DARLINGTON - A judge in Lafayette County has granted Sharon Wand a divorce from the man in prison for life for the deaths last year of their three young boys, despite her recent declarations of his innocence and her love for him.
Her divorce from Armin Wand III, 33, was finalized at a hearing Thursday, Aug. 8, with Judge Robert Dechambeau.
Sharon Wand, 27, did not appear at the hearing. She confirmed her desire to go through with the divorce in a series of questions over the phone with her lawyer, Dan Bestul.
Piped into the courtroom's speaker system, her voice was clear and her answers definitive.
The certainty of her voice belied a period of intense soul-searching in recent weeks.
She filed for the divorce in January and testified in April at her estranged husband's sentencing that he should be "locked up in a cage" for setting their Argyle home on fire last September to cash in on his family's life insurance. The fire killed their boys Allen, 7, Jeffery, 5, and Jo Jo, 3, and burned Sharon so severely she was in a coma for months. Their fourth child, 2-year-old Jessica, survived and is in foster care under a protective custody order.
Prosecutors say Armin regularly physically abused and forced sex on Sharon in the months leading up to the fire.
Armin Wand's brother, 19-year-old Jeremy Wand, faces similar homicide charges for allegedly helping his brother set the fire. He pleaded guilty in June but has since requested to withdraw that plea. A hearing on his pending case is scheduled Aug. 22.
In July, Sharon Wand had an apparent change of heart about her estranged husband and her brother-in-law, writing in a public letter that they were innocent. She claimed she had been in a haze from pain medication and had let others speak for her.
In two other recent letters, sent to her husband in prison and entered into the court record, she professes her love for him.
"We will be (married) for 9 years on July 23, 2013. I'm going to do everything I can to get you out of there, and Jeremy, too," she wrote. She closed the other letter by writing, "I miss you a lot. Hope you get out soon so you can hold me and kiss me again."
She also contradicted a particularly gruesome detail from the criminal complaint against Armin, that he had tried to put Jessica back in the burning house through a window after Sharon saved the little girl.
"You were by the boys' window trying to get them to come to the window to get them out," she wrote.
A letter from Armin Wand was also entered into the divorce case record. Dated Aug. 2, he claims "Sharon Wand is being forced to file a divorce."
"They cannot make Sharon get a divorce if she don't want one," he wrote. He did not appear at the hearing Thursday or respond to an invitation to call into the courtroom from prison. In a lengthy letter to The Monroe Times in May, he wrote that he didn't want the divorce and still loved his wife.
Bestul, Sharon's divorce attorney, wouldn't comment on the letters or her decision after all to go through with the divorce, except to say that his client has been navigating intense circumstances in the past year.
"I don't think any of us can imagine the tensions and pressures that have been pulling on her," he said.
It isn't clear what effect Sharon's recent recantation will have in the pending case against her former brother-in-law or in her ex-husband's anticipated appeal, but it likely won't affect either case much. The cases against the brothers are built on their confessions and on an analysis of the charred house that revealed the fire as arson, according to the criminal complaints filed last September while Sharon was in a coma.
Tammy Bickett, Armin's older sister, said Sharon wrote her statements retracting accusations against the brothers while staying for a few days at Bickett's home in Argyle in late July. "Sharon wrote it herself. She wants to tell the truth about what's going on," Bickett said.
Sharon has since returned to an assisted living facility in Platteville, and according to the Wisconsin State Journal, is being held there in protective custody.
The court ruled she may resume using her maiden name, Peterson.
Armin Wand is denied any money from the marriage, including any life insurance for the deceased children or a community fund set up for them at a local bank.
"Armin has no legal claim to the insurance proceeds and the fund for the Wand children, because his own criminal conduct caused the availability of the funds," Bestul wrote in a brief in June.
Her divorce from Armin Wand III, 33, was finalized at a hearing Thursday, Aug. 8, with Judge Robert Dechambeau.
Sharon Wand, 27, did not appear at the hearing. She confirmed her desire to go through with the divorce in a series of questions over the phone with her lawyer, Dan Bestul.
Piped into the courtroom's speaker system, her voice was clear and her answers definitive.
The certainty of her voice belied a period of intense soul-searching in recent weeks.
She filed for the divorce in January and testified in April at her estranged husband's sentencing that he should be "locked up in a cage" for setting their Argyle home on fire last September to cash in on his family's life insurance. The fire killed their boys Allen, 7, Jeffery, 5, and Jo Jo, 3, and burned Sharon so severely she was in a coma for months. Their fourth child, 2-year-old Jessica, survived and is in foster care under a protective custody order.
Prosecutors say Armin regularly physically abused and forced sex on Sharon in the months leading up to the fire.
Armin Wand's brother, 19-year-old Jeremy Wand, faces similar homicide charges for allegedly helping his brother set the fire. He pleaded guilty in June but has since requested to withdraw that plea. A hearing on his pending case is scheduled Aug. 22.
In July, Sharon Wand had an apparent change of heart about her estranged husband and her brother-in-law, writing in a public letter that they were innocent. She claimed she had been in a haze from pain medication and had let others speak for her.
In two other recent letters, sent to her husband in prison and entered into the court record, she professes her love for him.
"We will be (married) for 9 years on July 23, 2013. I'm going to do everything I can to get you out of there, and Jeremy, too," she wrote. She closed the other letter by writing, "I miss you a lot. Hope you get out soon so you can hold me and kiss me again."
She also contradicted a particularly gruesome detail from the criminal complaint against Armin, that he had tried to put Jessica back in the burning house through a window after Sharon saved the little girl.
"You were by the boys' window trying to get them to come to the window to get them out," she wrote.
A letter from Armin Wand was also entered into the divorce case record. Dated Aug. 2, he claims "Sharon Wand is being forced to file a divorce."
"They cannot make Sharon get a divorce if she don't want one," he wrote. He did not appear at the hearing Thursday or respond to an invitation to call into the courtroom from prison. In a lengthy letter to The Monroe Times in May, he wrote that he didn't want the divorce and still loved his wife.
Bestul, Sharon's divorce attorney, wouldn't comment on the letters or her decision after all to go through with the divorce, except to say that his client has been navigating intense circumstances in the past year.
"I don't think any of us can imagine the tensions and pressures that have been pulling on her," he said.
It isn't clear what effect Sharon's recent recantation will have in the pending case against her former brother-in-law or in her ex-husband's anticipated appeal, but it likely won't affect either case much. The cases against the brothers are built on their confessions and on an analysis of the charred house that revealed the fire as arson, according to the criminal complaints filed last September while Sharon was in a coma.
Tammy Bickett, Armin's older sister, said Sharon wrote her statements retracting accusations against the brothers while staying for a few days at Bickett's home in Argyle in late July. "Sharon wrote it herself. She wants to tell the truth about what's going on," Bickett said.
Sharon has since returned to an assisted living facility in Platteville, and according to the Wisconsin State Journal, is being held there in protective custody.
The court ruled she may resume using her maiden name, Peterson.
Armin Wand is denied any money from the marriage, including any life insurance for the deceased children or a community fund set up for them at a local bank.
"Armin has no legal claim to the insurance proceeds and the fund for the Wand children, because his own criminal conduct caused the availability of the funds," Bestul wrote in a brief in June.