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Next Saturday: An immersive podcast experience for Panic Button: The April Wilkens Case at the Center for Public Secrets
Join us for an immersive podcast experience to celebrate the completion of Season One of Panic Button: The April Wilkens Case. The podcast tells the story of April Wilkens, a domestic violence survivor serving LIFE in an Oklahoma Prison, and two attorneys’ journey to expose the truth about her conviction so we can finally bring her home.For the first time in 25 years, the harrowing experience April Wilkens endured at the hands of her ex-fiance, Terry Carlton, and the heart-breaking crusade against her led by former Tulsa County DA Tim Harris that followed, are brought to the light. You’ll see the exhibits from April’s trial up close, and hear excerpts from the podcast that tackles the question of how a victim of domestic violence can become a criminal in the eyes of the law.Join hosts Leslie Briggs and Colleen McCarty, as well as licensed master social worker and Battered Womens’ Syndrome Expert, Molly Bryant, and others to learn about how Oklahoma’s justice system treats criminalized abuse survivors–and what you can do about it.
Learn how to RSVP here: https://fb.me/e/2ayoYPE3x
FOX23 News coverage of April Wilkens
A new podcast about April Wilkens is launching called “Panic Button: The April Wilkens Case”
“Guilty until proven rich or lucky and that has to change.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Wrongful Convictions
Bailey Sarian on Private Prisons:
Mabel Bassett Correctional Center of Oklahoma refuses journalist an interview with April Wilkens – VNN Live | October 6, 2021
This is the other story about Rhonda Bear mentioned in the above (highly recommended):
2 Killings, 1 Tulsa Car Dealership Family: April Wilkens connection to Byron Case
This is a story about how a rich car dealership family in Tulsa, Oklahoma is connected to two people currently in prison for murder.
April Wilkens is an incarcerated woman, now a grandmother, serving a life sentence at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in Oklahoma for killing her wealthy rapist and ex-fiance, Terry Carlton. He was the son of multi-millionaire Don Carlton, who owns Don Carlton Honda and other dealerships in Oklahoma. Because of Don Carlton’s connections, April has not found justice. She suffered from Battered Woman Syndrome and drug addiction during her relationship with Terry Carlton. Carlton took her on lavish vacations and charmed her at first. Later, he would terrorize her. They met at the car dealership his family owned. Terry told April that his father made a deal with the FBI to take down Honda Executives in order to avoid going to prison himself in one of the biggest commercial bribery cases according to TIME magazine.* Terry also bragged about bribing Tulsa police officers whenever April would report his abuse, so there was a family pattern here of throwing money (or boasting about throwing money) around as a cover-up. 
But here is where the story gets weird. April, my aunt, had often repeated a story about how Terry Carlton’s nephew, Don Carlton’s grandson, had killed his girlfriend and then himself. Part of the story was that Terry had said it when he was abusing April – that the girl “got what she deserved” and that April “would be next.” I’ve heard it more than once from her. It has not changed, and there is documentation to prove it (previous link). She would usually mention it when she was describing how awful the Carlton family was. Another story was that she went to Terry Carlton’s mom when he started abusing her and his mother told her something like, “I’ve been beaten by a poor man and a rich man and I’d rather be beaten by a rich one, honey.” Terry Carlton was recorded before his death admitting to abusing and raping April. You can hear the audio of it here in a YouTube video made by producer and director Dave Randag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_d7mc2wT4M This audio was not presented in court, despite April having given the tape to the police.
A few months ago, April asked me to look into the nephew’s case. She couldn’t remember what state it had happened in and didn’t know the nephew’s name. She only knew the names of John and Brenda Bruton, Terry’s sister and brother-in-law. I did some digging and found info. The gist is that in 1997 (about a year before April killed Terry Carlton), Justin Bruton, grandson of Don Carlton and nephew of Terry Carlton, died by a “probable suicide,” but there was some pushback on that. Police mishandling of the scene, etc. And, where our family and even the Carltons seemed to believe Justin had killed his girlfriend, Anastasia WitbolsFeugen, her family did not believe it. Instead, a young man name Byron Case is now in prison in Missouri for her murder. This was quite a shock to both of us when I sent April the information.
