Brutal crime: Tony Thomas, 58, an ex-felon from Arkansas, has been charged with capital murder for allegedly stabbing to death his wife Elke during a fight over TV
An Arkansas man has been charged with capital murder after police said he fatally stabbed his wife for changing the TV channel from a football game he was watching while he went outside to smoke.
Tony Thomas, 58, of Carlisle, was charged on Monday, nearly two months after he reportedly admitted killing his wife, Elke, during a domestic argument in November. He’s been jailed since the incident.
‘He went outside to smoke and upon returning, he discovered that Elke had changed the channel. He asked about the score and she began yelling at him and got in his face,’ Lonoke County Sheriff’s Detective Anthony Counts wrote in an affidavit.
Thomas said he blacked out and ‘came to’ while standing over the woman with a knife in his hands in their blood-spattered home, according to the affidavit. Court records show his bond is set at $1million.
Deputies were already responding to the scene in the 2000 block of Hamilton Loop in Carlisle because a woman who had been at the home flagged down someone passing by to report the stabbing.
Police officers responded to the couple’s home in Carlisle, Arkansas (pictured) to find Thomas sitting next to his wife’s body under a blanket
A man who identified himself as ‘Tony’ later called the sheriff’s office and ‘asked the dispatcher for a “meat wagon and police” because he’d killed his wife,’ Counts wrote.
The affidavit says the stabbing occurred on November 19, 2017, in the home’s living room, where blood was found on the floor, the walls, a table and the TV.
Counts wrote that it appeared the woman’s body was dragged through the dining room to the back yard, where it was found beneath a blanket and a tarp.
Responding police officers found Thomas sitting next to his wife’s body covered with the blanket.
Just over a month before her violent death, Elke Thomas had filed for an order of protection from her husband after he allegedly grabbed her, but the her request was denied because of ‘insufficient proof.’
In her affidavit, the wife wrote of Thomas: ‘I am afraid he will hurt me more than he did.’
Tony Thomas’ criminal record stretches back to 1988 and includes past charges of manslaughter, sexual abuse and failure to register as a sex offender, reported the station KARK. He is due back in court on January 22.