BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — An 83-year-old Bakersfield man is facing murder charges after police say he shot and killed his 85-year-old wife in their front yard Thursday morning following a domestic violence incident.
Bakersfield police responded to a call of domestic violence in a southwest neighborhood on Tulane Park Place Thursday morning. When officers arrived, they found Emma Wildrick, 85, shot dead in the front yard. Her husband, 83-year-old Michael Wildrick, was taken into custody.
Neighbor Herb Smith said he witnessed the aftermath of the shooting.
"I came out of my bedroom door and came around to the gate and saw my neighbor Emma lying in the ground, and I later discovered that she had been shot," Smith said.
Smith, who moved to the neighborhood a little more than two years ago, des