Justice comes 36 years after murder

Widower Delbert McKim had often thought in the 36 years since his wife was beaten to death in downtown Oklahoma City that justice would never come.

On Friday, though, he watched from the second row of an Oklahoma County courtroom as her murderer — identified by DNA evidence — was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

“I'm just glad justice has been done,” McKim said after the sentencing. “Justice has been done, finally.”

McKim became emotional after t he murderer, Rickey Andy Wyatt, walked right by him and then stood in handcuffs before the judge. McKim rocked back and forth for a moment, turned red faced and gripped his cap tightly. “It was hard to look at him, in the face,” he said.

Wyatt had been charged with first-degree murder in the July 17, 1983, death of Victoria Quick. Under a plea deal, Wyatt, 68, was sentenced to prison for second-degree murder instead.

He entered an Alford plea to the charge rather than a guilty plea. Under an Alford plea, a defendant accepts a sentence for a crime without admitting to it. He told his defense attorneys he does not remember what happened.

Quick had been beaten to death with a brick in an alley after being stripped to a shirt and her socks, according to police and court records.

“The area where the victim hung out and was ultimately found dead was an area with a large transient population in downtown Oklahoma City in 1983. There were numerous bars,” an investigator reported in a court affidavit. “The victim had last been seen leaving one of the downtown bars with transients.”

Quick and McKim were both in their 30s in 1983 and had been together five years in a common-law marriage. “She was good people,” said McKim, who now is in his 70s and still living in Oklahoma City.

Wyatt was originally charged in 2011 after being identified by his DNA profile as a suspect. His DNA

profile had been placed in a national database after he was imprisoned in North Carolina for sex offenses there. It was found in 2010 to be a match to a DNA profile developed from evidence from the Oklahoma cold case.

A 2019 lab report concluded the chance the match was a mistake was 1 in 36.8 no nil lion.

A nonillion is defined in the United States as a one with 30 zeroes after it.

Wyatt remained in prison in North Carolina until being brought to Oklahoma in May. At his sentencing Friday, he waived his right to appeal and agreed to not seek a sentence commutation, early parole or a compassionate parole.