A 61-year-old Prescott, Wis., man was charged with first-degree reckless homicide after his wife, Emilie Whaley, died from an apparent overdose of methadone, which he admitted to police that he gave her, according to the criminal complaint.
It is the third time in the past year an arrest has followed a fatal methadone overdose in the east-metro region.
Robert J. Whaley made his first appearance on Wednesday before Pierce County Circuit Judge Joseph Boles, where a signature bond of $25,000 was set, along with a preliminary hearing on Aug. 12.
According to the complaint, Whaley called police to his home about 4:11 a.m. Tuesday after his wife had stopped breathing. Police found her lying on a couch, and Whaley agitated, asking repeatedly, "Is she going to be all right?"
He told the first officer to arrive that he had obtained 100 milligrams of liquid methadone, and that he had taken half and his wife had taken the other half, the complaint adds. The officer began CPR, and was later joined by an ambulance crew, but after 40 minutes of effort she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators located a bottle in the trash at the home that had apparently contained the drug. Whaley told officers he called for help when his wife became unresponsive. While being questioned, he blurted out: "I killed her. I split it with her," adding that she was "pretty much out as soon as we took that crap."
According to the complaint, at one point he turned to an officer, crying, and said "I am so stupid, I killed her."
In the past year, two other people in the region have been arrested stemming from fatal overdoses of methadone, a powerful drug that is similar to morphine and used both as a pain reliever and to assist those withdrawing from addiction to narcotics such as heroin.
