A 31-year-old Pennsylvania woman has traded in her wedding ring for handcuffs and stands charged with the murder of her fiancé on what would have been their wedding day.
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Police say Na Cola Darcel Franklin, 31, the bride-to-be, fatally stabbed her would-be groom, Billy Rafael Brewster, the Allentown Morning Call reported Monday. The Whitehall Township, Pa., woman was in such shock over the incident that she was in apparent denial as she appeared before a judge on Saturday.
“You got to check again,” Franklin beseeched Judge Donna Butler.
But her response didn’t change a thing, the Morning Call reported; Brewster was pronounced dead by the Lehigh County coroner earlier that day.
Police were called to the apartment the couple shared and found Brewster outside bleeding from the chest early Saturday morning. The two were set to marry in a 10 a.m. ceremony, and relatives and friends had come into town for the celebration. Two relatives heard them fighting in their living room and jumped between them as Franklin swung the blade. They tackled her and knocked the knife from her hand, but not before she had cut her fiance.
It was unclear what the argument was over, or how it began. Neighbors gave no indication that their relationship was volatile, but some children who lived in the adjacent apartment said they heard arguing early Saturday.
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The couple lived in the apartment with three children, the Morning Call said, but did not indicate their relation to the couple.
At her videoconferenced arraignment, Franklin sat in Lehigh County Prison in disbelief as she was being charged in the homicide.
“I … did … not … kill … him … on … purpose,” she bellowed. “I want my family back, I want to go home.”
To which the judge retorted: “You are not going home any time in the near future.”