Kenneth Wakefield, 43, was booked by Phoenix police on one count of first-degree murder and two counts of animal cruelty and is being held on a $2 million bond, officials said.
Wakefield had been hospitalized after removing a portion of his own arm and gouging out one of his eyes, officials said.
The horrific scene was discovered just after 9:45 a.m. last Saturday in the area of 13th Place and Colter Street, police said.
Sgt. Trent Crump, a police spokesman, gave this account of the incident:
A male neighbor knocked on the door of the apartment to check on Wakefield, whom he hadn't seen since the day before. When Wakefield answered the door naked, his left arm was severed at the elbow and his right eyeball was missing.
The neighbor could see that the apartment's floors and walls were covered in blood and immediately contacted authorities.
Phoenix police officers found the decapitated body of Wakefield's wife,Trina Heisch, 49, and two mutilated dogs inside the apartment.
"It was an absolutely horrific scene," Crump said.
Wakefield spoke with police officers outside the apartment and indicated that he "killed three family members," Crump said.
Crump added that Wakefield has a "known mental illness" and that police had received disturbance calls to the apartment regarding the couple.
"These two have a history of a domestic-violence relationship," he said.
Authorities later released information that Wakefield had been arrested in 2003 after being accused of attempting to kill a family member and that Heisch was arrested in March after being accused of domestic violence. She was accused of trying to stab her husband.
Family members told officers that the couple had a history of mental illness and married after meeting in a mental-health facility.
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