Arapahoe County – Phillip Effland will spend at least four years and a day in prison for his role in a suicide pact that led to the deaths of his wife and 24-year-old daughter last year.
“I cannot find that shooting your wife two times in the head is assisted suicide, I cannot,” District Judge Marilyn Antrim said in handing down the sentence Wednesday.
Effland, 58, sat emotionless before sentencing as his sister and other daughter wept and begged the judge for mercy.
He had not testified in his week-long trial in June, and when addressing the court Tuesday, he said three sentences. He did not mention his dead daughter, who, like him, suffered from bipolar disorder.
“I did not murder my wife,” he told the judge, his voice quivering slightly. “I realize there is no way for you … to understand the love between the two of us.
“I can assure you no man ever loved a woman as much as I loved Denise, and that stands until this day.”
Effland had lost his job last year, and the family was out of money and facing eviction from their home. On July 30, 2005, Effland, his wife, Denise, and daughter Brenna took an overdose of painkillers and waited to die.
Effland, however, awoke about 2 a.m. to find his daughter dead from the overdose, but his wife still breathing.
He then shot her in the head with the .38-caliber revolver he had retrieved from the garage earlier, “in case anything went wrong,” he told investigators.
A day and a half later, when relatives could not reach the Efflands, sheriff’s deputies broke into their Centennial home to find Effland rolling on the floor, frothing at the mouth.
Antrim sentenced Effland to 16 years for the second-degree murder of his wife and four years for the manslaughter conviction in the death of his daughter. The sentences run concurrently.
Effland could be eligible for parole after four years and a day, with 364 days already served.
“He has a second chance,” prosecutor Dan May said after the sentencing. “The rest of his family does not.”
Effland’s surviving daughter, Marna Arnett, who had married and moved out of the home, wept as she asked the judge for mercy Wednesday.
“When you sentence him, you sentence my children,” she said.
Arnett said a long sentence would mean she would only get her father “back in a body bag.”
Prosecutor Vicki Klingensmith told the judge Effland had a history of domestic violence and had never accepted responsibility.
Effland was convicted of child abuse once for severely beating Arnett when she was a child. Arnett told police at the time that the physical abuse had gone on for years. In another attack, she fended him off with pepper spray, Klingensmith said.
“Here he is, found guilty by a jury of his peers, and he is still not taking responsibility,” Klingensmith said.
Jury forewoman Layne Kopas asked the judge for leniency.
“Mr. Effland is not a threat to society,” she said. “He is not a cold-blooded killer.”
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-820-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
