An elderly Washington, D.C., man stabbed his wife to death because he didn't want to eat the pancakes she made for him, authorities said Friday.
Stephen Schwartz, 85, hit 81-year-old Sharon Hilda Schwartz in the back on Sunday after he tried to force a sugary breakfast on her in an attempt to gain weight at her home in northwest Washington, D.C. It is said that he stabbed the body with a chisel. Federal criminal charges.
“I killed her, oh my god. I don't remember it being a crazy fight!” Schwartz said as he sat in the back seat of a police cruiser.
The murder suspect told detectives that he had lost up to 50 pounds during recent hospitalizations due to physical and mental illness, and Sharon was trying to gain the weight back.
Schwartz described his wife as “a bit of a taskmaster,” but admitted it was because “she loved him so much.” [she] “She wanted him to get better and she wanted her partner and guardian back,” the document states.
Sharon reportedly ate a quarter of a Krispy Kreme donut the day before, so she found out she wasn't going to have breakfast and shoved the pancakes on her.
Schwartz relented, but quickly changed his mind, sparking a deadly altercation.
“next [he] “I could hear the plate hitting the wall,” the affidavit states.
That's when Schwartz allegedly grabbed a carving knife from the butcher's block and stabbed it into Sharon's back.
A neighbor heard screams coming from inside the house and called the couple's son, but when he arrived minutes later, he pushed his mother's body away and entered the house.
“I stabbed her and then I stabbed myself,” Schwartz reportedly told her son before handing him the knife.
When police arrived, Schwartz had grabbed another knife and was pressing it against his abdomen, documents allege.
After punching themselves, the officers fired a Taser to disarm Schwartz and then arrested him.
He and his wife were taken to the hospital, where Sharon was pronounced dead.
A subsequent autopsy report found that she had been stabbed once in the back and that the blade had pierced her heart.
“I want to die so badly…I can't hold down food and she was trying to make me eat and we fought. She screamed and threw it at me. I have depression and unbalanced eating. “There are two diagnoses: what happened and what exactly happened,” Schwartz allegedly told police.
“She doesn't deserve it, I don't deserve it, and she doesn't deserve it.”
Schwartz was released from the hospital and arrested Thursday on a charge of second-degree murder while armed, federal prosecutors announced.
“The defendant stabbed her in the back because he did not want to eat the pancakes she had made,” the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia said in a statement.
He maintained his innocence, even though he allegedly confessed to the crime shortly after committing the crime.
Mr. Schwartz was remanded without bail.
