A North Georgia man has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his wife and concealing her death for 24 to 36 hours, officials said.
Steven Marcus Denson, 43, of LaFayette, agreed Thursday to a sentence of life with the possibility of parole on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.
Denson was arrested in November 2015 after he shot his wife, Christina Michelle Carroll Denson, with a handgun, the newspaper reported.
He said the shooting was accidental, officials said.
Denson said he and his wife were in the bedroom about 11 p.m. on the night of the shooting, and he heard rustling outside. He though it might have been a prowler, because people had recently been prowling near their home in recent weeks.
Denson said he grabbed a .22 gun from his wife's nightstand, even though he was a convicted felon and was not supposed to be around guns.
He said he and his wife got up to see what was going on, they bumped into each other, and the gun went off, according to the newspaper. He later realized the noise outside was from dogs.
Steven Denson later put his wife’s car in the woods so people would think she wasn't home, according to a news release from Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Herbert “Buzz” Franklin. He also cleaned the floor and dressed his wife’s body in new clothes.
“He claimed all along it was an accidental-type shooting,” Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said. “Our question all along was: Why did you clean her up, redress her and keep her in the bed for two days? I don't know if we ever got an answer to that.”
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