An Arkansas man has been arrested on suspicion of capital murder after he told police he stabbed his wife to death for changing the television channel.
Tony Thomas, 58, of Carlisle, went outside to smoke and noticed the channel had been changed from the football game he had been watching.
Thomas asked his wife, Elke, what the score was before things escalated into an argument, according to a court document obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Thomas reportedly told police that his wife started the argument by yelling at him before he grabbed a knife and stabbed her, court documents state.
“He claimed he’d blacked out and when he ‘came to,’ he was over her with a knife in his hands,” according to an affidavit from the Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office.
Court documents state that the 58-year-old suspect called the sheriff’s office and requested the dispatcher bring a “meat wagon and police” because he stabbed his wife.
One witness said she “heard glass break” and “saw Tony stabbing Elke” when she walked into the living room.
Deputies say they found Elke’s body covered in a blanket and tarp in the couple’s backyard and a knife near the body.
“He admitted to dragging her outside and calling the sheriff’s office,” Anthony Counts, a detective with the Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office, wrote in the affidavit.
Chuck Graham, the Lonoke County prosecuting attorney, said that Thomas was charged as a habitual offender because of his rap sheet of felony crimes.
Thomas is being held on a $1 million bond in the Lonoke County jail, according to Fox News. It is not clear whether Thomas has retained an attorney. He is scheduled to appear in court January 22.
