How dying wife told hubby's mistress she forgave her as she stabbed her to death (2024)

TO those closest to them, married couple Catherine and Michael Walker seemed like a perfect match.

Both members of the same church, the army pair met through mutual friends, and wed in 2003.

Catherine - also known as Cathy - loved being an army sergeant’s wife and travelling the world, and medic Michael was charming and outgoing.

As one friend Michelle Eidschun recalled in new chilling Hayu documentary Snapped: Killer Couples: “He really was the jokester who had a lot of fun, and Catherino'ahue was this warm, beautiful soul that was always loving everything she did.

"The two of them together - it was joyful to be around.”

With all this in mind, there was no reason to suspect their romance would end with a sordid and tragic tale of betrayal and lies, and a brutal, and bloody murder...

The perfect couple

Happily married for 11 years, it seemed things couldn’t get any better for the pair in June 2013, when Michael was transferred to the Tripler Army Medical Centre on the island O’Ahu.

It meant the pair relocated to the tropical paradise of Hawaii, where Catherine especially hoped to start a family.

With Michael starting his new role in A&E, the couple moved into an army reservation neighbourhood, and quickly became valued members of the community, including the Mormon church, to which they both belonged.

Cathy took up a mentoring role, and Michael would volunteer alongside her on his days off, as well as taking on a role helping in the boy scouts too.

“Everything that came from [Catherine] was genuine,” said devastated friend Zac Pennepacker.

‘No pulse, her skin is cold’

However, just 18 months later, on November 15 2014, emergency services were dispatched to their home just after 6am - a recording of the call is played in the chilling new documentary.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” the dispatcher asks an audibly distressed Michael.

There's a lot of blood... and there's a knife"

Michael Walker

“I just got home from work, when I saw a lot of blood on the bed and then I saw my wife on the floor, and then I called you guys.

“No pulse, her skin is cold. There’s a lot of blood… and there’s a knife.”

Within minutes first responders arrived - but Catherine had severe stab wounds to both her chest and neck, and was pronounced dead.

‘A bloody gruesome crime scene’

The gruesome death sent shockwaves through the local community, and investigators from the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) quickly arrived to assess the bedroom crime scene.

The knife - which was one of Cathy’s own kitchen knives she’d used to lovingly prepare meals for her husband - was on the floor near her hand, and pools of blood were congealing on the pillow and mattress.

“It was a bloody, gruesome crime scene,” recalls Lynn Kawano, reporter for Hawaii News Now, and Michael was immediately questioned by officers about his alibi, and if he knew of anyone who’d want to harm Cathy.

Lynn adds: “He seemed distraught, he seemed under a lot of duress after what he’d found.”

A bizarre, implausible theory

Michael then offered police a surprising and bizarre theory - that he thought maybe Cathy had taken her own life.

He claimed she’d been distressed recently, after unsuccessfully trying for a baby and suffering six miscarriages.

Given the wounds, investigators immediately discounted this theory, with the injuries impossible to self-inflict.

Officers quickly realised the room had been searched by someone, and found one small, but very significant bit of evidence - a bloody finger print on the light switch, and blood on her purse and drivers licence.

However nothing was taken, so robbery was ruled out, and there was no evidence of a break in.

Michael had a very strong alibi, having been seen working a 12 hour shift at the hospital that night, so initially there were no obvious suspects or motive.

A startling admission

However, when asked to describe the last time he saw his wife, Michael recounted getting ready for work, saying goodbye and giving his wife a kiss.

It all sounded like your typical day in the typical life of a married couple - before Michael suddenly made a startling admission - one that revealed he’d been leading a secretive and shocking double life.

He’s been having sex with multiple partners, both male and female, and he has met a lot of those individuals on Craigslist"

Special Agent Sherwin Chang

Out of nowhere, he revealed he’d been having affairs, even inviting lovers over to the house when Cathy was out of town - and potentially even having sex with them in the same bed where Cathy was eventually killed.

Speaking on the Hayu documentary, special agent Sherwin Chang revealed: “Mike tells them he’s been having sex with multiple partners, both male and female, and he has met a lot of those individuals on Craigslist.”

It transpired that actually that very same day of his wife’s murder, he’d met a man for sex, admitting in the police interview he had a “problem”, was a sex addict - and men would even pay him for sex.

A pandora’s box of suspects

This opened up a Pandora’s box of potential suspects, and with Michael’s help they compiled a list of his sexual partners - who all obviously denied having any role in the murder, or even meeting Cathy.

The police then trawled through Michael’s phone records, and discovered one particular number stood out in the run up to the murder.

Police traced it, and discovered he’d been texting a 24-year-old woman called Ailsa Jackson, who lived less than a mile away from Michael and Cathy’s family home, and she worked at the nearby cinema.

