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- The couple married in 2006. In December 2020, the couple argued. When she tried to get their son to call 911, he lifted her off the floor and covered her mouth. In September 2021, a criminal court ordered him to stay away from his wife, her home, her workplace and any place she was. The restraining order issued during the divorce proceedings was set to expire in September 2025. He responded with his own documents, including messages from a co-parenting app and a transcript of her statements to police in 2021.
Because he had been spending time with a woman who had previously been convicted of killing her husband, the wife said the posts frightened her even more.
The husband became angry, followed his wife up the stairs, pushed her into a room, strangled her and twisted her head, according to court records. A Washington woman sought a domestic violence protection order after her ex-husband allegedly tracked her spending and even accessed her home’s Alexa device, despite a court-issued no-contact order. They have one adult son, who was still a minor when the events that led to this case began. Police arrested him. He later pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault. After the incident, the husband moved out and filed for divorce. However, he had other plans. He kept contacting her anyway, the records show. That was when the husband began posting online about how he planned to ‘outlive’ his wife. Fearing for her life, the woman applied for a protection order that month. She submitted police reports, court orders, her own statements from the criminal case, a domestic violence assessment and screenshots of her husband’s Facebook posts.
The Washington Court of Appeals upheld a five-year protection order, rejecting his challenge, in the ruling issued on Monday, Nov.
Because he had been tracking her credit card purchases, he knew she was away. A month later, he came to the family home while his wife was out of town. The following month, he used an Alexa device inside the house to ‘drop in’ on the household. That same month, he accessed his wife’s email account and changed her password without her knowledge.
After hearing both sides in November 2025, a court commissioner issued the order, which protects her until 25 November 2030. However, the husband had shown no intention of complying with the order. The commissioner found that he had violated the no-contact order three times and continued watching his wife after the criminal case had ended. He had never completed a court-ordered domestic violence programme. A superior court judge denied his request to reconsider the decision and adopted the order as the court’s own. The husband appealed. He argued that he had moved out of state, that the court needed special evidence to justify a five-year order and that the judge had ignored his evidence challenging his wife’s credibility.