CNN.com - Colonel: Porn led him to kill wife - Sep. 30, 2002 ANNAPOLIS JUNCTION, Maryland (AP) -- A lieutenant colonel at the Army War College pleaded guilty Monday to killing his wife, saying he beat and strangled her as they fought about his use of the Internet to find pornography.
Lt. Col. David Bartlett Jr., 46, reached a plea deal with prosecutors in the slaying of his 39-year-old wife, Suzanne.
Bartlett pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder, the military equivalent of second-degree murder. Prosecutors -- who had charged him with premeditated murder -- dropped assault and obstruction of justice counts.
Bartlett, the former branch chief of the operations research group at the Center for Strategic Leadership, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole at sentencing next month.
According to Bartlett, the couple argued for several days after his wife discovered he had been viewing pornography on the Internet. On March 19, he said, he beat her with an iron pestle and strangled her with a computer cord after she harassed him, called him names and shoved him.
Bartlett told police she never returned from a walk, but her body was found floating in a creek.