Update: Mack pleads to voluntary manslaughter in Waring killing
Ethan Mack entered an Alford plea Friday in the death of his former friend Kate Waring, who was reportedly tortured and slain at his James Island home.
Mack, 31, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter under a deal negotiated with prosecutors.
In an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit his guilt but acknowledges a jury would likely find him guilty had his case gone to trial.
Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson told Circuit Judge Deadra Jefferson that she has mixed feelings about the plea but said the state faced an uphill battle and risk of another hung jury if Mack went to trial.
Tom Waring, the victim’s father, said the family concurs “fully and completely with Wilson’s decision.”
Mack turned to the Waring family and asked for their forgiveness, saying he and his family will miss Kate as well.
The move comes after Mack’s wife, Heather Kamp, 31, last week pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder in Waring’s June 2009 killing. Kamp has not yet been sentenced.
Prosecutors took Mack to trial in October, but the jury deadlocked on a murder charge. He was, however, sentenced to 15 years in prison after the jury found him guilty of charges of forgery and obstruction of justice in connection with Waring’s death.
Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson had pledged to re-try the murder charge against Mack, but she acknowledged challenges with the case. For one, her star witness, Kamp, had been an unpredictable wild card from the beginning, an admittedly prolific liar with a long history of mental illness.
During the October trial, Kamp testified that Mack repeatedly jolted the 28-year-old Waring with a stun gun, bashed her head with a wine bottle and dropped her in a water-filled bathtub to die at the couple’s James Island home June 12 and 13, 2009.
Kamp said she and Mack then dumped Waring’s body in woods on Wadmalaw Island, where her remains were found that October.
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