A 65-year-old Maryland man has been charged with the murder of his ex-wife a week after authorities say he staged the killing to look like a botched burglary.
Karl Danny Geiger told WBAL he called 911 when he came home from work on the evening of September 15, found his ex-wife — 69-year-old Patricia Watson-Geiger — dead in the bedroom, and called 911.
The couple had been divorced in 2019 but chose to live in the house as roommates, he said.
Court documents say he told the same story to investigators, Law&Crime reported. He said he’d left for work at about 7:30 that morning, returning at about 8:30 that night.
“It looks like somebody broke into my house and my wife’s not moving,” Geiger told a 911 dispatcher that night, according to a probable cause statement for his arrest. “[Geiger] described his house to look ransacked, and described his wife (ex-wife) to be unresponsive.”
Geiger said drawers were opened in his bedroom as well, although it appeared nothing had been taken. He told police he “had no idea that [Watson-Geiger] had been shot” until detectives informed him during the interview
And that’s when Geiger’s story began to fall apart, the documents say. A witness told police that Geiger told them the day after the murder that his ex-wife had been shot in the head. But police say that “at no point during this investigation did anyone tell the defendant where the victim was shot,” the affidavit said.
In fact, the documents say, Geiger told detectives during a follow-up interview on September 22 “that he still didn’t know where the victim was shot.”
Other witnesses cast doubt on the time Geiger said he left for work — including one who said they were walking their dog between 8 and 8:30 a.m. and heard gunshots. Then detectives obtained surveillance video from a nearby home that captured the sound of gunshots just before 8 a.m. Another video showed Gieger’s “rollback tow truck” leaving the residence at about 8:15 a.m. — some 45 minutes after he said he left for work.
Cell phone records also put Geiger still at the home until that time, police said.
Geiger was arrested on Wednesday and charged with first degree murder. He’s being held without bond.
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[Featured image: Karl Danny Geiger/handout]
