Husband charged with wife’s death

A Spokane Valley man who drove his children across the state to his mother’s home before turning himself in to police in connection with his wife’s death was charged with first-degree murder Wednesday.

Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker said paperwork filed Wednesday morning in Spokane County Superior Court charges Anselmo R. Braffith III with his wife’s death by domestic violence.

Braffith, 24, had been held in the Pierce County Jail on $250,000 bail while authorities investigated the death of his wife, Jamie Braffith, 25, also known as Jamie Phillips. Anselmo Braffith was expected to be returned from Tacoma to Spokane sometime today, Tucker said.

Braffith went to the Tacoma jail Saturday evening and told an officer: “I need to report a crime. It’s a murder and I need to talk to a detective,” Chief Pierce County Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Gerald Costello wrote in court papers.

Braffith told police he argued with his wife because he believed she had had an affair, Costello said. Braffith said he confronted his wife and they had an argument that included “some hitting.”

After his wife was dead, Braffith told police he panicked, gathered the four children in the home and drove to his mother’s home in Tacoma. His mother urged him to turn himself in.

Spokane Valley police found the wife’s body at the foot of the basement stairs.

The children included 10-year-old Desmond, Jamie Braffith’s son from a previous relationship; and three children she had with Braffith: 7-year-old A.J., 2-year-old Jada and 7-month-old Josiah, said Loralee Phillips, Jamie’s stepmother.

Tucker said he did not know the status of the children Wednesday.