PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A change of plea is anticipated in the case of an Oregon man accused of murdering his 3-year-old son and his child’s mother in 2019, the Yamhill district attorney confirmed.
“We anticipate a change of plea on Friday. I’m reluctant to get into details as the defendant continues to have options available to him,” Brad Berry told KOIN 6 News in an emailed statement.
Michael Wolfe has been behind bars since his May 2019 arrest in connection with the deaths of 25-year-old Karissa Fretwell and their son Billy.
He pleaded not guilty to numerous charges, including murder and kidnapping.
The bodies of Fretwell and Billy were found in a remote wooded area about 10 miles outside of the city of Yamhill in June 2019 after family members reported the mother and son missing to Salem authorities several weeks earlier in May. Fretwell died from a gunshot wound to the head, while her son’s cause of death has not been revealed.
Court documents showed Fretwell and Wolfe had been in a child support battle over Billy.
Fretwell’s friends told KOIN 6 News back in 2019 that Karissa and Wolfe had met while she worked at a Jimmy Johns in McMinnville and that he worked nearby.
“She would deliver sandwiches to him, and he would request her to bring the sandwiches,” Fretwell’s friend Bethany Brown said.
Fretwell eventually started working part-time at Cascade Steel, where Wolfe worked as well.
Wolfe allegedly threatened Fretwell when he learned she was pregnant, and friends said he kept her and Billy a secret from his wife and grown children, who didn’t learn about the boy until he was about a year old.
“I think the child support kind of topped it off for Michael. I think he – I don’t want to think that he did anything but – it’s just super weird that the time frame was like three or four weeks ago, and I think her first child support check she was supposed to receive like June 2019,” Brown had told KOIN 6 News in 2019.