The Shadow
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – A 23-year-old man has received a 33-year prison sentence as part of a plea deal after he acknowledged he killed his father three years ago and hid his body in a freezer.
Former high school soccer star Andrew Jude Thompson pleaded guilty Wednesday in Oklahoma County District Court to first-degree manslaughter. Prosecutors had charged Thompson with first-degree murder and his trial was set to start Dec. 14.
He will not be eligible for parole until he serves more than 28 years of his sentence.
In December 2006, authorities found the body of 48-year-old Emmanuel Thompson stuffed in the trunk of a car, not long after a witness had told them he’d seen a body in a freezer at the home Andrew Thompson and his father shared in The Village, an Oklahoma City suburb.
Part of Andrew Thompson’s guilty plea included an acknowledgment that “on Nov. 20, 2006, in the heat of passion, during a verbal argument, I hit my father with … an ax in the head.”
Andrew Thompson was an all-state soccer player at Northwest Classen High School and later played briefly at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa. His father was a soccer coach at the Classen School of Advanced Studies, a magnet school for academically gifted students.
Andrew Thompson also pleaded guilty Wednesday to forging his father’s name on a check for $1,500 and illegally being in possession of his father’s credit cards. Authorities had said Thompson spent more than $10,000 of his father’s money before the body was discovered.
As part of the plea agreement, Thompson will be on probation for 12 years after his release from prison.
Assistant District Attorney Suzanne Lister said prosecutors made the plea deal with Thompson because of evidence he had been physically and emotionally abused by his father for years.
“Andrew Thompson had a very tumultuous upbringing, but he certainly was not justified in taking the life of his father,” Lister said.
