Modesto man who shot wife in the head in 2016 gets 40 years to life in prison
MODESTO — A Modesto man was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for murdering his wife with a rifle back in 2016, prosecutors said Friday.
Steven Floyd Oliver, 68, was convicted of the second-degree murder of his wife, Sylvia Oliver, 61, back on March 28, 2023. The shooting happened on the evening of November 17, 2016.
The Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office said Steven Oliver shot his wife in the head and left her body on the kitchen floor with her feet pressed up against cabinets.
Oliver admitted to shooting his wife when officers responded for a welfare check at his home on Edison Avenue in Modesto.
"I was trying to go to sleep. My wife woke me up and said, 'Shoot me,' and I did. She's laying on the floor," he told the officers when they arrived that night, according to the DA's office.
The officers also noted that Steven Oliver smelled of alcohol and showed signs of being intoxicated.
A welfare check was requested by Steven Oliver's daughter that night after he sounded incoherent on the phone with her, prosecutors said. The daughter, who was Sylvia Oliver's stepdaughter, called authorities knowing the husband and wife had a history of arguing with each other.
Investigators said Steven Oliver, after already admitting to shooting his wife, gave conflicting statements about what happened when he was arrested and interrogated at the Modesto Police Department.
In one story, he told police he didn't know the rifle was loaded when he pulled the trigger. In another, he claimed the gun went off when Sylvia Oliver placed the gun to her own head. In a third story, he told police he fired a warning shot to the side of his wife's head, but didn't know there was another round in the chamber when he pulled the trigger again.
According to the DA's office, Steven Oliver admitted to going outside for a drink and a cigarette after he shot his wife. He went back inside and checked her pulse to find none. He then called his daughter and told her he shot Sylvia Oliver.
Earlier that day, Steven and Sylvia Oliver had returned from a trip to Texas to visit Sylvia's family.
