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Navy petty officer charged with murder of wife www.privateofficer.com
Officer Hilal Williams, a New Orleans police spokeswoman, said Sunday that a first-degree murder warrant accuses 43-year-old David Hugh Marx of killing 51-year-old Mary Lou Marx.
She said the Naval Criminal Investigative Service arrested Marx in Norfolk two days after his wife’s body was found on Wednesday. He was to be brought to New Orleans, she said, but did not know if he had been returned Sunday. The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office website did not list him as an inmate Sunday.
The police department’s major offense log said there was no sign of forced entry and “the perpetrator stabbed the victim, possibly with an ink pen, in the chest and nose,” according to The Times-Picayune.
Police have not said why they went to the house Wednesday, but confirmed that Mary Lou Marx’s 12-year-old son was home when officers arrived. The boy was being held by the Louisiana Department of Child and Family Services.
The front door of the family’s house was locked Wednesday, and officers had to force their way inside, Fourth District Commander Heather Kouts said Wednesday. She said the house was in disarray when officers arrived, as if someone had searched through several cupboards.
David Marx, an aviation ordnanceman, has been in the Navy since 1987 and was previously stationed in New Orleans, Navy spokeswoman Terry Davis said. She said she did not know why he might have been in New Orleans on Wednesday.
Next-door neighbor Edith McDonald-Loose told the newspaper that the couple’s son got a ride home from school because his mother had failed to pick him up as usual. He looked in the window, saw her body, and came to her house in a panic, McDonald-Loose said.
She said the boy had been eagerly anticipating his father’s retirement, and Mary Lou Marx’s spare time had all been spent with her family and fixing the house in time for her husband’s return.
Said McDonald-Loose: “She had absolutely no worries.”