The pair had been constantly communicating, and when officers questioned Michael over her he admitted they were having a relationship after meeting on Craigslist and meeting regularly for sex for three months.

“She started to care for me… I just wanted a friend on the side,” Michael told cops. “She told me I should leave my wife and everything, and go and be with her. I didn’t want that.”

‘She’s a psycho b****’

It also transpired Ailsa had told a co-worker she was “in love” with Michael, and had seen Mike and Cathy out together at the theatre she worked.

While she didn’t interact with them, she had become very upset - and Michael claimed she had begun to make threats to kill Cathy.

Referring to Ailsa as a “psycho bitch” to police, Michael revealed he didn't believe Ailsa - who had schizophrenia - would act on it, and says he told her to “go f*** herself” before ending things.

All fingers pointed to Ailsa murdering Cathy, and it seemed like the most plausible explanation - but the twists and turns of the case didn’t end there.

The day after the murder, co-workers reported Ailsa started acting strangely, saying she’d “hurt” somebody, and broke down in tears before leaving, and suddenly moving to Indianapolis.

Officers continued to build their case against her, but when scouring her text messages to Michael, they quickly realise he hasn’t been entirely honest when describing their relationship.

The pair discussed how much they enjoyed sex together, and Ailsa would refer to Michael as ‘Daddy Cakes’ while he called her 'Baby Girl'.

$400k insurance policy for ‘new life together’

The following April, Ailsa was finally arrested, and flown back to Honolulu for questioning - where she revealed some explosive and damning information which implicated Michael in his wife’s cold killing.

She revealed that after one sexual encounter while chatting, Michael had said his biggest desire was to have someone kill his wife.

Lynn says: “It was clear that he was leading Ailsa to believe that ‘if you take care of this, we can be together’.”

She claimed to police she asked why he couldn’t just divorce his wife, but Michael said his strict Mormon faith wouldn’t allow it.

He also told her he had a $400k life insurance policy out on his wife - enough for them to start a new life together.

'Who are you?!'

On the afternoon of the murder, they met up to finalise their grisly plan, agreeing to put it into action that night while he was at work, using a code to help her know how could she enter the property, before deleting all of their texts.

Ailsa headed to their home around midnight, letting herself in with a key left by Michael to open the backdoor.

Selecting a large knife from a block in the kitchen she made her way upstairs to Catherine’s bedroom, where she was asleep - which is when she attacked, stabbing her in the upper chest.

Waking with a start, Catherine somehow managed to jump out of bed while bleeding profusely.

"Who are you?" she gasped, before Ailsa stabbed her again, this time in the neck.

Forgiven in a dying breath

Immediately, Ailsa regretted what she’d done.

As she watched Cathy slowly lose her life and her breathing get shallower, and asked Cathy if she forgave her - and with her dying breath, kind-hearted Cathy replied ‘yes’.

Ailsa then switched the light on and searched through Cathy’s purse, because she wanted to verify the person she’d killed was definitely Cathy Walker.

She then waited for Michael to call - but he never did.

Ailsa was severely mentally unwell and heavily medicated, and was officially charged with the murder.

Michelle says: “I saw the article… and there was Ailsa Jackson’s face and I didn’t see any evil in her eyes like I thought I would, so it was very disconcerting because I didn’t see the monster I thought I would see from someone who’d stabbed my friend many, many times while they were sleeping.”

Shocking truth laid bare

In November 2015, Michael is also eventually arrested, and he was charged with aiding and abetting first degree murder, and refused to cooperate.

It was news that sent shockwaves through the local military community, with friend Zac saying: “Here I am trying to support this spouse who’s lost his wife, but then I am starting to see he’s the guy that caused all this."

Ailsa agreed to a plea deal, pleading guilty to all charges, and received 30 years in prison, in return for testifying against her former lover.

But as prosecutors prepare for Michael’s trial, even more secrets are unearthed.

A young boy in the boy scouts also came forward to accuse him of sexual assault, and police also found child p*rnography on his computer.

Walker was sentenced to 10 years in a military court, and was dishonourably discharged from the army.

In 2019, he pleaded guilty to murdering his wife a week before his trial was due to start, and sentenced to 35 years for his role in the crime.

The judge also recognised he manipulated Ailsa, who was vulnerable due to her mental health issues.

Catherine’s family also supported the shorter sentence for Jackson, saying after: "We wholeheartedly forgive her. I want Ms. Jackson to know that."

'She was an angel'

While justice, in someway, was carried out, for those who are grieving the loss of Cathy, it will never be enough.

Michelle adds: “I just want him to live with the consequences of what he did, and what he took from us, because she was truly a light.

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"I really felt like sometimes she was an angel. She was just that beautiful.”

All episodes of Snapped: Killer Couples are available to stream on Hayu.