'Act of betrayal': Husband stabs newlywed wife to death in Home Depot parking lot after argument over annulment

An Arizona hubby volition walk astir 2 decades successful situation aft helium stabbed his caller woman to decease pursuing a quarrel astir an annulment.

Stephen Dennis, 38, was sentenced to 18 years down bars aft pleading blameworthy to second-degree murder successful the decease of 37-year-old Aliccia Grant successful Phoenix. According to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, constabulary responded successful the aboriginal greeting hours of Sept. 9 to a Home Depot successful northbound Phoenix.

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Witnesses said they heard a woman, aboriginal identified arsenic Grant, screaming for help. They recovered her sitting successful the driver's spot of a reddish Toyota Prius, suffering from aggregate stab wounds. Dennis was successful the rider spot and exited the car earlier arguing with a bystander, grabbing a bag, and running.

As the officers who were archetypal to get applied unit to Grant's wounds, she "made a dying declaration to him identifying Dennis arsenic her attacker," prosecutors said.

Paramedics rushed Grant to the hospital, wherever doctors pronounced her dead. Not agelong aft the incident, Dennis called 911 to study that helium had stabbed his wife. He besides told cops wherever they could find the execution weapon, which they aboriginal recovered.

Dennis aboriginal said the mates had been precocious joined and were arguing astir an annulment astatine the clip of the stabbing, per prosecutors.

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"This wasn't conscionable a convulsive transgression — it was an enactment of betrayal carried retired by idiosyncratic who should person been a root of safety, not fear," County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said successful a statement. "There is thing particularly cruel astir a execution that takes spot wrong a narration that's intended to beryllium built connected trust. We volition proceed to aggressively prosecute and clasp convulsive home abusers accountable."

Grant near down 2 children. Her friends remembered her for her "endlessly hopeful energy," a GoFundMe leafage said.

"Aliccia saw nary imagination arsenic excessively big. She chased hers with unfastened eyes and a afloat heart. She was a self-made entrepreneur, cosmetologist, author, and model. Her communicative is 1 of perseverance and the powerfulness of believing successful yourself," the relationship reads.