MACON — A former deputy superintendent of Bibb County public schools, who three years ago was charged with murder in the alleged cocaine-poisoning of his wife, was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years on probation after pleading no contest to concealing her death.
Edward Judie Jr., now 69, was arrested in July 2021 , accused of killing Joyce Fox Judie, 60, on Thanksgiving night in 2019. The case generated interest across the region.
Local sheriff’s investigators at the time said Joyce Judie died of “cocaine toxicity,” having had five times a lethal amount of the drug in her system. But who might have given her such a dose could not be proven.
Investigators also said she had severe dementia, requiring full-time care, a claim that could not be verified.
Last week, Ed Judie entered a nolo contendere plea, part of a compromise with prosecutors after the emergence on the eve of trial of what a senior assistant district attorney here referred to as “significant” evidentiary challenges.
At Wednesday’s sentencing hearing in Bibb Superior Court, senior assistant DA Michael Parrish further noted that Joyce Judie’s family, including her adult son and daughter from a previous relationship, disagreed “with our legal analysis of this case.”
Parrish said there were conflicting accounts of what happened at the Judie home in northwest Macon the night of the death, including details about “who was present at the home, who administered the drugs to Mrs. Judie,” or whether she took them voluntarily.
Ed Judie stood silent during the 12-minute hearing. The former Army ranger was deputy superintendent of student affairs in Macon’s school system for roughly four years beginning in 2011.
On his behalf, his attorney, Gregory L. Bushway, said, “It’s been a long road for Mr. Judie.”
Bushway said the case was “a tragedy.” He said his client suffers from PTSD and “still grieves” for Joyce Judie, to whom he had been married for about 20 years.
Bushway said that on the night of Joyce Judie’s death, her husband experienced a psychotic episode and was hospitalized, in part, for depression.
After the hearing, speaking to reporters, Bushway said there were no eyewitnesses and no evidence anyone forced Joyce Judie to ingest the cocaine.
He said that on the night of Joyce Judie’s death, Ed Judie had been the one who called the cops, but not because his wife was dead. Bushway said Ed Judie had, at the time, recently been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and that he was “seeing green men in uniforms he thought were trying to come into his house.”
Bushway said that when Bibb sheriff’s deputies arrived in the wee hours of Nov. 29, 2019, they found Joyce Judie dead in a bedroom.
“Mr. Judie didn’t even know she was deceased,” Bushway said. “The deputies’ reports indicated (Ed Judie) was surprised. He had no idea that she had passed away. And then that added to his psychosis.”
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