Update: Man charged with murdering girlfriend in their Badger Road home

Medical examiner say man's wounds are self-inflicted

Jessica VanEgeren, Bill Novak and Doug Shore  —  7/19/2008 7:45 am

Daniel L. Wright was formally charged with first degree intentional homicide and made his initial court appearance Friday afternoon. Wright, 50, is charged in the stabbing death of Cassandra Mays, who was pronounced dead Tuesday, July 15, at the apartment the two shared at 910 W. Badger Road.

Wright appeared in court with clear bandages covering wounds on his neck. He also wore a "suicide smock" instead of a traditional jail jumpsuit.

According to a criminal complaint filed Friday, Madison Police Detective Daniel Nale spoke with Wright on Wednesday. Wright told Nale he had gotten into an argument with Cassandra Mays, and Mays broke a glass tabletop and attempted to stab Wright with a piece of the broken glass. Wright said he armed himself with a pocket knife and admitted to stabbing Mays.

Forensic Pathologist Robert Corliss completed the autopsy of Mays. According to the complaint, Corliss told detective Rosa Aguila that Mays suffered four stab wounds to her back which pierced vital organs and multiple massive cuts and stab wounds to her face and neck. Mays also had wounds on her hands consistent with defending herself, said Corliss.

Corliss inspected Wright's neck as well and told Aguila the wounds on Wright's neck were "classic for self-inflicted injury, unlike the injuries to Cassandra Mays' neck, which were irregular multiplicitous and massive."

Corliss also said that Wright had small, hesitation wounds where he first tried to cut himself and one straight horizontal wound "consistent with having been self-inflicted."

"When someone is trying not to get their neck cut they move," said Corliss, "and (Wright's) wounds were ones which are classically self-inflicted as they are straight, horizontal, uniform and get progressively deeper and were never life-threatening "

Marilyn Smith, a friend of the victim, told Madison Police Detective Lisa Wing that Mays called her on July 8, according to a criminal complaint. Smith told police she could hear the couple arguing and that Wright told Mays "I'm gonna _ kill you if ya think you're gonna leave me." Smith also told police she heard Wright ask Mays, "Do you think you can throw away a five year relationship for some _hole" and say that he was "gonna cut her _ head off." According to Smith, Mays had a new boyfriend and was intending to move out of the apartment.

Assistant Public Defender Dennis Burke made no objection to Assistant District Attorney Robert Kaiser's recommendation that Wright remain held in Dane County Jail on $500,000 bail.

Officers arrived at a murder scene Tuesday on West Badger Road with the victim found "face down in a pool of blood," the living room of the apartment littered with broken glass, according to a search warrant filed Thursday in Dane County Circuit Court.

The warrant states that Wright called police to the couple's apartment to report a stabbing. A Madison police officer arrived to find Wright in the front yard. Wright's shirt was blood-stained, and he was holding his bare hand to his neck, according to the warrant, and Wright told the officer that "she and the knife were still inside of apartment No. 3."

When officers arrived at the couple's second-floor apartment, they found Mays in a pool of blood with trauma to her neck and puncture wounds to her back. Mays was pronounced dead at the scene by a Dane County deputy coroner at 3:42 p.m.

A three-inch folding knife with a handle and a belt clip were found under a coffee table in the living room. Pieces of glass also were found in the living room, some from a broken coffee table, others from a fish tank, as well as one large piece of reflective glass on the floor near the TV. One plastic baggy containing a white-colored, powdery substance was found on the top shelf of a spice rank over the sink in the kitchen.

Documents found inside the apartment indicate Mays sometimes used the name Cassandra Wright.

Wright was also being held in the Dane County Jail on outstanding warrants for two counts of bail jumping and a fourth operating after revocation offense.

According to Madison police, Wright was taken from a hospital to the jail on Thursday.

He was hospitalized Tuesday after police were called to the apartment building at 910 W. Badger Road shortly before 2 p.m.

When the incident first happened, police didn't know if a third party was involved, but ruled out a third party on Wednesday, centering on Wright as the likely suspect in the murder.

The four-unit apartment building where the murder took place has been a concern for police and neighbors and was included in a list of buildings the city wants declared as public nuisances, which would give the city the power to bill the property owners for police expenses related to incidents happening at the properties.

Jessica VanEgeren, Bill Novak and Doug Shore  —  7/19/2008 7:45 am