Hein looks across the room at the prosecution during a sentencing hearing Carson City District Court 1 . Hein Was convicted of elderly exploitation and neglect and was sentenced to 44 to 110 months in prison. photo by Rick Gunn
Iris Barton's death "remains an enigma," a judge said Tuesday as he sentenced the woman who once stood accused of murdering the elderly widow to nine years in prison on charges of exploitation and neglect.
"I don't think you are necessarily an evil person," Judge Michael Griffin said to Kelly Sue Hein, 35. "But I don't think you can exploit people like this and expect not to suffer any consequences."
Hein accepted a plea agreement Nov. 21 to the lesser charges after prosecutors admitted they couldn't prove the murder charge against her in the death of Barton, 78.
Barton's severely decomposed body was found July 20, 2000, at least one month after her death in the Blackrock Court home she shared with Hein. Parole and Probation officers looking for a probationer discovered the body as they searched the home.
Due to the advanced state of decomposition, Barton's cause of death has never been determined.
Hein, who had been living with Barton for nearly two years since the death of Barton's husband, reportedly said Barton died of natural causes and had been dead for three weeks when investigators discovered the body. Investigators instead believe Hein lived with the body for at least two months.
Despite pleas by her attorney for probation for Hein, a lifetime Carson City resident with no criminal history, Griffin chose a sentence a few months short of the maximum 48 to 120 months the District Attorney's Office was seeking.
Hein, who has already spent 16 months in the county jail, will spend at least two, and at most nine, years in prison.
She is also ordered to pay $11,000 in restitution for credit card debts on Barton's accounts and remodeling the bedroom in which Barton's corpse was found to prepare the North Carson home for market.
Hein also agreed to sign off on the estimated $50,000 inheritance left to her in Barton's will.
Hein's estranged husband testified on her behalf to the arrangement between Hein and Barton.
Steven Hein said his wife was a good friend to Barton and had taken her out of a convelscent center in 1998 and brought her home after her husband died.
"This was to be Iris Barton's fate, to stay in a nursing home," Steven Hein said.
Barton was grateful Hein agreed to take her home and eventually made Hein the sole heir to her estate, appearing unconcerned about how Kelly Hein spent her money, he said.
"Iris was finishing out her time. She was done," he said, adding "as long as she had her Star, Enquirer and Globe and her vodka and cigarettes, she was happy."
Defense attorney Ben Walker asked Steven Hein what his wife has done since the reduction of charges and her release on bail.
"She has gotten very close to our son," he said, choking back tears as Kelly Hein also wept at the defense table. "He wouldn't come out from under the covers this morning." The couple has two children.
What the defense called "mismanagement of Barton's money," the prosecution put into a more sinister light.
"Some people might think at the time Kelly Hein was a savior to Iris Barton, and maybe in the beginning that's what the plan was," Deputy District Attorney Anne Langer said.
But in the two years until the discovery of Barton's body, Langer said, Hein was "running the house into foreclosure. She wasn't paying the bills.
"Ms. Hein was too greedy, she wanted the money. As a matter of fact, after Ms. Barton died she continued to cash Barton's checks. She continued to live her life with Iris dead across the hallway," she said. "Your honor, that's just downright wrong."
Langer said Barton's only fault was she was taking too long to die before Hein could get the money.
"This was Iris Barton's main problem; Iris lived too long," she said.
"I'm sorry for Hein's children. I'm sorry for her parents, but those people didn't put her in this spot. She did. And, boy, did she have a good time going out," Langer said, noting Barton's $17,000 in cash and monthly income of $3,300 that bank statements indicate Hein spent on gambling and trips.
"Ms. Hein does not have a criminal history, but when she decided to commit a crime, she committed a good one and it definitely warrants that she get the maximum penalty. She violated a person. She exploited the elderly. She put herself in a position of trust of an older person. She took advantage of Iris Barton. "