Richard Hoesing pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after originally facing a first-degree murder charge in the March 2025 death of Jean Hoesing in Perry.

ADEL, Iowa — An Iowa man who told dispatchers he killed his wife to “put her out of her misery” was sentenced in late March to 50 years in prison, with a mandatory minimum of 35 years, after pleading guilty in the 2025 death of Jean Hoesing in Perry.

The sentence brought a formal end to the murder case against Richard Hoesing, 76, at least at the trial-court level. Prosecutors had first charged him with first-degree murder after Jean Hoesing, 74, was found dead in the couple’s bedroom on March 16, 2025. The later plea to second-degree murder spared him a mandatory life sentence without parole, but the punishment imposed by the court still means he is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The case began on a Sunday night in Perry, a city northwest of Des Moines. Authorities said Richard Hoesing called 911 on March 16, 2025, and reported that he had killed his wife. Officers who went to the home in the 2600 block of Lucinda Street found Jean Hoesing dead in a bedroom with what police described as a severe laceration across the front of her throat. A kitchen knife was recovered at the scene, and officers found blood on Richard Hoesing’s clothes. Investigators said he was cooperative when police arrived. In statements later described in court records, Hoesing said he killed his wife because he believed he was ending her suffering. Police said he referred to her struggles with multiple sclerosis and bipolar disorder when explaining what he had done.

For much of the case, the central legal question was not whether Hoesing caused his wife’s death, but how the killing would be punished under Iowa law. Prosecutors initially filed a first-degree murder charge, the state’s most serious homicide count, which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole upon conviction. As the case moved toward trial, that charge was reduced through a plea agreement. On Friday, March 27, 2026, Hoesing pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, according to local reports and court accounts. Judge Terry Rickers then imposed a 50-year prison term with a 35-year mandatory minimum before parole eligibility. He also ordered Hoesing to pay $150,000 to Jean Hoesing’s estate. Even though some reports summarized the outcome as 35 years because of the minimum period to be served, the sentence entered was a maximum 50-year term with parole restrictions.

The human backdrop to the case ran through nearly every public description of the couple. Richard and Jean Hoesing had been married for 52 years and owned an auto parts store together in Perry after moving there in the 1980s. Obituary notices and local reports described Jean Hoesing as a longtime businesswoman, mother and active member of a large family. The couple shared a son. That history did not change the criminal outcome, but it shaped the public response around the case. Rather than focusing only on the violence of the killing, some relatives and local observers spoke about years of illness inside the household and the pressure that may have built over time. Those statements did not erase the fact of the homicide, and the court records reported by local outlets still framed the case as murder. But they help explain why the case drew attention beyond the usual local crime report.

That tension surfaced most clearly before sentencing. According to The Perry News, Jean Hoesing’s niece, Wendy Wittrock of Wiota, asked prosecutors for leniency months earlier and argued that the case should be evaluated in light of the circumstances leading up to the killing. Her appeal sought a path away from the original first-degree murder charge. The public record available through news accounts does not show every argument made in court by prosecutors, defense lawyers or family members at sentencing, and many details about Jean Hoesing’s day-to-day medical condition were not spelled out in those reports. What is clear is that the court accepted a second-degree murder plea and imposed a punishment severe enough to make release uncertain given Hoesing’s age.

The timing of the plea also mattered. Hoesing’s first-degree murder trial had been expected to begin around March 30, 2026. Instead, the plea was entered days earlier, changing the course of the case before a jury was seated. That move avoided a public trial that would likely have brought fuller testimony from investigators, medical experts and relatives about the final hours inside the home. It also meant the court resolved the case through admitted guilt rather than a contested verdict. Hoesing was represented by public defenders Natasha O’Hollearn and Kevin Hempy, according to local coverage. The available reports do not describe any appeal filed after sentencing, and no further hearing date was identified in those same accounts.

Outside the courtroom, the case left behind a harder story than the bare docket language suggested. It joined a small but disturbing class of killings in which a defendant describes the act as mercy. Police records, however, treated the death as a homicide from the start, not a medical end-of-life decision. That difference remained central from the first patrol response through sentencing. Jean Hoesing’s death was investigated as a violent crime in a private home, and the final judgment preserved that conclusion even after the charge was reduced.

As of the latest reports, Richard Hoesing has been sentenced and the case is no longer headed to trial. The next milestone would likely come only through standard post-conviction or parole procedures years down the road, with parole eligibility not opening until after the 35-year minimum tied to the March 27, 2026, sentence.

Author note: Last updated April 19, 2026.