SPOKANE-- A Mead husband accused of killing his wife in front of their son faced a judge on Monday.
46-year-old Jeff Canino is charged with stabbing his wife, Michelle, to death in the couple’s home last week.
Canino was treated for what detectives call a self-inflicted stab wound.
He was released from the hospital and booked into jail.
Monday was his first court appearance in the case, but it isn’t the first time Canino has been in trouble.
Canino’s attorney asked the judge not to read the statement of facts in open court which details just how horrible the alleged attack was for the couple’s son to see.
In court, Canino kept his answers short, as a judge told him over and over again he can’t have any contact with his 11-year-old son.
The son is the one person who witnessed what happened the morning his mother was killed.
According to court documents, the boy was in the family car last Wednesday waiting for his mom to take him to the dentist.
When she didn’t come out, he went back in.
On the kitchen floor, he saw Michelle bleeding from three stab wounds to the neck.
She told her son she was dying and told him to call 911.
Detectives who reviewed the call heard the boy yell, “Dad you’re killing her”… “I don’t want you guys to get in a fight like this.”
Michelle herself got on the line and told the operator her husband stabbed her.
The couple’s son later told detectives, “His father was depressed about possibly losing his job at Camp Chevrolet.”
After the attack, when the son asked why he’d stabbed his mom, Canino allegedly said it was because Michelle wanted a divorce.
In that moment, the son says Canino turned the knife on himself and yelled “it’s my turn.”
The boy tried to stop his father from cutting his throat, but Canino kept pushing his son down.
The wound across Canino’s low neck is the only one that was visible in court Monday.
Detectives who interviewed Canino in the hospital say he admitted to being in the kitchen arguing with his wife, and seeing her bleeding.
But Canino denied remembering anything more about what happened.
Court documents say “Canino denied any further memory of the event.”
Detectives checked Canino’s criminal history and found he had violated a domestic violence restraining order filed by his first wife in 1993.
Bail is set at $2.5 million.
