Carlson's killer faces lifelong imprisonment

SANDPOINT — A jury acquitted a man of raping for Sandpoint resident Thursday, but found him guilty of killing her and a kidnapping enhancement that could result in a lifelong prison sentence.

Jason Ross Gilley is scheduled to be sentenced in San Joaquin County Superior Court on Nov. 4, according to The Stockton Record newspaper.

Jurors found Gilley guilty of the first-degree murder of Dalene Carlson, a 23-year-old who relocated to California in search of greener pastures and to enroll in school.

Carlson was last seen at a Stockton pub in August 2011. Her decomposing remains were found two months later in a cornfield near Escalon, Calif.

Gilley, 27, emerged as suspect after he was last seen with Carlson on a grocery store surveillance video and giving investigators conflicting accounts of his whereabouts leading up to Carlson’s disappearance.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Himelblau said he was not surprised by the rape acquittal due to the state of Carlson’s remains.

“The special circumstances on rape, I thought, was the more difficult allegation to prove in this particular case, since the body was left in the cornfield for so long; it took so long for us to find her that any type of forensic evidence was completely destroyed,” Himelblau told the newspaper.

Himelblau argued that Gilley killed Carlson to thwart her from accusing him of rape and took her to the cornfield against her will to dispose of her body. Carlson was shot to death by a .22-caliber pistol that was linked to Gilley through ballistic analysis.

Gilley pleaded not guilty to the offenses and invoked his right to remain silent during the trial, which got under way on Sept. 10.

Deputy Public Defender Michael Bullard declined to comment after the verdict, according to the paper.