Wife Arrested in Man’s Stabbing Death

A 38-year-old woman was arrested for allegedly stabbing her estranged husband to death while he slept in their Sun Valley home, and then attempting to make it appear to be the work of an intruder, Los Angeles police said Thursday.

Mary L. Kellel-Sophiea was arrested on suspicion of murder Wednesday night and was being held without bail at the Van Nuys jail, police said.

She called police at 3 a.m. Wednesday and reported that she found her husband, Gregory Kellel-Sophiea, in his bed, stabbed to death. She said she and the couple’s 6-year-old daughter had been sleeping in other bedrooms in the house in the 9700 block of Orcas Avenue and had not heard the attack by an intruder.

Lt. Bernard D. Conine said police found pry marks on a door to the house but inconsistencies in Mary Kellel-Sophiea’s statements and other evidence in the house led to her arrest.

“The evidence indicates she attacked him while he was sleeping,” Conine said. “It was made to look like a break-in occurred.”

Detectives said the couple had recently separated and Mary Kellel-Sophiea and her daughter had been living in the Long Beach area. But on Tuesday night she went to the home to sign papers allowing her husband to sell the house and then decided to stay overnight along with her daughter, both sleeping in bedrooms separate from her husband’s.

Police said the exact motive for the killing was unclear but it was believed to be rooted in the couple’s marital problems.