EXCLUSIVE: An Indiana man was sentenced to 85 years behind bars after killing his mother’s boyfriend as she looked on – and accidentally capturing the entire encounter in a voicemail message, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital.
Cody Allen Wade, 33, stabbed Carl Haviland at least seven times after his mother “disrespected him” in 2020, per court documents obtained by Fox News Digital.
Wade was convicted of murder in August after going to trial. Clay County Superior Court Judge Robert A. Pell handed down his sentence on Sept. 6.
Due to at least 12 previous convictions – including felonies for an alleged burglary in 2013 and another for arson in 2018 – a habitual offender enhancement was added to his sentence, according to court documents obtained from the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office.
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He had finished his sentence for the arson in March 2020 and was out on probation when he killed Haviland.
In addition to murder, he accrued additional charges for battery and resisting law enforcement for allegedly kicking one officer and headbutting another as they apprehended him for Haviland’s homicide.
Wade had left a voicemail on his mother’s phone right before the murder, according to Clay County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Zach Clapp – he failed to hang up, and ended up recording the entire incident in the voicemail. The recording was reportedly played for jurors during Wade’s trial.
In the initial moments of the three-minute-long voicemail, Wade approaches a neighbor’s porch and tells him he intends to “catch a case,” using a racial slur to threaten a stabbing. The neighbor tried but was unsuccessful in talking Wade out of this idea, per court documents.
LISTEN TO CODY ALLEN WADEN’S VOICEMAIL
He then barges into the front door of his mother’s house, yelling for Haviland and asked “where you at?”
Haviland can be heard telling Wade’s mother that he “has a knife” before crying out in pain.
Wade’s mother repeatedly screams her son’s name, pleading him to stop the assault; Wade can be heard hurling racial slurs.
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According to context given by the prosecutor’s office, Wade then returns to the neighbor’s porch asking to come in, declaring that he “just caught a murder charge.” He can also be heard telling another neighbor to “call 911, b—-, call 911.”
Pell wrote that Wade “kicked and taunted” Haviland after stabbing him, which can be heard in the voicemail, in his argument for an enhanced sentence.
Among Haviland’s injuries were five stab wounds to the chest – three perforating his left lung and another hitting his heart – and blunt force trauma to the head, per police documents.
The day after his arrest, Wade told police he had no recollection of the stabbing because he had “blacked out” from drinking. When asked whether he had recently consumed methamphetamine, he replied that he had not for about two weeks.
He told investigators that his mother was his “best friend” and “the only woman that was there for [him].”
When police told Wade that Haviland was dead, he allegedly laid his head down and cried.
“I am never going to see my mom again, right? Cause this is a murder, right?” he asked. When police told him this was correct, he asked for an attorney.
Pell wrote in his argument for an enhanced sentence that Wade’s killing of Haviland was especially egregious.
“But in this case [Wade] repeatedly stabbed Carl Haviland not only in front of the [his] mother but did so in spite of her efforts to physically prevent him from committing the crime,” he wrote.
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Haviland’s son, James Haviland, told Fox News Digital that he felt the extensive prison sentence was “adequate.”
“I’m relieved,” he said. “It’s nice to not have to worry about what’s going to happen down the road anymore, whether the guy was going to walk on some technicality. I’m glad that’s all taken care of now.”
Fox News Digital could not reach Wade’s attorney for comment at press time.
Per his obituary, Haviland was a U.S. Navy veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm, then enlisted with the National Guard and worked at a manufacturing plant as a machine operator. He left behind five children.
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