Life Sentence For Acquaintance Of Murdered Detroit Mom
DETROIT (WWJ) - A Detroit man convicted of murder will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Thirty-eight-year-old Walter Bass was sentenced to life without parole in the brutal murder of 47-year-old Evelyn Gunter.
As WWJ's City Beat reporter Vickie Thomas notes - it was an emotional day in Judge James Callahan's courtroom Wednesday.
Gunter went missing on March 10, 2013. Relatives say Gunter had just come home from running errands and was dressed to go out. She left the house and never returned.
Two days after Gunter disappeared, charred remains wrapped in barbed wire were found in a garage on the city's west side — but no one knew it was the missing mother.
On April 2, it took a jury less than an hour to convict Bass in the shooting death of Gunter.
Gunter's sister Opal says there's a sense of relief with the verdict.
"I feel a sense of peace and I feel a sense of justice for my sister and family," she said. "I just wish that Michigan had the death penalty. It is still my hope that Walter Bass, that he doesn't do down to his grave a young man because of how he murdered my sister and made her suffer."
In court for the sentencing Wednesday, Opal spoke of how difficult it has been dealing with thoughts of her sister's murder: "I didn't really know how to put my thoughts together - so that it wouldn't be rage - the hurt that's been inflicted upon our families, somehow, you got to flip it back to love."
The thought of how her sister died that day, says Opal, "that part, keeps me up at night. I haven't been able to sleep - since the trial. "
Gunter's daughter, Jeremiah, spoke before the sentencing of Bass.
"I'm just ... so angry. I'm going to die with hate in my heart for him. What he did to my mother --- she did not deserve this. She would not take a knife to him and his family.My mother met him and she was friends with his mother - and she knew her son was a killer and she allowed my mother to befriend him - she bought all them beers - went over there and she was nice to that whole family."
In a 2014 interview, Opal Gunter, said that Evelyn Gunter had been dating Bass, who'd served time for rape and attempted murder.
Bass plans to appeal the conviction.
