Florida: Jeffrey Thacker, 65, accused of stabbing his wife to death with a pair of scissors and locking her Dalmatian in a bedroom without food or water until it died

FLORIDA -- After a neighbor realized it had been several days since he had seen Jaden Lynn Kincade on regular evening walks with the rescue dog she had recently adopted, he said he called Fort Lauderdale police.

That led investigators to a macabre discovery in the small cluttered house at 2019 NE 14 Court.

Inside one bedroom was the decomposing body of a woman. Police identified her as Kincade, 51.

In another bedroom was the body of the dog, a Dalmatian, according to police.

And walking around the house Tuesday was Jeffrey Lynn Thacker, 65, Kincade’s husband.

After opening the door, he told investigators that he was defending himself when his wife attacked him with a pair of scissors in a fight that happened sometime before Valentine’s Day, February 14.

“I killed her. I stabbed her with a pair of scissors,” Thacker told police, the complaint affidavit said.

When Thacker opened the door to officers, he had what appeared to be blood on his clothing, and a visible laceration to his left arm and a bleeding cut on his chest, police said. He was taken to Broward Health Medical Center for treatment, police said. Records did not indicate when or how Thacker obtained his injuries.

Thacker told investigators he took the scissors from his wife after he was stabbed, and “made a slashing motion in front of him from left to right, demonstrating how he killed his wife,” police wrote in the report.

Interviewed at the hospital by a detective, Thacker was advised of his right to remain silent and then told detectives that his wife “said 'live or die', then the scissors went flying and she hit me really hard...in the lower back.”

Thacker then asked for a lawyer, police reported.

The Broward Medical Examiner found that Kincade had more than 25 stab wounds. Her death was ruled a homicide.

A necropsy found the suspected cause of death for the dog was starvation, according to the report. “The dog’s body was in a state of decomposition and it appeared that it had been locked in the bedroom without food or water,” police reported.

The dog had been dead between two weeks and a month, according to a Coral Springs veterinarian who examined the remains.

Thacker is charged with committing a dangerous depraved murder without premeditation and causing the cruel death pain and suffering of an animal.

Thacker was arrested Thursday but has not yet appeared in court due to medical issues.

CAREER CRIMINAL
Thacker has an extensive police record, with several arrests for burglary, cocaine possession and trafficking in stolen property. He was released from prison in February 2000 after serving more than six years following a burglary conviction, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

Broward court records indicate that Thacker and Kincade acquired a marriage license taken in 2009, but were not married until 2015, when he was 63 and she was 49.

In 2013 Kincade named Thacker in a domestic violence complaint, according to Broward court records.

ARREST INFO:
Full Name: Jeffrey Lynn Thacker
Gender: Male
Birthdate: 03/26/1952
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 140 lbs
Hair Color: GRY
Eye Color: HAZ
Arrest Age:65
Date:04/27/2017
Arresting Agency: FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA
Total Bond: $2500
Charges
#1 MURDER DANGEROUS DEPRAVED W/O PREMEDITATION
STATUTE: 782.04-2

#2 CAUSE CRUEL DEATH PAIN AND SUFFERING-ANIMAL
STATUTE: 828.12-2
BOND: $2500

(Sun Sentinel - May 2, 2017)