Man pleads guilty to strangling wife
Couple had long history of conflict
A Rathdrum man pleaded guilty Wednesday to voluntary manslaughter for strangling his wife last spring, Kootenai County officials said.
On March 31, William Brinnon, then 46, met his adult son outside the family’s Cross Creek Road home and told him he had killed the younger man’s mother, Dana Brinnon, 43, authorities have said. The 21-year-old saw his mother lying on the floor inside the home and left to call 911.
When deputies arrived, neither man was home.
The husband was later spotted at a nearby office for a housing development, authorities said. He shot himself in the head when deputies entered, police said.
His wife’s body was found shortly afterward a few hundred yards west of that building. Brinnon had moved it from the home, authorities said.
The couple had a long history of domestic disputes, authorities said. William Brinnon was arrested in 1997 on suspicion of domestic battery. The citation said he pulled his wife’s hair. In a 2006 incident, Dana Brinnon was charged with domestic battery for trying to hit her husband with a shovel.
Dana Brinnon told deputies her husband had tried to choke her during an argument a day earlier.