Toccoa woman's ex-husband gets life for murder after she implicates him

VINCENNES, INDIANA - An Illinois man was sentenced Thursday to 50 years in prison for a 1975 murder for which he was not suspected until his ex-wife implicated him decades later. <br> <br> Wayne Gulley, 61, of Peoria, Ill., was convicted Aug. 19 in the death of 23-year-old Sherry Lee Gibson. <br> <br> His ex-wife, Ella Mae Dicks, 48, of Toccoa, Ga., was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison and was a main witness in his trial. Dicks testified against Gulley in exchange for a guilty plea to second-degree murder. <br> <br> Neither was a suspect in Gibson&#39;s death until Dicks walked into a police station and confessed to the crime. <br> <br> Gulley has maintained his innocence. Defense attorney Jessie Cook said Dicks was a vengeful ex-wife who resented Gulley after their marriage ended. <br> <br> Cook has said Gulley&#39;s conviction would be appealed. <br> <br> The day after Gibson was kidnapped while parked in a rural area with her boyfriend, Gibson&#39;s body was found inside a burned out farmhouse in Knox County, about 40 miles north of Evansville. She had been raped and stabbed. <br> <br> A second-degree murder charge is no longer in use in Indiana but was at the time of the crime. It carried a sentence of 15 years to life.