STILLWATER, Minn. — A Woodbury man is in custody and charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his wife, who he thought was cheating on him.
The charges against 39-year-old McKinley Juner Phillips are detailed in a criminal complaint that describes his alleged role in the murder, which took place last Friday inside the couple's home.
Squads were dispatched to a home on the the 7500 block of Steepleview Road in Woodbury just before 3:45 p.m. that day after a caller told 911 dispatchers that she had received a call from her son, who said he had killed his wife. The suspect, identified as Phillips, reportedly told his mother that he killed her because she was cheating on him, and that his wife's body was located in the basement of their home.
Prosecutors say Phillips' mother also informed dispatchers that six or seven children were in the home at the time of the murder, ranging in age from five to 15.
Law enforcement officers from a number of local departments surrounded the home, and safely removed the children. They found the 42-year-old victim in the basement but Phillips, the children's stepfather, was gone.
Investigators began looking for the suspect and at approximately 3 a.m. on Saturday, June 26 he was located on an eastbound Greyhound bus traveling through Monroe County, Wisconsin. Phillips was arrested and is currently being held in the Monroe County Jail.
Woodbury detectives traveled to the city of Sparta to interview Phillips. They say the defendant admitted he and his wife had been arguing after he found a letter from an old boyfriend. Phillips allegedly said things escalated, he punched her in the face multiple times, then stabbed her "a lot" of times with a pocketknife.
The defendant reportedly said he then left the home in his vehicle, abandoned it at SunRay shopping center in St. Paul then hopped a bus for Chicago, with the plan of ending up in New York City. It was on that bus he was arrested.
Police records show Woodbury police had been to the couple's home three times in the previous two months, and during those contacts police say Phillips appeared to be intoxicated and was hostile to officers.