A Washington judge has sentenced a Seattle man to life in prison after he was found guilty by a jury of second-degree murder.
Lucy Cranbrook, 23, was found dead last July in her home after having suffered from third-degree burns as she had been exposed to temperatures estimated in the upwards of 108°F (42°C).
Lucy Cranbrook’s husband, Wesley Cranbrook, 28, had told police at the time that his wife had willfully been part of a “teleportation experiment” inside a high-frequency machine he had built according to the official police report.
Lucy and Wesley Cranbrook who are both physicists had allegedly constructed the machine in the hope of recreating a transporter device, similar to that in the popular television series Star Trek, Cranbrook had told Seattle police at the time.
“A malfunction in the transporter sensor circuits resulted in an insufficient signal being present to successfully rematerialize the subject” explained Wesley Cranbrook to a skeptical judge, in his own defense.
“What Mr. Cranbrook did was, in fact, expose his wife to extremely high temperatures and lethal doses of high-frequency radiation. To put it in layman terms, it is as if he had put his wife inside a giant microwave” expert witness and physicist, Dr. Alan Keyes, explained to the judge.
Cranbrook also argued that his wife was willfully part of the experiment and was aware of possible complications but did so for the “good and progress of humanity.”
He also cited Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, as well as the Apollo 11 astronauts who took place during the first manned mission to land on the Moon as examples of men who had sought to go “Where no man has gone before.”
Judge Steven Murphy sentenced Wesley Cranbrook, 28, to life in prison after he was found guilty by the jury of second-degree murder.
