'Dead in the bathtub': Man who slit wife's throat and then hammered knife into her heart to ensure he'd finished the job learns his fate

A antheral successful Pennsylvania volition not spot extracurricular situation walls for the remainder of his beingness aft helium admitted to slitting his wife's pharynx and past repeatedly plunging a weapon into her chest to marque definite she was dead.

James Christopher Frank, 58, pleaded blameworthy to first-degree murder successful the decease of 55-year-old Deborah Glaser, tribunal records reviewed by Law&Crime show.

He was subsequently sentenced connected Wednesday to beingness successful situation without the anticipation of parole, Philadelphia ABC affiliate WPVI reported.

On the evening of March 11, 2025, officers with the Bethlehem Township Police Department were dispatched to a location successful the 2100 artifact of 3rd Street successful Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a metropolis astir 70 miles northbound of Philadelphia. According to a property release issued astatine the clip by the Northampton County District Attorney's Office, a household subordinate had told constabulary that "they were disquieted astir the residents" successful the home.

Police announced themselves astatine the doorway and windows but got nary effect until they raised a ladder to a second-story model and recovered Frank inside, per a probable origin affidavit obtained by Lehigh Valley Live. When they told him to unfastened the door, helium seemingly told police, "My woman is dormant successful the bathtub."

Officers entered the location and proceeded to the bathroom, wherever they recovered Glaser with aggregate stab wounds. Also successful the country were "various cutting instruments, including knives, razor blades, and container cutters, on with a hammer and a mallet."

"Frank admitted to constabulary that helium utilized a steak weapon to chopped Glaser's pharynx successful the trachea country portion she was inactive alive," the property merchandise said. "Frank past admitted to utilizing a weapon and a hammer to puncture Glaser's thorax and heart, estimating helium did truthful astir 10 times."

The suspect reportedly conceded that "the intent of these actions was to guarantee Glaser was deceased."

Authorities pronounced Glaser dormant astatine the scene. Frank was arrested and initially charged with transgression homicide.

District Attorney Stephen Baratta told Allentown autarkic news presumption WFMZ that Frank hadn't shown up for enactment the time earlier his wife's assemblage was discovered, nor had helium called in. He was likewise absent from his occupation the time the grisly find was made.

"He admitted to having sliced her cervix open. It was a beauteous gruesome injury," Baratta said. "We can't corroborate however agelong she had been dead, but it was beauteous wide that it was galore hours anterior to the constabulary response."

"It was gruesome and connected a precise quality level, upsetting, particularly fixed that it's a home situation," helium added.