Wilkerson found guilty of second degree murder
Published 12:00 pm Wednesday, May 8, 2024
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An Andalusia man was found guilty Monday for the murder of a pregnant woman in a case that dates back to 2001.
Shannon L. Wilkerson, 42, was charged last year with the murder of 19-year-old Amanda Gonzalez on a U.S. Army base in Hanau, Germany. Gonzalez was four months pregnant at the time of her death.
Wilkerson was found guilty of second degree murder by a jury at the Federal Courthouse in Pensacola.
Gonzalez was found dead on Nov. 5, 2001 in her barracks after she failed to report for work. The cause of death was ruled homicide by asphyxiation, according to the FBI.
Wilkerson, who was 21 at the time of the murder, was charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which gives the U.S. federal courts jurisdiction over crimes committed outside the U.S. by former members of the military who are no longer subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Wilkerson is scheduled to be sentenced on August 8.
Wilkerson was discharged from the Army in 2004 and reportedly returned to Andalusia where he operated a fitness center and later was the manager of a race track in Holt, Florida.
The FBI, the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, and the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division investigated the case.
Trial Attorney Patrick Jasperse of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney David L. Goldberg for the Northern District of Florida prosecuted the case.