Wife who killed husband wants conviction expunged

? A woman who served 15 years in prison for shooting her broadcast executive husband as he slept in 1977 has asked the Kansas Supreme Court to take the conviction off her record.

Milda Sandstrom, who lives and works in Phoenix under her maiden name, Jo M. Jackson, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison but released in 1992.

She shot Thad Sandstrom, 51 and vice president of broadcasting for Stauffer Communications Inc., as he slept in his bed. He had recently filed for divorce from his wife, who drove from Oklahoma and bought a gun and bullets to shoot him.

Sandstrom’s appearance Monday at the Supreme Court was an appeal of a decision last year by Shawnee County District Judge Thomas Conklin, who rejected Sandstrom’s request to erase the conviction.

Sandstrom’s attorney, Richard Senecal, said she is entitled to expungement under the law “upon a showing that she had made every conceivable effort to conform to the norms and demands of society.”

Senecal quoted a former employee of the Prison Education Department at Lansing Correctional facility as saying that Sandstrom was remorseful about killing her husband and was very devoted to him. Others attested to Sandstrom’s honesty and her work ethic.

After her release from prison, she worked at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, later at the Arizona Department of Economic Security and finally at the Veterans Administration as a social services worker at the VA Hospital in Phoenix, earning $32,419 a year.

Sandstrom wants the expungement for her self-respect and because she can’t get board certification as a substance abuse counselor even though she passed the certification exam, Senecal told the court.

In opposing expungement, assistant dist. atty. Deborah Hughes said Kansas law has become increasingly restrictive, prohibiting expungement of offenses including indecent liberties with a child, first- and second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

Hughes said Sandstrom’s conviction hadn’t kept her from getting jobs or actively volunteering in Phoenix.

The justices are expected to reach a decision by mid-April.

Sandstrom, who was accompanied to the Supreme Court by two friends, declined to be interviewed.