A man accused of murdering his wife and their unborn child has been charged, according to local authorities. Arkansas police have apprehended the 40-year-old Newport man, who stands accused of the Nov. 2017 murder that also resulted in the death of the fetus. He was charged on Jan. 18 and was set to make his first court appearance the following day to face the accusations of violent crimes.
There has not been a great deal of information released about the details of this ongoing case, but it has been confirmed that on Nov. 11, 2017, police were called to the Newport home the man shared with his wife. They reportedly found her dead, though her official cause of death is still being investigated by coroners. As a result of the wife’s demise, the fetus was also pronounced dead.
Officers arrested the man and charged him with two counts of capital murder. In Arkansas, the death of an unborn child through violent means is considered murder. It is also not clear from the report what caused police to suspect the man in his wife’s murder.
This is the sort of information that will have to be provided by Arkansas prosecutors when the man’s court case proceeds. The burden of proof regarding allegations of violent crimes (as with all criminal charges) is on the prosecution to provide compelling evidence that the man knowingly murdered his wife and, by extension, the child she carried. His defense team will work to build a strong defense against the charges by carefully reviewing the facts of the case and working to protect the man’s presumption of innocence at every stage of the proceedings.
Source: katv.com, “Arkansas man charged in death of his wife and her unborn child“, Jan. 18, 2018