Man Who Killed Wife Is Given 18 Years to Life

SANTA ANA —  A Placentia machinist was sentenced Friday to 18 years to life in prison for killing his estranged wife when he realized she had left him for the last time, a prosecutor said.

Allan Edward Wallace, 53, and Denise Wallace, 35, had separated several times before. But Allan Wallace realized there would be no reconciliation on Jan. 2 after an argument outside her parents’ home in Anaheim, so he shot his wife several times , said Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Odwald.

“It’s my opinion that he killed his wife because she finally left him and wasn’t coming back,” Odwald said. “They had many problems in the past, but he came to realize this was it.”

Denise Wallace left her husband in mid-December, 1991, and moved back in with her parents. On Dec. 18, Allan Wallace fired a weapon at the home and was arrested. Two weeks later, he killed Denise Wallace as she was on her way to work, Odwald said.

Santa Ana Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald also sentenced Wallace to a concurrent five-year prison term for shooting into the Anaheim home. Wallace pleaded guilty to second-degree murder just as he was about to go on trial last month.

Defense attorney Greg Jones said his client was remorseful. Jones said the Wallaces shared a destructive, volatile relationship until Allan Wallace “just went off the deep end.”

Odwald said prosecutors agreed to allow Wallace to plead guilty to second-degree murder because they did not believe there was sufficient evidence to convince a jury that the murder was premeditated.