PLYMOUTH, Pennsylvania — A man who accused his wife of having an affair admitted beating her with a fireplace poker and stabbing her to death before hiding her body in the basement for days, police said.
Daniel Barrett, 40, said he blacked out after his wife, Mary Susan Barrett, admitted spending time with another man, and when he came two he was pummeling her with the fireplace tool, cops said.
After leaving her body in the basement over the weekend, Daniel Barrett went to the Plymouth police on Monday and confessed that he had killed his wife of five years, cops said, according to the Wilkes-Barre Citizen’s Voice.
A U.S. Air Force veteran, Mary Barrett had worked as a secretary for Plymouth Borough. She had a 14-year-old daughter from a prior relationship.
According to the complaint, Daniel Barrett, who believed his wife was cheating on him, got into an argument with her near the fireplace of their home on Saturday.
Mary Barrett admitted “spending time” with another man, and Daniel Barrett punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground facedown, according to the complaint.
During questioning, Daniel Barrett claimed he blacked out and that the next thing he knew he was standing over his wife wielding fire tongs over his head, police said. After realizing he was holding the tongs, Daniel Barrett hit her again, the complaint read.
He then grabbed a knife and stabbed his wife repeatedly in the lower back, police said.
Daniel Barrett then dragged his wife’s body down the basement stairs and hid it in a room without a window, according to the complaint. That night, Daniel Barrett slept on a couch upstairs, police said.
On Sunday, Daniel Barrett covered Mary Barrett’s body with a sheet, the complaint says. He also considered going on the run or killing himself, and searched online for attorneys and how to take his own life, police said.
Minutes before turning himself in, Danel Barrett called his wife’s father and confessed what he had done.
Investigators went to the darkened house and found a blood trail from the living room to the basement, where they found Mary Barrett lying on the floor covered in blood, with a hole in her skull and a fireplace poker next to her body.
An autopsy conducted Tuesday determined her cause of death was blunt-force trauma and that the manner of death was homicide.
Detectives charged Daniel Barrett with a single count of criminal homicide, He was denied bail.
