An ex-DeKalb County Sheriff’s deputy convicted of killing his wife and another man, will be 111 before he is eligible for parole.
Derrick Yancey, 51, showed no emotion Friday as Superior Court Judge Linda W. Hunter sentenced him to 65 years in prison. He must serve two life sentences – 60 years – before being eligible for parole.
Earlier this month, a jury convicted Yancey of killing his wife, detention officer Linda Yancey, and day laborer Marcial Cax-Puluc in the couple’s Stone Mountain home in 2008.
“Mr. Yancey, I’ve known you for a long time,” the judge said before issuing her ruling Friday. “June 9, 2008, an officer fell that day. Ms. Yancey, she was an officer. … Today an officer has fallen. You were a law enforcement officer, entrusted with so many responsibilities. But we can’t go back and change the verdict of the jury.”
On the day of the verdict, Yancey asked the judge to delay sentencing until his mother could be present.
“Upon being convicted and found guilty he called for his mother,” Linda Yancey’s brother Eugene Thomas told the court. “I thought that was ironic since you had just killed the mother of your two children. During the dark days, who are they going to call on? Can they call on their mother? No, because she is laying over there in a grave.”
The couple leaves two sons, ages 20 and 11.
The jury found Derrick Yancey shot Cax-Puluc and Linda Yancey several times, including a final blow as the gun was pressed into his wife's heart. He then concocted a story to look like the 20-year-old laborer had tried to rob the wife and he fired in self-defense.
But jurors dismissed that story and found that Yancey shot both victims and there was no self-defense – just two murders, juror Susan Rodgers told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Ballistics and evidence that Yancey did not perform CPR on his dying wife were what ultimately led to the guilty verdict, Rodgers said.
“What took us so long was some questioned that he had no motive and that the divorce didn’t mean anything,” Rodgers said Friday. “But the 911 call was crucial. … If he loved her, why would he leave his wife while doing CPR? That 911 tape was unbelievable.”
Rodgers said the jury ultimately realized that threats of divorce and money were the motive.
Derrick Yancey had a $700,000 life insurance policy on his wife. The couple had a pristine home in Stone Mountain’s Southland subdivision, several rental properties and luxury cars, but they were in deep debt, prosecutors said.
“They had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt in homes and credit lines,” Chief Assistant District Attorney Don Geary told the AJC. “The only availability of money was the life insurance.”
The life insurance policy will go to the couple’s children.
Geary said there was no evidence of adultery, but Derrick Yancey had threatened divorce and was “paranoid.”
Thomas, the wife’s brother, said he feels his family finally has justice, but he wished the judge had not allowed Yancey to get credit for the 435 days he already served in jail.
“He fled. He left and that time shouldn’t be counted,” Thomas told the AJC. “We’re not going to hold on to that. But now that’s over, we feel there is justice.”
While on bond, Yancey cut his anklet bracelet and fled to Belize. He was arrested and returned to DeKalb.
Geary said former District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming decided not to push for death and prosecutors are satisfied with the sentence.
“I think the court understands how egregious this was, how planned out this was, how malicious it was,” Geary said.
Yancey will remain at the DeKalb jail in isolation until his appeal is filed. Defense attorney Ruth McMullin said Yancey did not want to comment until after his appeal.
His parents also declined to comment.
Deputies said they are anxious for Yancey to move to a state prison and put an end to the emotions that the murder has brought to county law enforcement.
“In the beginning, police saw him as one of their own and were rallying around him,” Geary said. “When they discovered the evidence, they saw a different story. They did their job and treated him no differently than any other citizen.”
