Abuse survivor April Wilkens continues to fight for freedom - and she isn’t the only one

(TULSA, Okla.) April Wilkens is continuing to fight for her freedom after spending almost three decades behind bars for killing her abuser, Terry Carlton.

In September, Wilkens was denied release during her resentencing hearing under the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act (OSA) despite providing more than 400 pages of evidence of abuse.

The following week, her legal team filed a motion for Judge David Guten to reconsider his ruling or permit a new hearing. The District Attorney’s Office objected to their request for a second OSA hearing on October 31. 

Three days later Wilkens’ legal team filed a motion to have Tulsa County District Attorney Steven Kunzweiler disqualified from the case. Later filings cited evidence such as Kunzweiler texting Ben Lepak, General Counsel for Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, that he was “Sorry about just now getting back with you. I was busy keeping April Wilkens in prison this week (Oklahoma Survivor’s Act).” 

Wilkens’ attorney, Colleen McCarty, was provided his text message records through the Open Records Act.

The supplemental exhibit also showed several of Wilkens’ supporters reaching out to Kunzweiler through text messaging, expressing their concerns for her and frustration about her continued imprisonment.

Kunzweiler responded to several of those messages, saying he supported the OSA but it’s ultimately up to the judge.

Within the court filing to have Kunzweiler removed, Wilkens’ attorneys also stated his office was compromised by serious conflicts of interest including Assistant District Attorneys (ADA) Ashley Nix and Luke Thompson buying the home Wilkens was abused in and getting married in it on Halloween.

On November 25, Guten denied all of their requests.

His ruling states, “It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed by this court that, based on the foregoing, Petitioner’s request for sentence modification under the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act and Petitioner’s Motion to Reconsider and/or for New Hearing is hereby DENIED WITH PREJUDICE. Petitioner’s Motion to Disqualify the District Attorney’s Office and the Appointment of Special Prosecutor is DISMISSED AS MOOT.”

Tracey Lyall, CEO of Domestic Violence Intervention Services (DVIS) denounced Guten’s decision as well as the DA’s persecution of Wilkens. 

“We talk about how far we've come, particularly in Tulsa and in Oklahoma, you know, over the last 27 years in terms of education, of allied professionals, and education of members of the court, in law enforcement,” Lyall told NewsChannel 8's Brenna Rose. “To have a verdict like this really challenges my thoughts about how far we've come.” 

Court testimony shows the district attorney’s office paid Steffan more than $11,000 of taxpayer money to testify against Wilken’s sentence reduction in court.

“That is what is so unsettling as a longtime advocate of a domestic and sexual violence organization” Lyall said. “Knowing that there are an endless number of people out in Tulsa County causing harm to women and there's plenty of cases that need to be prosecuted and to spend the state's resources on a case like April Wilkens really is hard to understand.”

Following its passage in 2024, OSA supporters heralded the act as a vehicle for criminalized survivors in Oklahoma, where processes like parole often fail them.

Prior to the passage of the OSA, Wilkens applied for parole several times and was denied each time. Kunzweiler advocated against her release each time.

Data from the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) shows that Oklahoma has been granting fewer parole requests in recent years.

In 2019, the Oklahoma Parole Board granted 42% of parole requests. By 2022, that number dropped to 23%.

According to PPI, the state of Oklahoma did not share its parole data for the years 2023 and 2024.

On December 2, McCarty filed a notice of post-conviction appeal, challenging Judge Guten’s decision to deny Wilkens’ Survivors’ Act resentencing, her request to reconsider that ruling or hold a new hearing, and her motion to remove the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office from the case.

Crosswinds News will continue to follow this story and provide updates.