Inset: Ericka Wilson (San Diego County District Attorney’s Office). Background: The California parking lot where Ericka Wilson was stabbed 23 times in the neck and killed by her estranged husband Kandynn Wilson (KGTV).
A California man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of murdering his estranged wife. Prosecutors revealed that the man had taken a day off work specifically to carry out the attack.
Kandynn Wilson, 34, was found guilty of first-degree murder after fatally stabbing his former wife, Ericka Wilson, 23 times in the neck. The jury reached its verdict in December, and this week, Wilson was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, with an additional year added for the brutal crime committed in Spring Valley in 2022. The couple, who had been married for six years, shared a child before their separation.
“This defendant murdered his estranged wife in cold blood, demonstrating vicious brutality by lying in wait and attacking her with multiple stab wounds,” stated San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan in a press release following Wilson’s sentencing.
The incident occurred on January 27, 2022, when Kandynn Wilson took a vacation day and traveled from Oakland with the intent to ambush Ericka Wilson at her workplace. However, he mistakenly drove to the wrong location and subsequently went to her apartment complex to wait for her return.
According to the DA’s release, Wilson reclined his car seat and waited in the parking lot. As Ericka Wilson arrived and began exiting her vehicle, he approached her wearing a ski mask and launched a savage attack, stabbing her 23 times in the neck.
Police were dispatched to the apartment complex on Canyon Drive in Spring Valley after receiving reports of a woman calling for help. Despite managing to call 911 during the assault, Ericka Wilson, then 29, was unable to escape her assailant.
“A brave neighbor saw the attack, and chased the defendant with a bat, forcing him to flee on foot and leave behind his vehicle, gloves, and murder weapon,” the DA release says.
When police arrived, they found Ericka Wilson bleeding out in the parking lot. “She had obvious traumatic injuries,” the sheriff’s office said in a Jan. 29, 2022, press release. “Deputies and firefighters conducted lifesaving measures on the woman, but unfortunately she succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced deceased at the scene.”
Kandynn Wilson was located hours later and arrested at a 7-Eleven just a few blocks away from the scene. According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, there had been multiple incidents of domestic violence while he and Ericka Wilson were together over the years. Prosecutors said in a sentencing brief obtained by the newspaper that Kandynn Wilson planned his wife’s murder for months.
First, Kandynn Wilson purchased a gun and planned to shoot Ericka Wilson to death. He drove eight hours from his Oakland residence to Spring Valley to ambush her at the Ross department store where she worked. Ericka Wilson was employed at two different Ross locations, so that’s what led to the earlier mix-up.
When police found Kandynn Wilson, he was “covered in Ericka’s blood,” according to the DA release.
“Intimate partner violence continues to be one of the most common and dangerous forms of violence we confront, and this case is a stark reminder of its devastating impact,” DA Stephan said.
A “sympathy message” written on an online memorial page for Ericka Wilson says, “There was & never will be anyone else like her. Ericka was smart and funny and hard working and determined and loyal and I’m so thankful to have known her in the way I did, she will be close to my heart always.”
