Minneapolis Wife Strangled With Phone Cord After Filing For Divorce: Charges

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — A Minneapolis man was charged with second-degree murder in the strangulation death of his wife, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Tuesday. Tony Le, 55, is expected to make his first court appearance Wednesday in the death of his wife in the bathroom of their home on West 61st Street.

According to the criminal complaint, police were called to the home about 8:40 a.m. Monday and when they arrived, Le told officers “my wife is dead.” He led an officer to a basement bathroom where the 48-year-old woman was lying in a fetal position on the floor. Paramedics pronounced her dead, although the exact cause awaits the results of the autopsy.

Le told police that his wife of 20 years returned home between 3 and 4 a.m. Monday and the two began arguing in his wife’s downstairs bedroom. She went into the bathroom and he followed her, strangling her with a phone cord, the complaint states.

(For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Minnesota Patch, click here to find your local Minnesota Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Le also told police that in the past month his wife said she wanted a divorce and they had another fight after he said she insulted him in front of others. According to the complaint, after that argument Le went to Vietnam for three weeks and when he returned home, discovered she had filed divorce papers.

Image via Shutterstock