Jordan Graham Strikes Plea Deal and Faces Life in Prison After Admitting Pushing Husband off Cliff
Jordan Graham entered a guilty plea on Thursday that was accepted by a federal judge accepted in a plea agreement that states she pushed her husband off a cliff in Glacier National Park.
The plea came right before a jury was set to begin deliberations in the case against 22-year-old.
As part of the plea Graham accepts a second-degree murder charge and prosecutors agreed to drop a first-degree murder charge and one count of making a false statement to police.
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In accepting the plea, District Judge Donald Molloy told Graham to recount exactly what happened the night of July 7 when her husband Cody Johnson, 25, fell to his death in the park.
Graham said she told Johnson that thought she made a mistake after getting married and while they were arguing he grabbed her by the arm. Graham added that she hit his hand away and pushed him.
"I wasn't thinking about where we were ... I just pushed," she told the judge.
Graham added that she drove back to Kalispell without calling police because she was scarred and didn't not know what to do.
Graham could face a maximum sentence of life in prison when she is sentenced on March 27.
Prosecutors had maintained that Graham made comments about blindfolding Johnson during their hike, which showed premeditation on her behalf and could have led to a stronger sentence if she was found guilty.
"I didn't want to do that trail because I was afraid that, I mean there is a cliff right there," Graham told detectives according to police documents. "And you could fall. And he [Johnson] said, 'I could do this with a blindfold on.' And he said, 'I could just put it on, take a step but I wouldn't even fall.' And I was like – and it just kept going through my head that, um, you are going to fall or something."
