Kevin West was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 2024 killing of his wife
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NEED TO KNOW
- Kevin West was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 2024 killing his wife
- West was a former battalion chief with the Camas-Washougal Fire Department
- “You were too busy with your mistress to give us the attention we needed,” his daughter said during sentencing
A former fire department battalion chief was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Friday, Feb. 27, for killing his wife so he could continue a relationship with his mistress.
In January, Kevin West, 52, who served with the Camas-Washougal Fire Department, was found guilty by a Clark County, Wash., jury of first and second-degree murder in the 2024 strangling death of his 48-year-old wife Marcy West.
At West’s sentencing hearing, two of West's children spoke out in statements to the court about their father.
“My father’s actions not only took my mom’s life, they took my future with her — moments, memories and milestones that will never exist,” West’s 20-year-old daughter, Megan West, said in court, per The Oregonian. “Then you had the nerve to look me in the eyes and ask if I was relieved she was dead.”
“You were too busy with your mistress to give us the attention we needed,” Megan said, according to the The Columbian.
“What you did was beyond neglect,” she said. “It was exploitation. You didn’t just destroy your family, you made us collateral in your wreckage. You didn’t just disrespect her memory, you bulldozed over it.”
Credit: City Of Camas
However, West’s son Ted West defended his father, asking the judge for leniency. Ted described his father as “empathetic and loving,” per The Columbian. “I respectfully ask that you take his character and his positive impact into consideration.”
First responders were called to the couple’s home in Washougal on Jan. 8, 2024, after Kevin called 911 to report that his wife was having a seizure, had stopped breathing and that he had begun performing CPR on her, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office said at the time.
First responders performed life-saving measures, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
After her death, several people reached out to law enforcement with “concerns about Kevin and Marcy’s potential relationship issues and worries that her death may not have been natural,” the sheriff’s office said.
Prosecutors said West was having an affair at the time of the killing and had plans to leave his wife, a hospital clerk. His defense attorneys argued that Marcy’s recurring headaches caused a seizure that resulted in her death, The Columbian reported.
A medical examiner determined that Marcy's cause of death was asphyxia with blunt trauma to the neck and ruled that her death was a homicide.
During the trial, West’s now-fiancée, Cynthia Ward, testified that she had a brief sexual relationship with West while he was married to Marcy in 2004. She said they resumed their relationship in 2023, The Columbian reported earlier this month.
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“Eventually, he was going to leave Marcy, at some point,” Ward testified. “I don’t know when that would have been.”
West read a letter in court on Friday.
“I made every effort to save her life,” he said, per The Columbian. “I owe you all an apology for my affair, my only wrongdoing. A mockery has been made of my wife’s passing through all of the social media craze and national attention.”
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
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