First Posted: 3/26/2015
LIMA — Patrick Coller will have the rest of his life in prison to think about the wake of destruction he left behind after killing his wife and leaving her body behind in a cornfield last year.
Not only did he end the life of 42-year-old Gerri Coller but he left three children to grow up without parents and left the families on both sides devastated.
“The magnitude of the devastation created by the acts in the cornfield will never be understood,” Judge David Cheney said before sentencing Coller to life in prison with no chance for parole.
Coller pleaded guilty to aggravated murder with a gun and kidnapping with a gun in the Aug. 14 death of his wife. He shot her with a shotgun in a cornfield on Jones Road and left her body there. He drove around for several hours and disposed of the shotgun before going to police and confessing.
Prosecutor Juergen Waldick showed a picture of Gerri Coller on a large screen in court. He also showed the judge a picture of her body in the cornfield after she was killed.
“This case is really about Gerri,” Waldick said.
Waldick said Patrick Coller sawed down the barrel of a shotgun and filed off the serial numbers. He drove to his wife’s job, where he told her he needed to talk to her about something important. She entered his vehicle, Waldick said.
Coller drove her to an isolated cornfield with no houses nearby. She tried to get out of the vehicle and run, Waldick said.
“This was a preplanned, premeditated offense,” Waldick said. “He shoots her as she’s trying to escape from him. He shoots her in the back. He leaves her to die.”
The couple was going through a divorce and his wife wanted to end the relationship for good. He tried to blackmail her in the proceedings by threatening to reveal private information, Waldick said.
Attorney Nancy Schramski, a family friend of Gerri Coller’s family, made a statement on the family’s behalf saying it has devastated them.
“What particularly bothers the parents is those last moments. Jerri must have experienced extreme fear. Did she cry? Did she pray?” Schramski said “The very man who promised to love and cherish her left her to die, the mother of his children.”
Coller declined to make a statement.
His attorney, Bill Kluge, said Coller battled bipolar disorder and had an alcohol addiction. He wanted to save his marriage but realized his wife had other plans. He planned to kill himself the day he shot his wife but for some reason turned the shotgun on her, Kluge said.
“He desperately wanted to have Gerri back and reunite the whole family. He thought they could make it and start over,” Kluge said. “The day the incident occurred, Gerri finally told him she was not coming back to him.”
