Confession Tape and Arrest ..BELOW
Chilling recordings show a pensioner confess to stabbing his soon-to-be ex-wife to death, saying ‘I just lost it… I’ve had enough’.
David Maggs, 71, was arrested after knifing mum-of-two Linda, 74, as she lay in bed weeks before their divorce went through, Cardiff Crown Court heard.
He later told police his partner had ‘tried to steal two houses off me’ and ‘doesn’t know how to keep her mouth shut so I topped her’.
The retired accountant has admitted manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility, but denies murder.
Audio footage played to the court sees a distressed Maggs tell a 999 operator: ‘I’ve just killed the wife’.
The operator replies ‘You’ve just what sorry?’, leading him to repeat himself.
When the operator says, ‘Your wife is it?’, Maggs replies: ‘I stabbed her.’
When asked if he still has the knife with him, he says no and tells her Linda is in bed.
After being asked if she is still breathing or talking, the defendant says he thinks she’s ‘passed away’.
He can then be heard crying saying: ‘I don’t know I just lost it… Can you just come please. Please help me. Ah, God help me.’
Bodycam footage filmed later showed Maggs slumped on a sofa, telling cops: ‘I’ve had enough. Oh God, I’ve had enough’.
When asked what he has had enough of, Maggs replies: ‘She tried to steal two houses off me. Two houses for God’s sake.’
‘I spent five months in hospital last year… And she come to see me three times.
‘And for the rest of the time she ransacked the house got hold of all the paperwork, destroyed all the paperwork and tried to claim on this house as well as the other house.’
The couple had remained living together in their £200,000 home, despite their split.
Their divorce nisi was due to be granted in March 2021 but Linda died on February 6.
Later in his police interview, Maggs said: ‘Thirty years I’ve been married to her and she doesn’t know how to keep her mouth shut, so I topped her.’
Prosecutor Michael Jones QC previously told the trial Maggs went into his wife’s room armed with two large kitchen knives and repeatedly stabbed his wife in her bed.
Mr Jones said: ‘He was particularly agitated by the financial settlement of the divorce and believed he was going to significantly lose out to his wife.
‘He accused her of taking advantage of him financially and of hiding her own money away.
‘He thought she stood to gain financially and in his mind in a dishonest way.’
The trial, expected to last around four weeks, continues.
