A man accused of murdering his wife for more than four years accepted a plea deal from the state in tears, expressing his sorrow for the family. He will spend three decades behind bars.
Lee Circuit Judge Frank Porter sentenced Odessey Lester, 36, during a plea hearing Monday.
Porter adjudicated Lester guilty on all five counts he faced — second-degree murder; kidnapping; aggravated battery with a deadly weapon; first-degree arson; and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence — from a February 2019 slaying.
Monday’s hearing included a brief address from Andrew Denson, one of four relatives of the victim, Mildred Noemi Rivera-Lester, 47, present in the courtroom. Beatriz Scalici, victim advocate with the State Attorney’s Office, accompanied the family.
“It’s been a long process,” Denson said. “It’s been a long four years.”
Denson later added that it’s been hard on the family and that it feels good to find some peace.
After Denson finished his unscripted address, Lester pulled out a paper with a written apology.
“I’m truly sorry,” Lester said as he held the tears back and his voice shook. He said his statement is an understatement of the pain he feels.
He later added he “truly” feels lonely without his wife.
“My true sentence is not to spend the next two decades in jail, but to be without my queen,” Lester said.
He said his wife was alive when he left the house.
Denson later gasped and held tears as Porter read the sentence. Another relative patted him on the back.
Lester was arrested and charged after he returned to the scene of a house fire on Robin Avenue, in Lehigh Acres, where firefighters had found the body of Rivera-Lester.
The medical examiner said that the body found had obvious signs of extensive bruising to her arms, wrist and legs, fractures of her rib and pinky finger and multiple marks consistent with having been struck by a thin blunt object.
Lester was charged with kidnapping to inflict bodily harm and faced a $500,000 bond, previous reports indicate. He has been held in Lee County Jail since his arrest.
He was also charged with marijuana possession and possession of drug equipment with no bond set on those charges.
According to an obituary created through the Fort Myers Memorial Gardens, Rivera-Lester left behind two children and one granddaughter and, at the time, had a second granddaughter on the way.