CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The attorney for a Cross Lanes man who killed the woman he lived with last year and then put her body in a freezer said Wednesday his client panicked after the woman died.
Samuel May, 44, was sentenced to 40 years in prison in connection with the August 2022 death of Cindy Mudd, 71, also of Cross Lanes..
Mudd’s body was found in a freezer in her Cross Lanes backyard last August.
May, who lived at Mudd’s house, pleaded guilty in June to second degree murder.
Kanawha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey handed down the maximum sentence Wednesday.
Defense attorney Brian Escue told the court May had been out drinking that night and came home. The next morning, he found Mudd severely injured so he put her in her bed. She died a few days later.
“It’s at that point where I think my client showed some grave stupidity, idiotic decision making, but also showed that he did not know what had happened and he was in, I hate to say this, survival mode,” Escue said.
May told Bailey the same thing during his June plea hearing.
“I couldn’t remember exactly what had happened but since the beginning I have taken full responsibility because of my prior violence when I black out when I drink when I choose to do that stuff,” May told Kanawha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey.
Mudd’s daughter, who spoke during Wednesday’s sentencing, wasn’t buying May’s explanation.
“Samuel May took the loving woman that cared for him, that helped him, that supported him and shoved her forcibly with devious mal-intent into the confines of that freezer, with good intention of letting her decay randomly in the summer heat,” the daughter said.
Kanawha County Assistant Prosecutor Michelle Drummond said previously that testimony would show that May showed a third person living in the house, Arnold Hiller, Mudd’s body on the floor the next morning. Drummond said Hiller would testify that May then kicked Mudd several times. Drummond said that Mudd’s injuries included broken ribs.
Escue asked for a 20-year prison term but Bailey opted for the maximum 40 years.
“You deprived her family of the opportunity to dignify her death or hear the truth. Taking away from them, any opportunity to even believe she could have lived had you even picked up the phone, called 911, or done the right thing. Instead, you continued to take,” Bailey said.
Hiller, who said the body was in the freezer for about 30 days, pleaded guilty in January to concealment of a dead body. He was also originally charged with using Mudd’s credit card after she died.