ST PAUL, Minn. — A St. Paul man is charged with second-degree murder after allegedly telling police he shot his wife in the head inside their home in the north end neighborhood.
Police say 46-year-old Johnny Ray Aldridge called 911 early Tuesday morning, told dispatchers he was waiting in the parking lot at police headquarters and had killed his wife.
Police arrested Aldridge, who told them his dead wife, 41-year-old Caitlin Aldrige, his 13-year-old daughter and his dog were still inside the home on the 30 block of Winnipeg Ave. W. Officers responded and found the victim laying face down in an upstairs bedroom.
A criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County Court says investigators interviewed the teen, who reportedly told them her father had been suffering from PTSD and "wasn't himself" since being shot in June. She said he carried a gun, acted scared and was very hard on his wife, with the two of them fighting over small things over the past few days. The girl told police she went to bed and did not see or hear anything that happened between Aldridge and his wife.
When he was questioned, Aldridge allegedly told detectives he believed his teen daughter was pregnant and that he thought his wife had been prostituting the child. He said Caitlin Aldridge laughed off his daughter being pregnant, which made him so mad he shot her with a gun he kept under his pillow.
Follow-up tests showed the 13-year-old was not pregnant, as Johnny Aldridge had claimed.
If found guilty of murder, the defendant faces a potential 40-year prison sentence.