PEKIN, Ill. (TCN) — An elderly man stands accused of fatally stabbing his wife amid their alleged divorce talks.
According to the Pekin Police Department, on Sept. 2, officers responded to South 14th Street to a report of a possible stabbing. At the scene, authorities found a woman, later identified by the Peoria County Coroner’s Office as 80-year-old Cheryl Pate, and transported her to a hospital, where she died from her injuries.
Pate reportedly sustained multiple sharp force injuries that the coroner’s office said “were incompatible with life and unsurvivable.”
Per an affidavit reviewed by WEEK-TV, officers encountered Cheryl Pate’s husband, James Pate, at the scene with blood on him. He allegedly admitted that he had sliced his wife’s throat.
James Pate reportedly said in an interview that he and the victim were planning on filing for divorce, and he “couldn’t take it anymore.” According to WEEK, Pate told officials that he and his wife got into a dispute in a car, and the victim lunged toward him, but he pushed her away and hit her. Pate then allegedly retrieved a knife from the center console and cut her throat.
Pate was arrested on a charge of first-degree murder and booked into the Tazewell County Jail.
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