Woman pleads guilty to accessory charge for role in LQ murder

A Lakewood woman whose husband enlisted a friend to helphim murder his sister in La Quinta pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor accessorycharge today and was sentenced to three years probation.

Madelyn Alexis Oudin, 63, was originally charged with a felony count ofbeing an accessory in the June 10, 2011, slaying of 70-year-old Judy Munson.Oudin’s husband, James, along with his friend Wesley Elwin Gibbs Jr. wereconvicted of murder in May 2012 and sentenced in January to life in prisonwithout the possibility of parole.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Ronald L. Johnson granted MadelynOudin’s attorney’s request to reduce the accessory charge from a felony to amisdemeanor, and also ordered her to pay $140 in restitution, according tocourt records.

Munson, who owned two successful cleaning businesses, was found by herhousekeeper laying in the foyer of her home, surrounded by blood, on June 11,2011. Deputy District Attorney Pete Nolan said a coroner’s official initiallythought Munson fell, and authorities called her brother, who was her closestrelative. The Oudins came to the house and left with some of Munson’sbelongings, Nolan said.

“What we find out … when the forensic pathologist conducted theautopsy, was this was no slip-and-fall,” Nolan told jurors, adding that threeblows to the victim’s head had a checkered, textured pattern.

He said people who knew Munson “all had the same impression — she wassupporting her brother and his family and was sick and tired of it.”

Madelyn Oudin told sheriff’s investigators that she didn’t know herhusband had gone to La Quinta the day her sister-in-law died. But whenauthorities served the warrant at the Oudins’ Lakewood home, they found a pursecontaining more than $400,000 in cash in Bank of America envelopes with whatlooked like Munson’s writing on them, Nolan said.

Sheriff’s Investigator Kenneth Patterson wrote in an arrest declarationthat authorities “determined that Madelyn was obviously aware of what wasoccurring and continually provided changing stories as to the whereabouts ofJames and Wesley during the time Judy had been murdered.”

Nolan said James Oudin filed documents in probate court asking to beappointed administrator of his sister’s estate, even though she had a will andan executor, and later asserted that his sister had a stalker.

The prosecutor said Gibbs had worked for James Oudin at a failedrestaurant business backed by Munson and subsequently worked at Subway.