In September 1988, after more than 2 years of delays driven by his attorneys, Wideman pled guilty to 1st degree murder and 2 counts of grand theft for stealing the car and the traveler’s checks. He did this to avoid any possibility of the death penalty. He was given a life sentence, which in those days meant he would be eligible for parole after serving 25 years. At the sentencing, the judge said that this was an unexplainable crime and that he was sure it would not be explainable in 25 years either. He made a strong recommendation that Wideman never be paroled.
During his time in prison, Wideman had numerous reported incidents, including assaulting a guard and several suicide attempts. He has acknowledged having some serious mental health issues. He has even been manipulative enough to have had relationships with two of his prison mental health staff. He married and divorced the first and remains married to the second. If you look at this website's page entitled "Wideman's History", you can see more examples of Wideman's horrendous behaviour.
In May 2011, Wideman became eligible for his first parole hearing. The Arizona Board of Executive Clemency (the parole board) raised numerous and serious concerns about Wideman’s mental health and unanimously denied parole. They asked that before the next hearing, in a year, he receive a mental health evaluation from the Department of Corrections and provide the board with his mental health records. He did neither. Instead, at the next hearing, Wideman brought in a hired gun psychologist, who had one visit with Wideman prior to testifying. At the hearing, he stated that Wideman had Temporal Lobe Syndrome, which he had from an early age, was what caused him to viciously murder Eric, and he was now cured. While that was absurd on its face, it should be noted that this is not even a recognized diagnosis in the psychiatry literature. The Board was skeptical, asking for more information, and again unanimously denied parole. Throughout all his parole hearings, Wideman has consistently lied to the Board and attempted to deceive the Board members.
Over the next 4 years, Wideman had 5 additional parole hearings, in the first 4 he was again unanimously denied parole. Then, in September 2016, the Board voted 3-2 to release him on Home Arrest. Home Arrest is similar to parole, but with restrictions. He had to wear a GPS ankle bracelet, and could leave home only for work and medical and parole officer visits. For any other outside occasions, he had to get permission from his parole officer. Over the years, throughout just about all his hearings, he told the Board that he recognized his mental issues and, if released, he would immediately seek out continuing psychological help. At the hearing at which he was granted Home Arrest, he told the Board that he had already started a relationship with a specific psychologist in Phoenix.
When he was out on Home Arrest, between September 2016 and June 2017, Wideman never made any contact, (no sessions, phone calls, texts or emails) with this therapist. In June 2017, his parole officer told him to make an appointment with this therapist. Wideman made one excuse after another for not making contact. Finally, his PO told him to make an appointment by the next day. That did not happen. Shortly after that, he was arrested and put back in prison for violating his PO’s order and violating one or more of the conditions of his release.
In August 2017, the Board had what is called a Revocation hearing, where they would determine if he was properly arrested and, if so, what should happen to him. They unanimously voted that his arrest was proper and that he should remain in prison. Wideman’s attorneys told the Board that they wanted to appeal this decision, although, in Arizona, parole board decisions are final. For some reason, they did not file what is called a Special Action in the Arizona court for two years, during which time the Board conducted no parole hearings for him. The judge ruled that he could not overturn the Board’s decision, but he found some discrepancies in the way the Revocation hearing was conducted, and he ordered the Board to redo it. In January 2020, the Board had a second hearing, this time being certain to follow every procedure properly, and again unanimously voted to keep Wideman in prison. Again, after a long delay, Wideman’s attorneys filed a second Special Action in early 2023. Late in 2023, the court dismissed this second action as baseless. Wideman and his attorneys were not done. In the spring of 2024, they filed their same baseless claims to the Arizona Court of Appeals, where it is pending. As a part of this process, Wideman’s attorneys filed a lengthy brief and the Arizona Dept of Corrections and the Arizona Attorney General’s office, representing the parole board, filed very strong briefs in response.
Despite all the above, the Kane’s received notice in September 2024, that a settlement agreement was being proposed to resolve this matter. This agreement was supposedly agreed to by Wideman and the Arizona Dept of Corrections. The Board scheduled a meeting for December 3, 2024, to review the proposed agreement and vote on whether to sign on to it. The terms of this agreement basically would erase everything that has occurred between July 2017, when Wideman was arrested and today. It means that the Special Actions never happened, there were no Revocation hearings and Wideman was not arrested for violating his PO’s orders. He would be back out on Home Arrest.
There was no logical explanation for any of this. The Dept of Corrections and the Board have been proven right in all the legal proceedings to this point. The briefs written by them in response to Wideman’s Court of Appeals brief were very strong and very likely to win the day. Who ever heard of parties agreeing to settle a case when they are clearly in the right and consistently winning? There was clearly only one explanation, and it is unfortunately political. Arizona’s new Governor and Attorney General are very liberal and seem to want to reduce the Arizona prison population without regard to the facts of an individual case like Wideman’s. In the first month of her term, the Governor appointed a new Director of the Dept of Corrections who also appears to be very liberal, and inmate focused. It is hard to understand how this shift has occurred. Those very strong response briefs from both the Corrections Dept and the Attorney General’s office on behalf of the Board were submitted in late July and early August. What could have happened to make them want to toss those briefs out and enter into a settlement agreement?
We have been doing all we can to fight this terrible injustice. We spoke out strongly against the settlement at the December 3rd hearing and provided a lot of information to the Board about the case and why Wideman cannot be let out of prison. We also contacted an AZ TV station and an online news organization who interviewed us and put a great focus on this issue.
At the meeting, we were expecting the Board to either agree with the settlement or decline to agree. However, they came up with a third alternative. They voted unanimously to postpone any decision until after the AZ Court of Appeals decides on Wideman’s case. This is essentially saying no to the settlement without having to publicly do so. So now the case proceeds with the Court of Appeals for however long that takes, where they will most likely rule against Wideman.
We strongly believe that this decision was planned before this meeting. Prior to the December 3rd meeting, the Board had 3 closed meetings with their legal counsel, which is where we think this decision was made. At the December 3rd meeting, there was no discussion at all among the Board and when the chairman proposed this postponement idea, there was no discussion and an immediate vote.
This case got a major amount of media attention with hundreds of public comments, 99% against Wideman ever getting out. We think this affected the Board decision, driven by direction from the Governor and Attorney General. We believe this huge level of attention drove them to find a way to avoid the outcry they would have gotten if they had decided to sign the settlement agreement.
We were recently told that Wideman will be having another parole hearing on July 16th, his first since 2017. Since this one is a regular parole hearing, where letters of support are appropriate, we would greatly appreciate your help. Please go to the What Can You Do to Help page on this website for guidance about the letters.
As we have always said, we want justice for Eric. But keeping this psychopath behind bars will not bring Eric back. We continue to fight primarily to ensure that Wideman never has the chance to do to another family what he did to the Kane’s. We are certain that, if released, he will have another bad day or year and kill someone else.