A violent felon accused of strangling a 19-year-old woman at a Vancouver homeless camp has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Gregory Antonio Wright, 37, entered an Alford plea Tuesday to first-degree manslaughter in Clark County Superior Court. He was previously charged with second-degree murder in the July 2014 death of Daytona Hudgins. An Alford plea allows a defendant to argue his innocence but admit there’s enough evidence that he could be found guilty.
Wright has denied strangling Hudgins. His defense attorney, Louis Byrd Jr., presented a report from an expert witness asserting that she died of a drug overdose.
Hudgins’ friends also told responding police officers that she had overdosed, court records state.
Deputy Prosecutor James Smith said the defense expert’s finding factored into the prosecution’s decision to offer Wright a plea deal. However, the prosecution maintains that Hudgins’ cause of death was homicide by strangulation, he said, which was determined by the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Wright also allegedly admitted to investigators during an interview at the Clark County Jail that he strangled Hudgins, court records show. The defense argued it was a false confession and had moved to have it suppressed from his upcoming trial.
Wright is facing nearly 22 years in prison for the manslaughter conviction. He will be sentenced Dec. 28.
Vancouver police discovered Hudgins’ body at about 2:30 a.m. July 19, 2014, behind iCellular Phone Repair, 2803 Fort Vancouver Way, while responding to a suspicious circumstance. Her body was surrounded by bedding, clothing, cans of food and garbage, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in the case.
A witness said Wright had been at the transient camp that night. He was described as looking scared, and allegedly told the witness that he blacked out and woke up to find Hudgins dead, the affidavit states. The witness reported that Wright said Hudgins “was pissin’ him off … and she wouldn’t shut up … and the next thing he knows he’s waking up and she’s dead,” court records said.
Wright was taken into custody in November 2014 on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender. That charge was dismissed as part of the plea agreement in this case, Smith said.
While in custody, detectives interviewed Wright twice and, during the second interview, he admitted to strangling Hudgins, according to court documents.
Wright told investigators, “‘I didn’t mean to kill that girl — that was a total accident. … I end up choking her in the course of sex,” the affidavit states. DNA found on Hudgins’ clothing was a confirmed match to Wright, according to the court record.
In March 2016, Wright was sentenced to 15 1/2 years in prison for attacking a female mental health counselor after trapping her inside the jail’s medical unit in January 2015. He was found guilty of first-degree kidnapping and attempted second-degree assault by a superior court jury.
His sentence in the manslaughter case will run concurrent with the assault case, court records show.
Wright is also a Level 3 sex offender based on convictions from 2006 for attempted communication with a minor for immoral purposes and a 1998 conviction for second-degree assault with sexual motivation, according to Columbian archives.
