Anchorage Daily News

Odds are Keith Landers, 74, could live another 25 years at most, but he was sentenced Friday to serve 109 years in prison for murdering his wife and trying to kill her friend.

The sentence was symbolic, a message to the community that murder won't be tolerated, said Superior Court Judge Philip Volland.

In July, a jury found that Landers intentionally shot and killed Evangeline Landers, his wife of 27 years, and nearly killed Joerene Hout, a family friend. The Landers, who lived in Eagle River, were in the middle of a bitter divorce.

The issue at Friday's court hearing was whether a man of Landers' age should be sentenced to serve more years than he could live.

"There is a need for a sentence to speak to deter others," Volland said. Age is no excuse. "I shouldn't give Mr. Landers a break just because he is a 74-year-old."

Landers and his wife, at the end of a rocky marriage, were dividing their belongings on Nov. 19, 2004, with Hout mediating the couple's heated discussions.

Evangeline and Hout arrived at the Landers' home on Bear Paw Circle in the afternoon. Keith Landers was there, though he'd previously moved out.

"I was afraid to go in the house when I saw Keith there," Hout said. "I was more afraid to let Evangeline go by herself."

At one point, Keith Landers went to the basement and started dropping dishes. The women followed to see what had broken.

Hout told police Landers, armed with a pistol, grabbed her and pulled the trigger. A bullet whizzed passed her head, she said.

Landers ran upstairs. Hout heard two gunshots.

"(He) chased her down and shot her," said prosecutor Sharon Illsley at Friday's hearing, where she urged a hefty sentence.

Volland wasn't persuaded by defense attorney Ron Offret's argument that the sentence should be reduced because Landers had no prior criminal convictions. There was little chance he'd commit murder again, Offret said.

Offret repeated points offered to the jury during trial -- that Landers was a battered husband in a toxic relationship who suffered from a dissociative state of mind at the time of the murder.

"I don't find Mr. Landers was an abused spouse," Volland said.

Hout also urged a maximum sentence. She told the judge she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder that caused heart problems. She's been in and out of counseling and is haunted by guilt, she said.

Evangeline Landers' daughter, Rene Breitkreutz, also spoke in support of a maximum sentence. "The sound of my brother's tormented screams in the call I received that night still rings in my ears," she said." I see the blood, my mother's blood, on the ceiling of her kitchen."

Days after the murder, she visited her stepfather in jail. Asked if he was remorseful, Landers placed his hand over his heart: "I cannot find it in here, he said, to say, 'Sorry she's dead,' " Breitkreutz told the judge.

Her voice shook. "What is the half-life of murder?" she asked. "How long does it take for the poison to disappear?"

Landers refused an opportunity to speak on his own behalf.

After the hearing, Hout, Rene Breitkreutz, and her brother, Richard Breitkreutz, gathered with friends outside the courtroom. They were pleased with the sentence, they told reporters, though Rene Breitkreutz couldn't find a smile for the TV cameras.

Daily News reporter Julia O'Malley can be reached at jomalley@adn.com or 257-4325.