Florida Woman Accused of Stabbing Husband More Than 140 Times and Hitting Him Over the Head With Meat Cleaver

A Florida woman is accused of repeatedly stabbing her disabled husband and beating him over the head to make sure he was dead.

On Sunday, police in Palm Springs arrested 61-year-old Joan Burke over the murder of her disabled husband, ABC News reports. Police say on Feb. 11, Burke stabbed her 62-year-old husband Melvin Weller more than 140 times and hit him on the head with a meat cleaver to ensure he was dead.

On the day of the incident, Weller’s stepson called the police after he found Weller in a pool of blood in the couple’s home. When police arrived, they found Weller sitting silently in the bedroom with cuts all over her hands. Police arrested Burke, and she’s since been charged with first-degree murder, NBC’s WESH 2 reports. An autopsy showed the man had been stabbed 140 times, and “he also had a skull fracture caused by a blow from a meat cleaver to the right rear of his head.”

According to WPBF, Weller filed for divorce from Burke back in December.

Attorney Nicole Hamil-Scott, who was handling the couple’s divorce, says she believes assets being divided may have been the trigger behind the killing. WESH reports the couple would be battling one another over millions of dollars worth of real estate.

“That could be one of the reasons– under Florida statute, whenever there are marital assets pursuant to the Florida law those marital assets would need to be equitably divided between the parties and certainly without getting too much into attorney-client privilege, the parties had substantial assets between themselves,” Hamil-Scott said, per WESH. Weller reportedly made plans to split the assets and live the rest of his life retired in Jamaica.