Bend woman to be released from prison after 2nd guilty plea in grandmother’s smothering

DA: She will be freed shortly, due to time served

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- A Bend woman who admitted smothering her 92-year-old grandmother with a pillow four years ago pleaded guilty a second time Monday and received a 5-year prison sentence after her first conviction was overturned. But she will be freed from prison within days, the prosecutor said.

Angela Judd entered the plea to criminally negligent homicide in Deschutes County Circuit Court in the New Year's Eve 2015 death of Nada Bodholdt, her 92-year-old grandmother, District Attorney John Hummel said. 

However, Hummel said Tuesday that due to the time Judd has already served in prison, she "should be out (freed) in a day or two," having first been returned to Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, the state women's prison in Wilsonville, for final release arrangements. He also said due to Judd's plea deal and her guilty plea, "there will be no appeals. It's done."

In July 2016, to avoid a murder trial, Judd also had entered a conditional guilty plea -- meaning she could file an appeal over disputed testimony -- to second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to more than six years in prison. But that conviction was overturned by the Oregon Court of Appeals late last December.

In late 2015, Bodholdt was under hospice care with a terminal illness.  On Dec. 31, Judd entered her grandmother’s room in the Stone Lodge retirement community in Bend, climbed into her bed, placed a pillow over her face, and smothered her to death.  

A few weeks later, Judd related what she did to a social worker during a session she had with her and this social worker reported what she learned to police.  At the time of this crime, Judd was employed as a nurse at the Sky Lakes Health Center in Klamath Falls. 

The appeals court reversed the initial conviction and the remanded the case back to the lower court. It ruled that the counselor, who testified at trial over defense objections, could only file an initial report with police and that the rest of what she was told and testified to was privileged information.

The appeals court reviewed lawmakers' debate over the details of legislation in Salem and ruled that they had intended to only "allow for an initial report of suspected elder abuse," and that "the trial court erred in concluding otherwise."

Statement from District Attorney Hummel:

“Almost everyone in our community has experienced the heartache of being involved with the end of life care for an elderly loved one.  During these final days, we sometimes think that when our loved one passes it will be a blessing, because their pain will be no more. 

"But our maker and our laws do not grant us the authority in such situations to decide when our loved one dies.  This decision rests solely with either terminally ill patients in death with dignity states such as Oregon, or with a higher power. 

"Ms. Judd took the law into her own hands and killed her grandmother.  This constitutes a crime, and for this she was rightly held accountable."

"I commend the social worker who reported what Ms. Judd told her, local law enforcement who conducted a top-notch investigation into a difficult ‘no body’ homicide case, and the deputy district attorneys on my team, particularly Matthew Nelson, who never stopped working to obtain justice for Ms. Bodholdt.”