Detectives with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Division have charged a Litchfield Park man with the 2015 murder of his wife. Elias O. Udechime,
age 54, was charged on September 5, 2017, with Second Degree Murder in the death of his wife, Chinonye Anenechi Udechime.
Udechime is being held in the Maricopa County Jail on $500,000 bond.
MCSO Deputies were called by Elias Udechime to his home just after 5:00 a.m. on September 24, 2015. Elias Udechime claimed to have found his wife in bed, not breathing and cold to the touch. He told investigators she had taken medication the night before and had made suicidal statements to him in the past. Investigators questioned Elias Udechime that day and learned that the couple had been involved in a domestic violence fight in February 2015. Elias Udechime had been arrested for domestic violence assault.
The victim’s body was taken to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner for an autopsy. In June of 2016, the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, William T. Stano III, MD, ruled that Ms. Udechime’s death was a homicide.
MCSO Major Crimes Division Homicide Detectives continued their investigation and on September 5, 2017, an arrest warrant was issued for Elias Udechime for Second Degree Murder. MCSO’s Fugitive Apprehension and Tactical Enforcement Unit (FATE) located and arrested him without incident.