A Pennsylvania man has been arrested in the murder of his wife. According to the Montgomery County DA, Barton Seltmann, 84, was arrested on murder charges after his wife Margaret Seltmann, 85, was found dead in their home.
Officials said that they received a call from Barton about an ‘unresponsive female.’ Reports obtained by NBC10 Philadelphia showed that Barton told police that someone had beaten his wife and left their kitchen ransacked.
When police arrived at the Lower Pottsgrove home, they found Barton with “blood on his hands, face and clothing.” Barton was transferred to a local hospital to receive treatment for a hand injury.
The Montgomery County Coroner’s Office determined that Margaret’s cause of death was blunt force injuries to the head and her manner of death was homicide. Barton told investigators that his wife grabbed a knife and threatened to kill him while they were arguing over money for their cat’s vet bill. Barton confessed to killing Margaret, saying that he pushed her down with a chair and then proceeded to hit her in the head with a candlestick.
Police did find a knife underneath Margaret’s body when they arrived at the crime scene, they confirmed to WPVI-TV. Barton’s sister-in-law spoke with the media following this tragedy.
“In the last five or six weeks, Margaret said [Barton] was suffering from dementia, he wasn’t remembering things,” Barton’s sister-in-law Sandy Seltmann told the outlet. “Like if he went somewhere, he wasn’t remembering where he was at and things and she was concerned about it.”
Ron Seltmann, Barton’s brother, added. “This just tore us apart.”
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