Tech. Sgt. Curtis Eccleston in an Air Force photograph when he was the special planning supervisor for the 733rd Air Mobility Squadron at Kadena Air Base. Eccleston was found dead with a neck wound in February 2011 in an off-base apartment. (Rey Ramon/Courtesy of the U.S. Air Force)
KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa – A military judge will decide Thursday whether a Kadena airman will have a chance at parole while serving a life sentence for murdering a member of his squadron in cold blood last year.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys made closing arguments Wednesday in the court-martial of Staff Sgt. Nicholas Cron, 26, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, premeditated murder and obstruction of justice in the stabbing death of Tech. Sgt. Curtis Eccleston.
As part of the deal for pleading guilty, Cron avoided a possible death sentence and accepted a sentence of life in prison for his crimes. The only question that remains will be if he is eligible for parole.
Prosecuting attorney Maj. Matthew Talcott said Cron is “skillful and powerful at lying and fooling people” and “should never meet any parole board ever.”
During his closing argument, Cron’s defense attorney called the murder a “horrible and unspeakable” crime.
“The person who has been sitting next to me during this trial does not deserve parole,” Air Force Maj. Nicholas McCue said. “The person who I now advocate for is the old man Staff Sgt. Cron may some day become ... because that is the only person who will see any difference in these two punishments.”
McCue said the court cannot know whether Cron may some day deserve parole and that decision should be left up to a parole board in “20, 30, 40 years from now.”
Cron has confessed to planning the murder for months with the victim’s wife, 32-year-old Barbara Keiko Eccleston, before going to Eccleston’s Okinawa apartment in the middle of the night in February 2011 and slashing his throat with a box cutter and hunting knife.
He later told investigators numerous lies, including a story that Eccleston was mixed up with local drug dealers, according to evidence presented in the case.
Barbara Eccleston, a Brazilian national with family ties to Okinawa, testified that she discussed her husband’s death with Cron. She will be tried for murder separately in a local Japanese court, though a trial date has not been set.
Cron and Barbara Eccleston, who were having an affair, secretly mocked and tortured the victim while they plotted his murder, Talcott told the court.
The two devised various murder scenarios in the fall and winter of 2010, and Cron sent messages to her about how eager he was to kill Eccleston, an opportunity that he called a “gift,” text messages uncovered by investigators show.
On Feb. 6 of last year, Cron went to Eccleston’s apartment around 4 a.m. wearing black clothes and heavy dish gloves and carrying the two knives, extra surgical gloves and towels to clean up blood spray, according to the submitted evidence.
Talcott said Cron first made a shallow cut on Eccleston’s neck to torture him and the two struggled in the apartment over nearly a 90-minute period. Forensic examiners found blood that had sprayed throughout two rooms of the apartment.
After slashing both sides of Eccleston’s neck, Cron called the victim’s wife on his cell phone so she could hear him dying and then got a drink from the refrigerator, Talcott said.
“The sound of Sgt. Eccleston gasping for his life, he wanted to share that,” he said. “Sgt. Cron then stands over Sgt. Eccleston as [Eccleston] breaths his last breaths and sips a soda.”
Barbara Eccleston testified that she only partially listened to the call from Cron and put the phone down because she was playing an online video game.
Cron’s defense maintained he was manipulated by Barbara Eccleston, who told him for over a year her husband was abusing her and first raised the possibility of murder.
At one point, she tricked a social worker into believing she was at a high risk for domestic violence, McCue said.
“If she’s a miserable liar, she’s the most effective miserable liar I’ve ever seen,” he said.
