A Georgia man who cut his wife’s throat with a pocketknife because she wanted to move to Florida was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty, officials said.
Roxanne Tenore wanted to live the rest of her life in Florida with her husband and their children.
She never got that chance.
When she told her husband, Donny William Eaton, of her plans, he cut her throat with a pocketknife and left her for dead inside their Marietta home.
As jury selection was about to begin in his trial Monday, Eaton, 65, pleaded guilty to malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault and was sentenced to life in prison, Cobb County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Kim Isaza said Tuesday in a news release.
“Donny Eaton took the life of his wife in a gruesome manner, with it appearing that he was attempting to decapitate her, all because she wanted to be closer to her children and grandchildren in Florida to live out the remainder of their lives,” Senior Assistant District Attorney Patricia Hull said in the courtroom.
Eaton admitted in court he cut his wife’s throat on April 4, 2017. The couple argued after he learned Tenore bought a house in St. Lucie County, Florida, Isaza said.
After the stabbing, Eaton drove to his mother’s gravesite in Silver Creek, where he called 911 and confessed to killing his wife. He also requested that officers pick him up. Silver Creek is roughly 61 miles north of downtown Atlanta.
Floyd County authorities notified Cobb police of the killing. Police found Tenore, 66, in a kneeling position, her head resting on a sofa with “countless” knife wounds on her face and neck.
Eaton eventually turned himself in at the Bartow County Sheriff’s Office, where he recounted the argument leading to the deadly attack.
“(He) refused to leave their home in Georgia,” Hull said in court. “If he couldn’t have her here with him in Georgia, he didn’t want her children to have her, either.”
