Simon Weyiouanna was sentenced for stabbing Cheri Ingram to death. (Courtroom screenshot via YouTube/KTUU.)
A man in Alaska who admitted to fatally stabbing a prostitute as the two were having sex and later tried to drag her body to his car before his girlfriend got home will spend at least half a century behind bars.
Simon Weyiouanna, 33, pleaded guilty in March to second-degree murder for the 2018 stabbing of Cheri Ingram, 42. The state entered into a plea agreement with Weyiouanna for a sentence of 75 years with 25 suspended and 50 years to serve, prosecutors said in a news release.
“All of our families have been caught in this cycle,” said Ingram’s cousin, Courtenay Carty, during Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, Anchorage NBC affiliate KTUU reported. “How unfortunate it was for this man to think he had some sort of power within him — which we all know as evil — to think he had the right to take a life.”
Ingram was killed on Feb. 28, 2018, after Weyiouanna picked her up and brought her to his house, authorities said.
“[A] romantic encounter between the two had resulted in an altercation, and Weyiouanna had stabbed Ingram multiple times,” the press release from the DA’s office said. He stabbed in the upper body, wrapped her body in a bed sheet and dragged it outside to load it into his vehicle, prosecutors said.
A 911 caller reported seeing Weyiouanna pulling on what appeared to be a human leg underneath a pile of sheets outside an apartment building, authorities said. The 911 caller’s husband and son held Weyiouwanna at gunpoint until police arrived, officials said.
Once there, police found Weyiouwanna’s idling vehicle backed onto the walkway, the hatchback open, and the body wrapped in sheets on the ground. He had blood on his clothing, a cut on his finger, and a bloody knife in his pocket, The Anchorage Daily News reported, citing an affidavit.
He told investigators he “picked up a prostitute at a nearby gas station and brought her home,” the newspaper reported. “He started having sex with her and then stabbed her multiple times.”
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Weyiouanna reportedly told police he was trying to remove Ingram’s body before his girlfriend came home.
At Weyiouwanna’s sentencing, Ingram’s son, Mark Lopez, said through tears that his mother’s death deeply affected his family. One of his younger brothers overdosed on heroin in 2021.
“The night before he died, he and I had spoken on the phone about how he wished things had been different when she was still alive,” he said. “My mother was not a saint. However, she would go out of her way to help people.”
In court, Weyiouanna apologized.
“I do feel very remorseful,” he said, the TV station reported. “And I am very sorry.”
Lopez told Weyiouanna, “I forgive you and pray God has mercy on your soul.”
His defense attorney declined to comment.
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