Man turns self in 29 hours after murdering wife

Jonathan Edelen
Jonathan Edelen

DALLAS (TIP): An internal investigation will be conducted into how Dallas Police handled a disturbance this week. Officers may have arrived at the scene of a murder Monday, June 22 night without taking immediate action, police said.

A man called police to tell them he had suffocated his wife over 24 hours after the murder.

Jonathan Edelen, 34, admitted early Wednesday, June 24 morning to suffocating his wife after a fight late Monday night at a Dallas apartment, police said.

Police said Edelen “gave a voluntary statement” to officers, saying he had killed his wife, 28-year-old Ceaira Ford on June 22. Edelen admitted to killing Ford by holding a pillow over her head.

“Put the cuffs on me and take me to jail, I killed my wife,” Edelen said, according to the arrest affidavit released by Dallas Police.

Officers were first sent to the scene when a neighbor, a woman in her 90s, called to report a disturbance Monday night at 10:45 p.m., according to Randy Blankenbaker of Dallas PD. The woman didn’t answer her door when officers arrived, he said.

A man who police believe is a close friend of Edelen’s answered the door at the unit where Ford was killed, Blankenbaker said. Blankenbaker said that, when officers arrived just after 11 p.m., Edelen may have been in another room with a deceased Ford. The man who answered the door told officers he was home alone.

Police were working Thursday to determine whether that close friend played a role in the homicide.

Blankenbaker said Edelen’s mother and two children, ages 4 and 6, were at the apartment with them Monday night. Police left the scene thinking no disturbance had occurred, Blankenbaker said.

Edelen called police just before 4 a.m. Wednesday, roughly 29 hours after suffocating Ford, to report that his wife had stopped breathing.

The arrest affidavit indicates that Edelen told police his wife “wouldn’t stop talking” after she called Edelen to come home from work Monday night. Edelen’s account of the fight included him taking a TV out to the patio to destroy it in order to keep Ford from talking, the affidavit reads.

The couple left the patio and continued to fight in the bedroom, where Edelen told police he placed a pillow over Ford’s head until she stopped moving.

Edelen was charged with murder and placed in Dallas County’s Lew Sterrett Justice Center, according to police. Records show he was being held on $500,000 bond.

An investigation was ongoing.

 

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