A woman accused of murdering her husband and staging the scene to look like a suicide must stand trial for a first degree murder charge, a Tulsa County Judge ordered.
Judith Gayle Nix, 69, of Broken Arrow, has been held without bond in the Tulsa County Jail since her arrest in March. She is accused of shooting her husband Kenneth in the head and spending the next several hours staging the scene before calling police.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Nix called police at approximately 9:15 p.m. on March 21, to report that she had discovered her husband dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. She told police that she had entered the home through the garage and found her husband lying dead on the master bedroom bed with a gun underneath his hand.
However, police say evidence at the scene and inconsistencies in Nix's story led them to doubt that the gunshot wound was self-inflicted. The affidavit says that one of Nix's daughters came forward and said that her mother admitted to killing Kenneth Nix. According to the affidavit, she claimed she had discussed the murder with her mother and another of the suspect's daughters, and she says that the three talked of ways to conceal the manner of death, including staging a robbery or suicide.
When questioned again by police, Nix first said that she argued with her husband before taking a gun away from him and firing twice. She says the man fell dead after she fired the second time. However, the affidavit says she later claimed that the second shot was self-inflicted. The affidavit claims Nix admitted that more than 14 hours passed between her husband's death and her call to police stating that "someone" shot him, and that during that time, she discussed with her daughters how to cover up the murder.
After reviewing the evidence at a preliminary hearing that began July 7, Tulsa County District Judge William LaFortune determined the prosecution's evidence is sufficient to warrant a trial in the case.
If convicted of first degree murder, the defendant faces life in prison or life without parole.
