The Great Smoky Mountain Journal

Staff, Wire Reports

Posted: Tuesday, January 01, 2019 02:20 PM

Arkansas Man Charged With Murder After He Killed Wife For Turning Off Football Game

An Arkansas man was charged with capital murder Monday after he reportedly murdered his wife for turning off a football game.

Tony Thomas, 58, of Carlisle, admitted to investigators that he fatally stabbed his wife, Elke, on Nov. 19 after she changed the television channel from football while he was taking a smoke break outside, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

When Thomas went back inside, he asked his wife what the score of the game was, which reportedly led to a fight between the two. Thomas told police he then grabbed a knife and stabbed her

"He claimed he'd blacked out and when he 'came to,' he was over her with a knife in his hands," Lonoke County Sheriff's Detective Anthony Counts wrote in an affidavit.

Deputies were already responding to the scene because a woman who had been at the home flagged down someone passing by to report the stabbing.

Thomas then called the sheriff’s office and asked for a “meat wagon and police” because he had just killed his wife, Counts wrote in the affidavit.

Police found blood on the floor, walls, a table and the TV, and Counts wrote it appeared the wife’s body had been dragged through the dining room to the backyard, where it was found beneath a blanket and a tarp.

Thomas was being held in the Lonoke County Jail, the Gazette reported. Court records show his bond is set at $1 million.

A court hearing for Thomas, who was reportedly charged as a habitual offender because he had previously been convicted of felony crimes, is scheduled for Jan. 22.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.