79-Year-Old Man Charged With Murder For Allegedly ‘Bashing’ Wife’s Head Against Granite Floor

Photo Credit: Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Office

Police arrested 79-year-old, Paul Edward Mart for allegedly slamming his wife’s head into the granite floor several times, killing her, Law & Crime reported. 

Mart is accused of killing his wife Jean Harriette Mart, 77. The suspect claims he found his wife naked and covered in blood when he woke up. However, according to police, Mart called his daughter and confessed to the murder of her mother and threatened

“suicide by cop.”

According to a medical examiner, the woman

“suffered from a gunshot wound to the head and blunt force injuries to the head.”

Mart was arrested after an hours-long standoff with multiple police agencies, including a SWAT team, Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota said in a statement. 

A criminal complaint obtained by The Wadena Pioneer Journal noted that Mart allegedly made comments that

“he remembered getting into a fight,”

“he slammed her head into the granite flooring a few times,”

“he cannot forgive himself,”

and

“probably killed her.”

Mart was charged with second-degree murder and booked into the Otter Tail County Jail. He is being held on $750,000 bail.

Mart’s lawyer, Chris Cadem, told the newspaper,

“Based again on the information we’ve uncovered in the last 48 hours, we are confident that gunshot residue is going to come back on the hands of the decedent.”

He went on to add,

“We are very confident that my client will be able to demonstrate this was in fact an accident, that this did not happen by any action or deliberate act by my client, and that he will be exonerated of this charge.”

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