A 66-year-old Farina man has entered an alford plea to first degree murder for the June 1992 death of Cheryl McLean of Salem. 

Judge Patrick Hitpas accepted the plea agreement Friday morning from Gerald Simonson.  Under the agreement, Simonson was sentenced to 32 years in prison.  But with time served and good time, Simonson will be immediately released from prison.   State's Attorney Matt Wilzbach says he agreed to accept the plea with the approval of the McLean family. "We balanced the family's wishes with the likelyhood of success and the likely sentence if we were successful," he says. "We also had to factor in the trial cost, and after weighing all those factors we felt this was the most just resolution." Wilzbach says the retrial would have cost the county between 20-thousand and 40-thousand dollars, scarce dollars given the County's financial crisis. 

Simonson's public defender Ericka Sanders still believes her client is innocent of the murder. "It's an alford plea which means he has not admitted guilt, only that the state has enough evidence to convict him," she says. "While we believe we had plenty of evidence to convince a jury that he did not do this, an open jail cell after 17 long years in prison is too good to pass up." Simonson's wife, Grace, also still believes in her husband's innocence. "Nobody's going to believe him anyway," she says. "I know the truth, he knows the truth and God knows the truth - he just needs to come home." Simonson says after release from prison, they will move to Minnesota to be with other family members.  Some, like her husband, have serious illness. 

In accepting the plea, Judge Hitpas said he was doing so because the family approved, there were many deceased witnesses that would have made trial extremely difficult 17 years after the murder, as well as Simonson's age and health problems.  Simonson will still have to complete three years of supervised release. 

Simonson's original conviction for the murder was overturned by the Appellate Court based on ineffective counsel. Simonson was being held in the Marion County Jail in lieu of five-million dollars bond pending his new trial.  Simonson was indicted by a Marion County Grand Jury in December of 1992, six months after McLane was found dead in a yard about 500 yards from the Simonson home.  Simonson was later found unconcious on the floor of his garage.   Simonson admitted being with McLane the day of her death, but claimed he was also a victim of a crime.  Wilzbach, in his outline of the case against  Simonson, indicated prosecution witnesses would raise questions about Simonson's injury and story.