Grandma fights for kids after trial
Wheeler waiting for a settlement from daughter’s convicted killer.
Lawyers tried to persuade a jury that Virgil Hyde had an unfortunate moment of insanity when he fatally shot his longtime partner, the mother of his two children, hitting her 24 times in the head and torso.
Happens to the best of us, right?
“They didn’t fall for all that bullcrap,” said Dezra Wheeler, who has been raising the children since her 30-year-old daughter Bobbi died on the floor of the family laundry room June 23, 2016.
At the time, Dezra and her son Billy lived in their paid-for mobile on the same property as Hyde and Bobbi, and they helped look after the children. Hyde’s family wanted to sell the land after Bobbi was murdered, so they were forced to move the mobile. But Dezra and Billy had no money to do so — their income is Wheeler’s disability check combined with Billy’s handyman work.
Orlando Sentinel readers generously contributed more than $41,000, and the family has been living on a new plot of land in their own mobile, waiting for two things to get their lives back on track: Hyde’s trial on seconddegree murder and, hopefully, some kind of settlement from his family to help raise the children, ages 9 and 10, and to provide for college. The first thing went their way
last week, when a jury found Hyde guilty. Jurors spent only about an hour in actual deliberations before tossing out the theory that Hyde didn’t realize he was doing anything wrong when, in a rage, he shot Bobbi as she loaded the washer with his dirty clothes.
Hyde faces life in prison without parole, and he’s expected to be sentenced in January.
However, the outcome of the wrongful death suit Dezra filed on behalf of herself and the children doesn’t look so positive. Hyde never worked because his family had a fortune from founding and selling a restaurant chain. But he also didn’t control his income, which came in “drips and drabs” from his parents, said Assistant State Attorney Jonathan Olson.
Testimony during the trial showed his parents had cut Hyde off earlier in the year. Bobbi had just borrowed $300 from her mother to pay the electric bill when Bobbi found $151,000 Hyde had stashed in two accounts. She was angry that he’d let her take cash from her stooped mother, who suffers from lupus, severe scoliosis and kidney disease. The couple argued because, as Hyde later claimed, Bobbi was “messing” with his finances. Whatever.
Since then, Dezra filed a wrongful death suit, hoping to get help in raising the kids and in a trust fund for their college expenses.
Instead, Hyde gave his parents power of attorney four months after he killed Bobbi, and they came to the property and cleared out all his toys — multiple motorcycles, ATVs, an RV, guns, a number of vehicles, a tricked-out pickup truck that was the envy of the neighborhood and thousands in high-end furniture. They sold the land in August for $400,000, about $250,000 less than Hyde paid for it three years ago.
So far, none of the proceeds have come to Dezra or the children. Their lawyer, Steve Rothenburg, said he doesn’t know where the money went. Early on, he had filed a motion asking that Hyde’s property and money not be sold or given away, but a judge denied the motion.
Bobbi also fought with Hyde over his use of hard drugs. She told her mother she thought she could get Hyde off the Oxycontin. Bobbi, who signed every text with “Virgil, my one and only,” said she’d done it before. Hyde had agreed to go into a drug rehab program after he flipped out and shot the family dog, Nitro, in the two days before he turned his guns on Bobbi.
And now Bobbi’s ailing mother, at 59, is taking on the same fight. For the Wheelers, this isn’t over yet by a long shot.
Hyde will be spending the rest of his natural life in prison without the chance for parole, but Dezra is determined that he should accept the responsibility of helping to raise the children he fathered. And she’s right. You go, grandma! Chances seem pretty high, however, that everyone will be looking at each other and shrugging — the money gone.
Dezra thought she had an agreement for $1,000 a month for both children and a $250,000 trust fund for each, but Hyde’s family backed out, prompting her to hire Rothenburg.
Meanwhile, she deals with granddaughter Harmony’s crying jags and times when grandson Kaden’s temper “gets the better of him.” Her son Billy has adopted the children, and they love him.
Wheeler said wistfully that she once loved Hyde as her daughter did, and “that’s what made me let him in. For a while, he was the good Virgil.”
The drugs revealed a distrustful, mean side of the man, she said.
“It’s all about money, greed and selfishness — that’s what made him do it,” Dezra said. “Me, me, me.”
Lritchie@orlandosentinel. com