Killer of husband appeals sentencing

Alread woman seeks concurrent terms

— Anne Throneberry, convicted in the 2004 kidnapping and grisly killing of her husband at their remote Alread home, on Tuesday appealed a judge's decision to give her a longer prison sentence than a jury recommended.

Throneberry, 49, is now eligible for parole in June 2015. If the trial judge had given her a concurrent sentence instead, as Throneberry now seeks, she could qualify in April 2011, said her attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig of Little Rock.

A brief filed with the Arkansas Court of Appeals does not challenge the verdicts or any other facet of the sentencing. Throneberry could have risked a much tougher outcome had she appealed the verdict and other matters. But Rosenzweig said, "She cannot get a greater sentence because the issue on appeal" is limited to the concurrent-sentencing issue.

Throneberry was charged with capital murder in the bludgeoning death of Ted Throneberry, 46, but in January the Van Buren County Circuit Court jury convicted her of the far less severe manslaughter. The jury also convicted her of kidnapping and hindering the apprehension of and prosecution of co-defendants Mark Holsombach and William James Frazier.

The jury in Clinton recommended that Anne Throneberry serve the sentences for the crimes concurrently. But Circuit Judge David Reynolds of Conway ordered her to serve the terms consecutively.

"By making the sentences consecutive, the trial court almost doubled the effective length of the sentence," Rosenzweig wrote in the brief.

Holsombach, convicted in 2005 of capital murder and other offenses, is serving life in prison without parole. Frazier is serving a 30-year sentence after pleading no contest in 2006 to first-degree murder and other charges.

Rosenzweig asks that the appeal issue be remanded for concurrent sentencing or for a sentencing hearing in which the trial court must specify the evidence on which it relied and give Throneberry the chance to rebut it.

"The idea of asking the jury about concurrent versus consecutive was the circuit court's idea," Rosenzweig wrote. "Despite the recommendation, thecircuit judge then made the sentences consecutive based upon unspecified matters which he heard in the two codefendants' trial and plea."

Rosenzweig notes that defense attorney Frank Shaw of Conway told Reynolds during sentencing that he believed it was "improper to consider things in this trial" that were not a part of it.

"This was evidence which the prosecutor did not even bother to introduce in sentencing," Rosenzweig's brief says. "By relying on this evidence, the circuit court abused its discretion in sentencing Throneberry to consecutive sentences."

"What was that information?" Rosenzweig asked in an interview. "She has a right to rebut it, a right to confront that."

The Arkansas attorney general's office will represent Reynolds in the appeal. Spokesman Gabe Holmstrom said the office will have no comment "until wereview the record."

Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney H.G. Foster, who handled the case in circuit court, said Tuesday he has "confidence in Judge Reynolds' rulings in the trial, and I have every confidence in the office of the attorney general to defend Judge Reynolds' rulings."

During sentencing, Foster argued that the judge could consider all information before him. Foster noted that Reynolds had the benefit of also having heard the cases of Throneberry's codefendants.

Authorities have said Holsombach and Frazier lay in wait for Ted Throneberry, their neighbor, to return home from a pipe-fitting job in Illinois on Feb. 28 or 29 in 2004.

Foster contended during the trial that Throneberry took part in the murder plot but left her home to stay in a nearby camper the night her husband returned.

Authorities have said the killers burned Ted Throneberry's body inside a plastic barrel until only tiny bone chips remained and later scattered the remains on a dirt trail near his home.

Authorities also said Holsombach and Frazier had a shootout with police on March 22, 2004, before they fled with Anne Throneberry into the Ozark National Forest. About two weeks later police found Throneberry and Holsombach walking along a Newton County road. Officers arrested Frazier the next day in Johnson County.

Arkansas, Pages 12 on 10/31/2007

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