Washington

TACOMA, Wash. -- Probable cause documents in the case of a man accused of stabbing his wife to death reveal new details about the woman's slaying and the fire at their home that sent the suspect to the hospital.

Jay Nathaniel Poe was rescued from the couple's Tacoma home after firefighters doused a fire there last week.

Once inside the home, fire investigators discovered the burned remains of Poe's 44-year-old wife, Eva Poe, wrapped in a bag. The medical examiner later said the victim died of stab wounds.

Suffering from smoke inhalation, Poe was transported to an area hospital and put into a drug-induced coma, police said.

Court documents said that when the 27-year-old man awoke in the hospital to find himself handcuffed to the bed and a police officer guarding him he immediately said, "I guess this is about my home burning" and "‘I guess this is about burning and stabbing my wife."

Poe revealed that after arguing with his wife for several hours, at about 2 a.m. on Aug. 8, the victim told her husband that she was not going to do as he wanted and was prepared to leave their home, documents said.

In probable cause documents Poe said that he has “abandonment issues” and that he was not going to let his wife leave him so he hid Eva's car keys and then put on a pair of gloves, turned off the lights, got a butcher knife out and caught the victim in the hallway and stabbed her more than 15 times while holding her by the throat and ignoring her pleas to stop.

Official documents said after the stabbing, Poe dressed Eva's wounds and changed her clothes because she "looked bad."

Poe described in documents how he tried to clean up the scene of the slaying by renting a steam cleaner, buying hydrogen peroxide, bleach, charcoal and lighter fluid, tried to clean up the blood on the floor and then stuffed Eva's body into the fireplace and lit it on fire.

Poe said the body burning in the fireplace accidentally caught the house on fire, documents said.

Before authorities arrived, Poe put the charred remains of his wife in a bag and placed them in a closet, where they were later discovered, prosecutors said.

The Pierce County medical examiner said dental records had to be used to identify the victim because her body was so badly burned and that she suffered at least 10 stab wounds to the torso, which caused her death.

Police said parts of the victim's body were also found in the home's fireplace.

A plea of not guilty was entered on behalf of Poe, who did not speak during the court hearing.

KENNEWICK, Wash. — Police said a pregnant woman was killed after being stabbed multiple times in the chest and her nearly full-term baby was cut from her womb. A 23-year-old woman has been arrested.

Court documents said 27-year-old Araceli Camacho Gomez, of Pasco, had her hands and feet bound with yarn and suffered "massive trauma to her stomach area" late Friday night. An autopsy showed she died of the chest wounds, but had other wounds "consistent with the cutting of the body to remove an unborn child."

A Kennewick woman, Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong, has been arrested for investigation of first-degree murder and is accused of trying to pass the infant boy off as her own in calls made late Friday night to emergency dispatchers.

Court documents say gloves soaked in blood, a boxcutter, bloody paper towels, yarn, baby bottle and baby socks were among some of the items found in Sisouvanh Synhavong's purse.

SPANAWAY, Wash. -- A local mother accused of killing her own son pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder on Tuesday, even though prosecutors say she admitted to having caused the fatal injury.

Domenique A. Conway of Tacoma was arrested on Monday after an autopsy revealed the 5-month-old died of a skull fracture, most likely the result of being punched in the head.

The medical examiner's office identified the boy as Nathaniel Dwayne Noel, one of Conway's twin babies.

"The other twin was already in the custody of Child Protective Services," said Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer.

CPS says the killed boy's twin was voluntarily placed in its custody because he needed intensive medical care as a result of premature birth.

According to a statement of probable cause, Noel initially claimed she didn't strike the boy, but later admitted to investigators that she caused Nathaniel's skull fracture.

Court documents say Noel was changing the boy's diaper, but she was frustrated because he was crying loudly and squirming. She said two other children were fighting in an adjacent room and, out of frustration, she struck Nathaniel with her closed fist twice on the left side of his head. The boy eventually died from internal bleeding.

The dead boy's 2-year-old and 6-year-old siblings were taken from the home and have been turned over to child welfare workers. CPS has launched an investigation into everyone who had contact with the baby, including its own staff members.

TACOMA, Wash. — A Fort Lewis soldier killed two other soldiers — a married couple — and poured acid on their bodies in an attempt to dispose of them, a prosecutor said Monday.

Spc. Ivette Gonzalez Davila, 22, was ordered held without bond for investigation of aggravated first-degree murder as well as kidnapping. She was accused of taking the couple's 6-month-old girl.

Deputy Pierce County Prosecutor Ed Murphy wrote in a court declaration that Davila showed up at her barracks on Sunday afternoon with the baby and initially told a fellow soldier that she was baby-sitting. Eventually, she confessed to the soldier that she had killed the baby's parents the night before, Murphy wrote.

The soldier reported what Davila had said to military police, who arrested her and turned her over to Pierce County authorities.

The victims were identified as Timothy Miller, 27, and Randi Miller, 25. Timothy Miller was apparently shot in a bathtub at the couple's suburban Parkland home, while Randi Miller was shot on a bed and then moved to the bathtub, Murphy wrote.

According to the declaration, Davila took the baby to a home-improvement store after the killings, bought muriatic acid, returned to the home and poured it on the bodies.

The baby was not harmed and is now in the care of the state's Child Protective Services.

Davila told the soldier that "Randi Miller was in a relationship with Davila's ex-boyfriend," Murphy said in his declaration.