St. Louis Post-Dispatch
June 5, 1998
Author: The Associated Press
Thomas Deas says he is ready to bury the hatchet with his wife, Aldine – even after she literally buried one in him.
“I still love her. I don’t care,” Deas, 53, said after he was discharged from a Peoria hospital, where he was treated for a gash in his neck that was 5 inches long and an inch deep. “If she gets crazy and cuts my head off, I still love her,” said Deas, who’s been married to his wife for 16 years. “I’d take her back.”
Police said the attack happened Monday night at the couple’s trailer home in Morton, in central Illinois. “I turned around and pulled a hatchet out of my neck. I said, `Aldine, I think you killed me. Call 911,’ ” Deas said. “She did.”
Tazewell County prosecutors charged Aldine Deas, 55, with attempted first-degree murder. She was being held in the Peoria County Jail.
Deas said his wife has been acting strangely lately and blamed her behavior on antidepressant drugs.