I tagged the Free Byron Case Facebook page in this discovery on April’s Facebook page. I spoke a little with a page admin for his page in private. I knew this wasn’t going to solve any mystery, but it was still an interesting aspect to the case. Byron’s story has been covered by an MTV series called Unlocking the Truth and his family and friends have a website set up for him that details some of the injustices he’s suffered: http://www.freebyroncase.com/ . But Anastasia’s family also has one set up with FAQ that defends Don Carlton’s grandson and attempts to counter some of Byron Case’s claims: http://www.stasia.org/case_against/FAQ.html.
I may be biased, but can’t help but highlight the fact that Justin Bruton’s body was shipped back to Oklahoma where the Carltons still live. Justin’s family also put forward reward money for Anastasia’s family for information about her death. The evidence they have against Byron is also really questionable and lacking in my opinion. Most who have covered the case come to the conclusion Byron shouldn’t be behind bars because no one can prove he actually did it.
I thought you couldn’t convict someone unless there was no doubt, which I am full of. I am tempted to say that unlike my aunt’s case, this is all still a mystery. But there are a few mysteries left with April’s as well—like why she is still in prison.
Don Carlton’s close friendship with the DA who prosecuted April and the former presiding judge of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals during her appeals (now retired), is one reason why we believe April is still behind bars. She has been behind bars for 22 years, since April 1998. I was about 7 years old when this happened, and I’m just now beginning to understand the injustices of Oklahoma’s criminal justice system. She has been denied parole 3 times despite 3 different state parole investigators recommending she make parole. She has also been denied commutation twice, the last time in 2019. She was denied by a 2 to 3 vote. Beyond this, the former DA who prosecuted her, Tim Harris, is known as corrupt. He was the DA mentioned in the Dateline episode “The Long Road to Freedom” about the wrongfully convicted Tulsa brothers he allegedly coerced into confessions. We cannot really reach out to local Tulsa news outlets, though we have tried, because Don Carlton is such a huge sponsor and buys ad time for his dealerships. Oklahoma City outlets were better at covering the story, according to April. She believes Don Carlton’s relationship with former DA Tim Harris might also involve bribery and be the reason she was sentenced so harshly. And I can’t help but wonder, if her trial was today, would the age of #MeToo treat her case differently? Maybe not in Oklahoma, where we still incarcerate the most women of any state. She is smart – has graduate degree. She had a young son. All of this weighed against her here because, yes, she went back to Terry despite getting protective orders. I have no doubt that she feared for her life in that moment when she shot him. I wish she could have gotten real help all those times she called the police or got protective orders. But, I can guarantee the world is not worse without Terry Carlton.
At the end of the day, April’s story seems to undermine any innocence for Don Carlton’s grandson, Justin Bruton. Even the Carltons seem to believe that Justin was capable of killing his girlfriend! He came from a family that abused women, including my aunt. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Carlton family has the means and connections to keep two people they don’t like in prison and there is more going on than we realize.
This is the link to April’s commutation application, if you would like more context about her case in her own words: https://aprilwilkensblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/aprilwilkens-commutation.pdf
There is a Facebook set up for April by friends and family: https://www.facebook.com/aprilwilkenscase/
Here’s the Tulsa World article on her conviction: https://tulsaworld.com/archive/woman-convicted-of-murder/article_3a571e9a-0559-5842-a98d-02adb80b2eeb.html
You can write to April at April Wilkens #282399 MBCC C3B-206 29501 McLoud, OK, United States 74851
*(“Honda Payola Went on for Years, FBI Says : Inquiry: Observers ask how the company could have allowed such a widespread illicit enterprise to continue for so long.” LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-03-16-fi-34784-story.html and “Honda Scam Biggest Ever” TIME: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,3976,00.html_).
This post was revised for clarity in 2022.
Free April Wilkens Blog 