Former Unadilla Man Takes Plea Deal in Wife’s Death

In a case which goes back more than two decades, Casey Callahan, 54, who was convicted of murdering his wife, Elizabeth Welsh Callahan in 2000, and saw that overturned last year, has taken an offered plea deal to avoid a new trial.  The court has decided that there just was not enough evidence that he committed the crime, that it was not overwhelming, and that a plea deal was appropriate.

Instead, the plea deal will find Callahan, a former Unadilla resident, pleading guilty of manslaughter and he will serve a jail sentence of 4 to 12 years in incarceration.  This is far reduced from his original sentence of 25 years to life in prison and his original court sentencing on charges of second degree murder.

The original verdict was ultimately overturned because some evidence originally placed in his first trial has been deemed inadmissible.

Callahan has already admitted to backing over his wife with a truck in Pennsylvania more than two decades ago.. He was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison, to run consecutively with a sentence he is currently serving for the 2013 sexual assault of a minor.

Casey Callahan appeared in person on Monday for the sentencing at the Otsego County Court House in Cooperstown, New York.

For more information on this case please CLICK HERE.