A Little Rock woman accused of cutting her husband’s throat while he lay in bed and then trying to kill herself Friday appeared in court Tuesday morning.
Marilyn Patterson, 61, pleaded innocent in Little Rock District Court to first-degree murder and remained on suicide watch at the Pulaski County jail, where she was being held in lieu of a $200,000 bond Tuesday night.
She was released from the hospital sometime Monday afternoon and arrested early Monday night.
According to police officials, Kia Erving called officers to go check on her parents at their 224 E. 7th St. apartment about 7 a.m.
When officers arrived, they found Kenneth Patterson, 61, lying on the bedroom floor with his throat cut.
They also found Marilyn Patterson with several cuts on her wrists.
According to police, Marilyn Patterson told officers that her husband tried to kill himself, but detectives noted the types of wounds were not consistent with suicide.
Erving said that the pain of the death of her father, who had been battling heart issues, is compounded by the arrest of her mother who has been plagued by mental illness.
“It feels like we’ve had two losses,” Erving said. “She needs to be somewhere getting help. Not in a prison like a murderer. She’s really sweet, she really is.”
According to Erving, neither her, her brother nor other family members harbor anger toward her mother.
“My parents loved each other. People are looking [at the story] for a fight or something, but she wasn’t trying to hurt herself to avoid being in trouble, she was trying to hurt herself because that’s her soul mate,” Erving said.
Of the 18 homicides in Little Rock so far this year, the only other domestic killing occurred on April 3 on Doe Run Drive when Sean Johnson, who had a long history of mental illness, beat his father to death and met officers with pleas for them to shoot him, police said.
Johnson, 30, was charged with second-degree murder in the killing of his father, Robert Johnson, and remains in the Pulaski County jail.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 04/23/2014