The brother of the man charged in the slayings of his wife and daughters in Middletown on Christmas Eve is expected to plead guilty to third-degree murder today.
Scott Wholaver, 28, will formally enter guilty pleas to lesser charges as well, sources said. He will be sentenced to 121/2 to 25 years in state prison under terms of the agreement, the sources said.
Scott Wholaver has agreed to testify against his brother, Ernest.
Ernest Wholaver is accused of breaking into his former home on North Union Street on Dec. 24 and fatally shooting his wife, Jean, and his daughters, Victoria, 20, and Elizabeth, 15. Their bodies were discovered Christmas morning. Police said Scott Wholaver helped drive his brother to Middletown.
Police have said they believe Ernest Wholaver pulled the trigger in the killings as Scott Wholaver waited outside the home.
The lawyer representing Ernest Wholaver claimed in papers filed in court this week that charges against his client should be dismissed. Spero T. Lappas, Ernest Wholaver’s attorney, also claims that police unfairly used a jailhouse informant to gather incriminating information.
Scott Whotaver’s attorney, Justin McShane, confirmed his client’s scheduled appearance in court today. But he declined further comment on the case, citing the pending hearing.
Scott Wholaver will only be sentenced on the homicide charge relating to Jean Wholaver, Ernest’s estranged wife, as part of the agreement, sources said.
First Assistant District Attorney Francis T. Chardo has alleged that Ernest Wholaver killed the three to silence them because his daughters had accused him of molesting them for years. He had been scheduled to stand trial on sexual assault charges in January. He now faces a single trial on the murder and sexual molestation charges.
If convicted, Ernest Wholaver could be sentenced to death.
Lappas has asked that his client’s trial be moved to another county because of “inflammatory” pretrial publicity, some of which he said has been caused by remarks made by police and prosecutors in news conferences.
And Lappas has asked that charges against his client be dismissed, saying police kept Ernest Wholaver incommunicado for hours after he was detained Dec. 26 for questioning in connection with the deaths.
In other claims, Lappas said that certain items of evidence should be excluded because of what he called a lack of specification contained in affidavits supporting search warrants.
Lappas has also argued that prosecutors improperly solicited Scott Wholaver’s testimony.
The defense believes and therefore avers that the commonwealth, by the police and the district attorney’s office, falsely threatened that Scott was in peril of being sentenced to death if he did not agree to plead guilty and testify against Ernest,” Lappas wrote.
Chardo will oppose Lappas’ claims at a hearing to suppress evidence. That hearing has not been scheduled.
“The fact of the matter is we didn’t do anything wrong and there’s absolutely no legal basis for his argument,’ Chardo said.
Ernest Wholaver is also charged with criminal solicitation in a murder-for-hire case. Authorities say he attempted to solicit an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent to kill an ex-boyfriend of his eldest daughter as part of a plot to fix blame for his family’s murders on him.
Part of the alleged plan, disclosed to authorities by a jailhouse informant, included the planting of a fake suicide note on the man’s body in which he would confess to having killed the family, authorities said. The murder-for-hire case is in Dauphin County court.
According to the alleged plan, the note would also exonerate Ernest Wholaver and result in his immediate release from prison, according to authorities.
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