Rodney Wheeler sentenced for helping his wife, Julie Wheeler, fake her death in West Virginia washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Bill Galluccio
Apr 6, 2021
A West Virginia man was sentenced to eight months in jail for helping his wife fake her own death to avoid going to prison. Last year,
Julie M. Wheeler was convicted of federal health care fraud after receiving nearly $300,000 from the Veteran s Administration Spina Bifida Fund.
A few days before she was due to be sentenced, her husband,
Authorities launched a massive manhunt that came up empty. During the search, Mr. Wheeler gave false information to state and federal investigators and even posted a plea on Facebooking expressing hope that she will be found.
Several days later, the police executed a search warrant and found Mrs. Wheeler hiding in her own home. She was sentenced to three years and six months for fraud related to overbilling in June 2020, and in February 2021, she received an additional year of jail time for conspiring to obstruct justice.
April 7, 2021
Last May, Rodney Wheeler dialed 911 with a frantic plea for help: His wife had just plunged hundreds of feet over a steep cliff in a West Virginia national park.
Authorities quickly launched a massive search for Julie Wheeler, 44. For days, hundreds of volunteers, police, and professional rescuers trekked along the base of the New River where her husband said she’d fallen, aided by helicopters and rescue dogs.
But Julie Wheeler had never gone missing. Three days after she supposedly fell off a cliff, authorities found her hiding inside a closet in the couple’s Beaver, W.Va. home.