Arizona man says he beheaded wife ‘to get the evil out’: police

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – An Arizona man who admitted to decapitating his wife and her two dogs in a bloody incident last month in Phoenix told authorities he was attempting “to get the evil out” of her, according to court documents released on Monday.

Kenneth Dale Wakefield, 43, also told police that he had smoked marijuana and the designer drug Spice about an hour before the gruesome killings in a Phoenix apartment on the morning of July 25, the documents showed.

Wakefield, a transient with a history of mental illness who also maimed himself in the incident, was booked into a Maricopa County jail Aug. 1 on one count of first-degree murder and two counts of animal cruelty after being released from a local hospital. He is being held on $2 million bond.

In court papers, police said Wakefield told them during an interview that he stabbed his 49-year-old wife, Trina Heisch, multiple times before decapitating her, and killed the dogs by cutting their heads off.

“He said he was trying to get the evil out of Trina,” police said in a probable cause statement filed in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Police said the Phoenix man then severed his left arm at the elbow and gouged out one of his eyes before being discovered.

The blood-splattered scene was found by a neighbor who told police he was checking on the couple he knew had mental illness issues.

The neighbor said he saw Wakefield naked, with part of his arm cut off and his right eye missing, when he opened the door to the apartment. The neighbor then called police.

Officers said they entered the home and found the headless Heisch in a bedroom closet along with the two dogs.

Large amounts of blood was spread across the floors, cabinets and walls of the apartment, police said. Several bloody knives were recovered.

Investigators said both Wakefield and his wife had histories of mental illness, domestic violence and drug abuse.

In a video also released on Monday, Wakefield can be seen during his initial court appearance on Saturday lowering his head, then putting his right hand to his mouth and emitting a wail as the prosecutor spoke.

He is expected to appear in court for a status conference on Aug. 7.

Wakefield was arrested in 2003 for attempting to kill a family member. Heisch was arrested in March for domestic violence assault, when it was alleged she tried to stab Wakefield, police said.

Family members told police that the two married after meeting in a mental health facility.

(Editing by Sharon Bernstein and Eric Walsh)