In the quiet town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the morning of February 1, 1982, was shattered by a brutal crime that would unravel a story of deceit and betrayal. Troy Wicker, a riverboat engineer, was found dead in his bed, having been shot through the eye while he slept. His wife, Judy Wicker, initially told police a harrowing tale of a home invasion.
She claimed that after taking her children to school, she returned to find an African American man in their home who allegedly raped her, knocked her unconscious, and then murdered her husband.
However, investigators soon grew suspicious of Judy Wicker's account of the events. Their skepticism led them to uncover a sinister plot of a murder-for-hire, culminating in the arrests of both Judy Wicker and her lover, Thomas 'Tommy' Arthur. At the time of the murder, Arthur was participating in a prison work-release program while serving a sentence for the 1977 killing of his sister-in-law. The investigation revealed that he and Judy had been having an affair.
The legal proceedings that followed were complex and spanned decades. Judy Wicker was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Initially, she maintained that Arthur was not involved in her husband's death. However, in exchange for the possibility of an early parole, she later changed her testimony, implicating Arthur as the gunman. She testified that she had promised to pay him $10,000 from her husband's life insurance policy to carry out the murder. According to her new testimony, Arthur came to their house disguised with an Afro-style wig and makeup before shooting Troy Wicker. After serving ten years of her sentence, Judy Wicker was granted parole.
Thomas Arthur's journey through the justice system was fraught with appeals and overturned convictions. He was tried three times for the murder of Troy Wicker. His first two convictions were overturned on appeal due to procedural errors and improper arguments by the prosecution. Despite the legal victories, a third trial in 1991 resulted in another conviction and a death sentence. For over three decades, Arthur maintained his innocence in the Wicker murder, and his case saw numerous appeals and seven stayed execution dates. Another inmate, Bobby Ray Gilbert, even confessed to the murder at one point, though his confession was deemed not credible by the courts. After exhausting all legal avenues, 75-year-old Thomas Arthur was executed by lethal injection on May 26, 2017.
