Man pleads guilty to murdering wife

TIKI ISLAND — A man accused of fatally shooting his wife pleaded guilty Monday to a murder charge, a prosecutor said.

Fred Leonard Wallace, 67, entered the guilty plea in Judge David Garner’s 10th District Court in Galveston without a sentencing recommendation from the state, prosecutor Jennifer Ott said.

“We have not made any offer to him,” Ott said. “The judge will assess punishment.”

Wallace faces from five to 99 years or life in prison, Ott said.

Garner accepted Wallace’s guilty plea in the Nov. 24, 2009, slaying of Joann Jones Wallace, 64, Ott said.

Joann Wallace was shot twice in the head. Her body was found inside the couple’s two-story house Tiki Island house in the 1300 block of Tiki Drive, authorities said.

Police found her husband outside, holding a pistol, and convinced him to surrender peacefully, authorities said.

The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office said in 2009 that the couple’s money problems could have been a motive.

Violent crimes are rare in the affluent community of about 1,000 people, authorities said. The last homicide investigators could remember in Tiki Island stemmed from a domestic incident about 15 or 20 years ago.