Peter J. Zielinski’s effort to shorten his punishment for murdering his wife in Keizer 13 years ago didn’t work.
Again.
For the second time, jurors recently decided he was guilty of killing Lisa Zielinski in their Keizer home on Jan. 12, 2011.
They convicted him of second-degree murder after a trial in July in Marion County Circuit Court.
He has been sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 25 years. With the time he’s already spent in jail and prison, he could be up for parole in 12 years, when he’s 65.
He tried to persuade jurors that he acted under “extreme emotional distress” at the moment he shot his wife. With such a mitigation under Oregon law, a murder in that circumstance could be considered manslaughter, which carries a lighter sentence.
The jury rejected that defense.
Zielinski hasn’t been free since he surrendered to Keizer police the morning of the shooting.
He never denied the shooting, according to court records.
At the time of the murder, he was 39, working part-time at a Salem community center. He was in his second marriage. The couple had a 5-year-old, but their marriage was foundering, with breaches by both partners in marital fidelity, according to court records.
The crime happened after a rocky night at their Keizer home. Up by 5 a.m., the couple were preparing for the work day and readying their daughter for school.
Zielinski later described the cold feeling he got from his wife as he left the shower and prepared to dress.
“I don’t even know how to explain how I felt,” Zielinski later told a psychologist. “All I’m hearing in my head is that I’m weak and spineless.”
He then described in detail how he killed his wife.
“I’m walking past my closet. I stop. I reach up on myself and grab my pistol…turn back to the bathroom,” he recounted to Dr. Richard Hulteng. “I looked at her, raised it and pulled the trigger.”
He returns the gun to the closet, tells his daughter to get a jacket and then drops her off a half-hour early with family handling a car pool arrangement.
As he drove, he called his mother, telling her, “I shot her.”
She urged him to call a close friend. He did.
At about 7 a.m. that morning, he told the friend, “I shot her.”
“Does she need medical help? Is she okay?” the friend asked.
“No, I don’t believe so,” Zielinski answered.
By then, he pulled into the Keizer Police Department, using a phone at the entry to tell dispatchers his wife needed medical help.
Police soon discovered the wife’s body.
Zielinski was charged on Jan. 13, 2011, with murder with a firearm.
On what was to be the first day of the trial on Nov. 18, 2013, Zielinski pleaded guilty. But his deal with prosecutors allowed him to appeal the conviction so he could press the point that he had been under “extreme emotional disturbance.”
Nearly four years would pass before the Oregon Court of Appeals agreed with him, deciding a judge’s decision to exclude certain testimony about Zielinski’s emotional state was wrong, and sending the case back for another trial.
At his second trial in August 2019, a jury convicted Zielinski of murder, rejecting his claim of emotional distress.
But he again challenged the legality of the case against him. And in 2022, the Oregon Court of Appeals concluded that prosecutors this time had improperly questioned defense witnesses.
“The error was not harmless,” the court said in its ruling.
The court sent the case back to Marion County, resulting in the third trial in July.
His attorney, Michael Bertholf of Medford, said by email Monday, Aug. 26, that before trial, Zielinski offered to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter and agreed to a 20-year sentence and to forgo any appeals.
“Mr. Zielinski committed murder, not manslaughter,” said Brendan Murphy, Marion County deputy district attorney. “He will now serve life, with a 25-year minimum before he is eligible (not promised) parole.”
Now, Zielinski has 30 days from his sentencing on Aug. 22 to launch a new appeal. Bertholf said there would be one.
“The appeal will likely revolve around the instructions regarding the defense of extreme emotional disturbance,” Bertholf said in an email on Monday, Aug. 26.
