PLANO, Texas (TCD) — Police have arrested a 38-year-old woman on suspicion of fatally shooting her ex-husband because she allegedly caught him on the phone with another woman.
According to a news release from the Plano Police Department, on April 19 at around 10:30 p.m., officers responded to a home on Monticello Circle, where they found 55-year-old David Nunley with an apparent gunshot wound to his upper body. Officials pronounced him dead at the scene.
The victim initially called police and reportedly said, “I’ve been shot,” KDFW-TV reports. Officials found Nunley’s body in the garage with a cellphone nearby, but they did not locate any weapons, according to an affidavit reviewed by KDFW.
Investigators identified Merridith Nunley, the victim’s ex-wife, as the primary suspect and believe the shooting to be a “domestic violence incident.”
Merridith Nunley allegedly admitted to a family friend that she shot the victim, and the individual reported it to police. The friend also reportedly told officials the victim and suspect were divorced, but they were “still kind of living together.”
According to KDFW, Nunley told the family friend that she killed her ex-husband because she caught him on the phone with another woman.
Officers reportedly tracked the suspect’s phone to an apartment parking lot and responded to the area. Nunley told police she shot her ex in self-defense and said, “David lost his temper, and he got physical with me,” KDFW reports. The woman further said she was “just in a trance” when she killed the victim. Nunley also reportedly asked how her ex-husband was doing, and she later surrendered to officers.
Following her arrest, Nunley allegedly told police she fatally shot her ex after she learned he was talking to an “illegal woman.”
Police recovered the weapon on the passenger seat of the suspect’s vehicle, KDFW reports.
Nunley and the victim reportedly divorced in 2022 and shared custody of their three children, who were not home during the incident.
Nunley faces a charge of murder and remains held in the Collin County Jail on $500,000 bond.
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