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Hersh receives 33 years for 1978 murder

By Laura McVicker
Published: April 23, 2010, 12:00am

Michael Allen Hersh avoided a life sentence, but still received 33 years and four months in prison Friday for the 1978 slaying of Vancouver resident Norma Simerly.

Hersh, now 49, might have faced a life sentence under Washington’s three strikes law. But all of his strikes, or violent offenses, occurred before the law punishing persistent offenders was enacted in 1993.

Even so, Hersh will be an old man before he reaches any possibility of parole, said Clark County Deputy Prosecutor Tony Golik.

“The very earliest he could get out is 82,” Golik said, noting an automatic 10 percent is taken off the sentence for good behavior.

Hersh is still serving time for a brutal 1978 assault of a Hazel Dell woman, but becomes eligible for parole next year. He then must complete a two-year sentence for a 1985 attack on a female prison guard before he can start serving his 400-month sentence for the Simerly slaying.

On April 8, a jury of seven women and five men convicted Hersh in the fatal stabbing and bludgeoning of Simerly, 47, at her home in Vancouver’s Lincoln neighborhood. Jurors convicted Hersh on two separate theories — first, that the slaying was premeditated, and second, that it was committed during a rape attempt.

Newly discovered DNA evidence linked Hersh to the scene, jurors were told at trial.

Citing the brutality of the crime, Golik sought 450 months to life imprisonment.

“It’s one of the most horrible (crimes) I’ve seen in my career,” the veteran major crimes prosecutor said Friday.

Innocence insisted

Defense attorney Jeff Sowder was seeking a lesser sentence of 338 months in prison, saying certain convictions in Hersh’s background shouldn’t elevate his sentence.

He also told pro tem Superior Court Judge Robert Harris that Hersh still claims he didn’t commit the murder and plans to appeal his conviction.

“Mr. Hersh has maintained his innocence and is not going to say anything to the contrary,” he said.

When the judge asked whether he wished to make a statement, Hersh paused.

“I wrote a three-page speech, but I don’t think it’ll do any good,” he said. I “just want to remind the court that I maintain my innocence.”

Testimony at trial indicated that Simerly was killed after an intruder entered her home on April 28, 1978. Blood splattered throughout the kitchen, hallways and master bedroom showed evidence of a protracted struggle, during which Simerly was stabbed four times and bludgeoned in the face with firewood.

She was found naked inside her bedroom, her hands bound with a woman’s blouse.

Police suspected Hersh as soon as 11 weeks after the crime, when he was arrested for a similar attack on another woman. But they had no direct evidence linking him to the Simerly murder.

He was later convicted of the other attack and has been in prison ever since.

Family relieved

In 2002, Vancouver police Detective Wally Stefan reopened the Simerly case in hopes that new DNA testing technology could provide the link.

It did. DNA from a bloodied washrag and a partial, mixed DNA profile tested from bark chips pointed to Hersh, jurors were told.

Sowder had contended the DNA evidence was neither definitive nor foolproof, considering it could have been contaminated and because the genetic marker was shared by 1 percent of all Caucasians.

But Golik told jurors that none of the 11 people who handled the evidence were found to have contaminated it with their own DNA.

Friday, Simerly’s family members expressed relief to see Hersh punished for a crime that’s resulted in “pain that’s never gone away,” Simerly’s 82-year-old sister, Marge Boyer, said after sentencing.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” she said. Seeing Hersh sentenced “is something I never thought would happen.”

Brad Elliott, Simerly’s son who was 24 when his mother was killed, said he always suspected Hersh and is grateful Vancouver police officers kept the case alive. Finally, he’s grateful that a jury resolved it.

“It’s closure for sure,” he said. “Justice is served.”

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