This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Alan Lee Marx signed a plea agreement in November, admitting that he brutally beat a man to death in 1997 in Salt Lake City.
But on Friday, Marx appeared in court and asked a judge if he could take it back. In a handwritten letter, he asked 3rd District Judge Deno Himonas to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea, saying the plea agreement document he signed was "all wrong."
"They had the wrong name of the victim," Marx, 62, wrote. "Someone else's name. They had the wrong date and they stated a weapon was used that was not."
It was as if he had signed the documents for another case, he wrote, or that the attorneys "didn't care" that the records were wrong.
"Because of this, I feel I have no choice but to change my plea to not guilty and go to trial," Marx wrote. "I am humbly asking you to allow me to do this."
But on Friday, Himonas denied Marx's request, and ordered that his guilty plea stand, according to court records. Marx will be sentenced as scheduled on Jan. 30, the judge ruled.
Marx pleaded guilty in November to second-degree felony manslaughter and no contest to first-degree felony aggravated robbery. At sentencing, he faces a prison sentence of one-to-15 years for the manslaughter charge and 15 years to life for the robbery count.
Ward "Hank" Woolverton, 77, was killed March 18, 1997, according to charging documents.
Plea documents signed by Marx called the victim "Wade Wolverton," and listed the day of the homicide as March 20, 1997. There is no mention of a weapon in the plea agreement.
The case went cold after no suspects were immediately identified.
But in 2010, Salt Lake City detectives reopened the case, and tested the DNA on a blood-soaked men's western-style shirt that was found near the crime scene near 1000 S. 300 West.
The DNA on the shirt matched Marx's, Det. Michael Hardin testified at an April 2012 preliminary hearing.
Officers twice went to Hawaii, where Marx lived, to question him. Initially, he said he didn't know that Woolverton had died. But the second time he was interviewed, he confessed to the crime, according to Hardin.
Marx told officers that Woolverton had a cane that he sometimes used to poke people. He poked Marx in the chest several times, and Marx told him to stop, but he didn't. So Marx started hitting Woolverton with a brick, Hardin said.
"Once he saw blood, he just lost it," Hardin said of Marx.
Marx admitted that after Woolverton was dead, he smoked a cigarette, put the victim's glasses on his chest and then robbed him. Marx removed his own bloody shirt and hailed a cab, according to Hardin. He told the cab driver he had just been in a fight and the driver gave him another shirt to wear.
Twitter: @jm_miller