'Evil, predator' landlady sentenced for smothering death of woman

DETROIT (WJBK) - It was a gruesome murder - a woman murdered and her body stuffed into a garbage bag, left in a garage.

Carissa Oakman's landlord was sentenced for the crime Tuesday in court - and that was when her family had their say.

"It's totally destroyed us," said Denny Oakman, her father.

"But sir I never did that," said Marguerite Pickens.

"I don't want to hear from you," he said. "Please don't speak to me."

The grieving father didn't want to hear the denial - from the woman who killed his daughter.

"Marguerite Pickens is not a human - she's not a human - she's a predator," said Denny Oakman.

Marguerite Pickens was sentenced to life without parole - a landlady turned murderer, found guilty of killing 36-year-old Carissa Oakman in January of 2017.

"She surrounds herself with people that she preys on," Oakman said. "She preyed on my little 120-pound daughter. And then they murdered her one night and dumped her in garbage bags in an abandoned building."

Pickens, along with her handyman, Orlandus Calhoun, and Antenidus Collier, were all charged in connection with killing Oakman - who was smothered to death. Her body found in a garbage bag in a garage on 28th Street in southwest Detroit.

Pickens denied she played any role in Carissa's death.

"I have done no such thing as to harm Carissa - or anyone who worked for me," she said. "I only helped her. I took her and treated her like a daughter.

"I apologize to the family but I had nothing to do with this, trust me."

But for Denny Oakman, that trust is gone - and the woman who once befriended his daughter is going to prison - for life.

"I cannot forgive her, my only satisfaction and feeling of justice is that she's going to have to live until her dying day in prison looking over her shoulder every day," Oakman said.

"She's a predator, she's evil. I don't know what else to say."