NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - A Virginia man choked his live-in girlfriend, and after her body decomposed for a week, he and a second man buried it behind a library, a prosecutor said Friday.
Robert Ardell Carroll, 42 is accused of choking Marcia Dumas, 45, and then hiding her body after she died, though he has not been charged with killing her, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
Carroll had a court hearing on Friday to have bond set, but a judge denied his request.
Carroll told homicide detectives that, between April 13 and April 15, he and Dumas got into an argument that turned physical, prosecutor Lily Wilder said at the hearing. During the fight, Wilder said, Carroll hit Dumas six times in the face, then choked her to the point where she passed out, the prosecutor said. When she awakened, Carroll pushed her and caused her to fall face first into a rock collection, Wilder said.
After she died, Carroll wrapped her body in trash bags before calling a friend with a truck, and the two of them dumped it behind the Tabb Library in York County.
Authorities charged Kevin S. Dunn, 43, with illegally disposing of a body. Dunn is not accused of any role in the woman’s death.
Carroll’s lawyer, assistant public defender Cailyn Butler, told the judge that Carroll and Dumas were doing drugs the day Dumas died. She overdosed and Carroll tried to revive her, Butler said. After that failed, she said he admittedly made “a bad decision” to dump her body.
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