Man Stabbed Wife to Death on 10th Anniversary

Chicago - A man stabbed his wife more than 20 times before calling a hearing-impaired interpreter and admitting he killed her on their 10th anniversary, prosecutors said on Friday.

Charles Hughes, 40, was charged with one count of first-degree murder in the death of 44-year-old Debra Haywood-Hughes, police said.

On Friday, Hughes was denied bond and a preliminary hearing was set for Sept. 15, Cook County State's Attorney's office spokesman Andy Conklin said.

The murder happened at 3:41 a.m. Wednesday in in an apartment in the 7000 block of South King Drive, police said.

Hughes, who is mute and deaf, along with his wife, called a sign language interpreting service he relied on to communicate and signed that he had just killed his wife and told the operator to call police to take him away, court records said.

Just 12 minutes later, Hughes again called 911 and was dispatched to another sign language operator. The operator could see Hughes with blood on his hands and signed to her that he had just stabbed his wife and the knife was in the kitchen. He told her his wife had been dead for two hours, prosecutors alleged.

When officers responded to the apartment, they found Haywood-Hughes at the bottom of the stairs leading to their second floor apartment covered with blood with stab wounds to the torso area, court records said.

Hughes was shirtless and was holding the bloody knife in his hand, prosecutors said. He then dropped the knife and held out his hands in a "cuff me" motion.

A large amount of blood was found in the apartment and a blood trail was found near the second floor apartment where she was was found.

The medical examiner's office ruled Haywood-Hughes' death a homicide due to multiple stab wounds.

Prosecutors said she was stabbed 20 times, including four to five times in the back, seven to the front chest area and five to the stomach. Both her lungs and heart were punctured from the wounds.

Hughes was convicted of aggravated criminal sexual assault in 1994, court records indicated.