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Richie Edwin Wilder Jr. was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing his ex-wife, Angila Wilder, 30, who was pregnant when she was stabbed or cut 44 times at her home in Minot, North Dakota, on November 13, 2015.

Angila Wilder was a nursing student at Minot State University and a mother of three. She lived with her live-in boyfriend and their 2-year-old son. Her two older children were from her marriage to Richie Wilder Jr. and were staying with him and his second wife, Cynthia Wilder, the night she died. The former couple had continued to argue over custody and visitation. In December 2011, while they lived at Minot Air Force Base, he twice assaulted her, choking her unconscious and threatening her. A military court convicted him of both assaults.

Angila Wilder suffered wounds to her face, neck and upper chest in her bedroom. Her 2-year-old son was unharmed in another bedroom and was found hours later when his father returned from his shift at a Walmart. Richie Wilder Jr. had a scratch on his face when police spoke with him that day. Cynthia Wilder told police he had been home with her and the children all night. Police interviewed him at least twice, that day and again after his arrest and charge, each time after Miranda warnings. Recordings were played for the jury. He initially denied knowing anything about the killing, then said he was there and claimed her boyfriend had approached him with a plan to get custody of their children and had done the stabbing. He said she scratched him when he checked her pulse. Video showed the boyfriend at work at the time.

Y-chromosome testing of DNA under Angila Wilder's fingernails matched Richie Wilder Jr.'s profile, and blood in his wife's vehicle matched Angila Wilder's DNA. A jail inmate testified that Wilder told him he had killed her and gave details of the crime. He was charged with murder in December 2015. A jury convicted him in December 2016 of murder, a Class AA felony. On May 4, 2017, Judge Gary Lee imposed life without parole and ordered no contact with his two children with Angila Wilder. The court later limited that order to the time until they turn 18.

In September 2017, Wilder pleaded guilty to escape, a Class C felony, for an August 25, 2016 attempt to chisel the molding from a window in his Ward County Jail cell. He received five years, concurrent with his life sentence. On April 10, 2018, the North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed the murder conviction, finding the prosecutor's remarks about his silence after arrest improper but harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. It reversed the no-contact order as an illegal sentence. On July 8, 2020, Judge Lee granted him a hearing on that issue in a post-conviction case; no ruling has been reported.

In March 2017, an acquaintance of Cynthia Wilder, a former Minot elementary school teacher, went to Minot police and agreed to record conversations with her. She said in the recordings that she had watched the victim's home and helped plan the killing and clean up afterward. Arrested in May 2017, she was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, a Class AA felony, and accomplice to escape, a Class C felony. The escape charge concerned an August 2016 plan to get her husband a car, clothing and cell phones for his escape.

In November 2017, Cynthia Wilder changed her pleas before Judge Stacy Louser without a sentencing agreement. Reports at the time called it an Alford plea; the prosecutor later said she pleaded guilty. On May 30, 2018, Louser sentenced her to life without parole. Her appeal was dismissed on October 1, 2018, at her attorney's request. On September 1, 2021, Louser denied her request to withdraw the plea. Both were serving life without parole as of 2021.

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Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.