TACOMA, Wash. — Prosecutors said the death of a 19-year-old Lakewood woman was a crime of passion and jealousy, not an accident as her husband first claimed.
Skylar Nemetz has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife, Danielle. Nemetz shot his wife in the back of the head as she sat at her computer on the night of Thursday Oct. 13, according to a probable cause affidavit. She was found slumped over after Nemetz called 911.
Nemetz at first told a neighbor his wife had shot herself, then claimed the AR-15 rifle discharged accidentally as he was putting it away.
“The true story is the defendant shot his wife because he believed she was cheating on him,” said Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Lindquist.
The 20-year-old Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier had just returned from a training exercise when investigators say he found out someone had purchased alcohol for his wife. Enraged, prosecutors say Nemetz shot her from behind as she sat at the computer.
Nemetz pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder during his arraignment in Pierce County Superior Court on Wednesday. He is being held on $1 million bail.
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