*CRIMINAL CASE UPDATE*

MURRIETA MAN SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE FOR MURDERING HIS WIFE FOR FINANCIAL GAIN

MURRIETA - A Murrieta man was sentenced today, Nov. 6, 2009, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the April 2008 murder of his wife.

Kelle Lee Jarka, DOB: 8-27-68, was convicted on Sept. 14, 2009, of first-degree murder with a special circumstance that the murder was committed for financial gain.

When rendering the sentence, Superior Court Judge Timothy Freer called Jarka "pure evil." Freer called the murder "chilling and disturbing" and a crime committed with "extreme cruelty." The judge said the evidence of Jarka's guilt was overwhelming.

The morning of April 28, 2008, Jarka called 911 to report to police that someone had broken into his Murrieta home while he was out running errands. It wasn't until a little later in the 911 call that Jarka told the police dispatcher that his wife, Isabelle, may have been killed.

Murrieta detectives responded to the murder scene and quickly saw that the burglary was a ruse done by Jarka in an attempt to cover up the murder of his wife, who was struck in the head nearly a dozen times with a blunt object.

Detectives discovered that, within a month of the murder, Jarka had taken out three insurance policies on his wife totaling $1.3 million and had named himself as the beneficiary. A forensic examination of a laptop computer used by Kelle Jarka revealed dozens of Web searches involving how to inflict death and insurance polices.

The case, SWF025646, was prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Burke Strunsky.