PHOENIX – Wade Eugene Bradford (D.O.B. 6/17/1960) has been sentenced to a term of natural life in prison for the 2006 murder of Eleanor Su Pigon, whose body was discovered in 2014 as Bradford was awaiting trial for a murder he committed in 2010. Judge Scott McCoy ordered the sentence to be served consecutively to a separate life prison term Bradford received for his conviction last year in the 2010 case.
“This Defendant was responsible for two horrific murders and justly deserves a natural life sentence for each of the innocent lives he took,” said Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. “Our hope is that today’s resolution will help assuage the grief both victims’ families have carried for so long.”
In June, 2010, Wade Bradford was indicted for first degree murder and aggravated assault for fatally shooting his girlfriend Natalie Allan and threatening another man with a handgun. In February of 2011, while Bradford was awaiting trial, investigators became aware of a storage unit that had been rented to him in Goodyear. Inside they found a barrel containing the bound and decomposed remains of Eleanor Su Pigon, who had been missing since June, 2006 and who was the subject of an investigation that had gone cold. Bradford was subsequently indicted for her murder and kidnapping.
During his trial for the murder of Natalie Allan, which began in January, 2014, Bradford represented himself and presented a convoluted and fabricated version of events which was rejected by the jury. He was found guilty as charged after only a few hours of deliberation on February 5, 2014. He then engaged in numerous procedural tactics which delayed his sentencing by more than a year. He was finally sentenced to natural life on July 10, 2015.
Bradford’s trial for the murder of Eleanor Su Pigon began last September and involved many of the same dilatory tactics he engaged in during his earlier trial. The jury found him guilty on both counts on October 22, 2015.
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