Husband thinks he killed wife in his sleep

Husband thinks he killed wife in his sleep

By Gabrielle Fonrouge
Husband thinks he killed wife in his sleep
A North Carolina man is using the bad dream defense — telling a 911 operator he awoke from slumber to find his wife stabbed to death and drenched in blood, reports said.

Matthew Phelps, 28, told the operator in Raleigh early Friday that he fell asleep after taking too much cold medicine and may have accidentally killed his wife in his sleep, ABC 13 reported.

“I think I killed my…,” Phelps said to the operator, according to the outlet.

“What do you mean by that? What happened?” the dispatcher asked.

“I had a dream and then I turned on the lights and she’s dead on the floor … I have blood all over me and there’s a bloody knife on the bed. I think I did it. I can’t believe this,” Phelps told the dispatcher.

Raleigh police charged Phelps with murder on Friday shortly after he made the emergency call. His wife, Lauren Ashley-Nicole Phelps, 29, was found dead from multiple stab wounds.

“I had a dream and then I turned on the lights and she’s dead on the floor,” Phelps can be heard saying on the call.

“How? How?” the dispatcher asked.

At the end of the call, which lasted 7 minutes, Phelps sobbed to the operator and said his wife didn’t deserve what happened.

“She’s not moving at all. Oh my God. She didn’t deserve this,” Phelps said.

He told dispatchers he took the cough medicine Coricidin because he has trouble sleeping.

The makers of the drug told ABC there’s no evidence to suggest it’s associated with violent behavior.

Police don’t believe the crime was a random act and Phelps is being held without bond. He’s due back in court Tuesday.

http://nypost.com/2017/09/04/husband-thinks-he-killed-wife-in-his-sleep/

This sounds all a bit loopy to me. He woke up and "she's dead on the floor."

I have heard of a case where a man got out of bed in the middle of the night, walked a few hundred yards down a quiet country lane and killed both his parents-in-law and walked back home, got back into bed and knew nothing of it until he woke up.
I can't remember if he got off though.

Seems a very strange thing to do in your sleep unless you have some mental disorder.

Original Quill wrote:Best lie ever invented.

Instead of a defense: The medicine made me do it, he should argue the medicine made me admit to it...but I didn't do it.  Otherwise he's got a tough row to hoe.

Yeah it's going to be quite hard to prove a medicine made him do it.

eddie wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Best lie ever invented.

Instead of a defense: The medicine made me do it, he should argue the medicine made me admit to it...but I didn't do it.  Otherwise he's got a tough row to hoe.

Yeah it's going to be quite hard to prove a medicine made him do it.

Especially because it's an empirical question. He's got to come up with actually, scientific proof.

And he's up against Bayer/Monsanto, which won't sit around permitting their product to be disparaged.

Well they have clearly stated:

(The makers of the drug told ABC) "....there’s no evidence to suggest it’s associated with violent behaviour."

Doesn't mean he won't be the first to 'prove' it. Thing is, if it was murder, how did he ever hope to swing this one and win?

Couldn't find the one I mentioned, only this one:

Man who killed his wife while sleeping goes free

By Anthony StoneSaturday 21 November 2009 00:00 GMT
A man who strangled his wife during a nightmare in the belief he was attacking an intruder walked free from court yesterday after the case against him was withdrawn.

Brian Thomas, 59, of Neath, south Wales, killed his wife Christine, 57, while they were holidaying in west Wales in July 2008.

At Swansea Crown Court yesterday the prosecution told the jury that it was no longer seeking a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity and that there would be no useful purpose in sending Mr Thomas to a secure psychiatric hospital. The court erupted into shouts of "Yes" as family members jubilantly greeted the outcome.

Paul Thomas QC, for the prosecution, explained the situation to the jury after a day-long adjournment in proceedings. "We are no longer seeking a special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity," Mr Thomas said.

"We have a continuing duty to review the case and we took the opportunity yesterday to take stock of the situation. It is clear from the evidence that no useful purpose would be served by Mr Thomas being detained in a psychiatric hospital."

The judge, Mr Justice Davis, told Mr Thomas that, in the eyes of the law, he bore no responsibility for what he had done. He described him as a "decent man and devoted husband".

He added that, from his understanding of his character through what had come out in court, he may go away with a sense of guilt about what happened.

Brian Thomas's brother Raymond spoke of his relief and jubilation at the outcome as he left court. He said: "Family and friends are truly delighted. They were a loving couple and always like that together. He has always been a loving husband and a family man. This was a tragic, tragic episode and we are all very emotional."

Jurors were told at the start of the four-day trial that they could reach only two verdicts for the murder charge – not guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity.

They heard that Mr Thomas accepted that he had killed his wife of 40 years, who had also been his childhood sweetheart. They were told that psychiatrists for the prosecution and the defence agreed that he suffered from a long-standing sleep disorder and he had been in a state of automatism at the time. That meant that, while he was asleep his mind was not in control of what his body was doing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-who-killed-his-wife-while-sleeping-goes-free-1824945.html

eddie wrote:Well they have clearly stated:

(The makers of the drug told ABC) "....there’s no evidence to suggest it’s associated with violent behaviour."

Doesn't mean he won't be the first to 'prove' it.  Thing is, if it was murder, how did he ever hope to swing this one and win?

1) As to proving it, it's an uphill climb for him. You're not just dealing with a 'trip-and-fall', with a crack in the sidewalk. These medicines go through a battery of tests to get approved. In addition to there being a lot less chance Claritin would slip through without catching violent reactions as a side-effect, just the fact that they already know all the associated effects and symptoms gives the opposition the advantage.

2) Well...fit of passion. Probably arguing in bed...didn't think it through. It would be second-degree murder, no malice aforethought.

There was a case here a few years ago where a woman tried to kill her husband in her sleep (she claimed) he survived and they stayed together, he forgave her.

It could happen that a person is dreaming ....not sure how easy it would be to prove. I presume it would help if the person had medical history of night terrors.