JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A 61-year-old man who told police he beat his wife to death in February pleaded not guilty Thursday to her murder.
Police said Billy Ray Martin, 61, told them he beat his wife, Lou Ellen Martin, 61, to death "because there were entities inside her body he needed to get out."
Recommended Videos
His next court date was set for April 27.
Billy Ray Martin was arrested during a traffic stop on charges of battery, assault and reckless driving, unrelated to his wife's death.
Police said Martin went to a gas station, addressed a black man with a racial slur, then punched him. Police said Martin did the same thing at at a local supermarket earlier in the day.
Martin was placed in a mental health facility for psychiatric evaluation.
He was charged with his wife's murder days later after her body was found in the patio of their home after neighbors called police, concerned that Lou Ellen Martin had not been seen for several days. Officers found her dead inside the home on Urban Street, just off Roosevelt Boulevard, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
The police report said her body was concealed under a comforter and police found a handgun and a note threatening violence against others in the home. An autopsy showed that Lou Ellen Martin died of blunt-force trauma.
"He knocked on a neighbor's door early on the Thursday morning, around 6 o'clock, and made some statements that were just either incoherent or unusual and the neighbor dismissed them at the time," JSO Lt. Steve Gallaher said.
According to witnesses, that was hours before Billy Ray Martin attacked two men, one at a grocery store and another at a gas station.
Billy Ray Martin was in jail, arrested the day before for punching a man at a grocery store and another at a gas station.
Phillip Martin III said he was simply standing in line at the gas station when Billy Ray Martin, who is no relation to Phillip, kept asking him for money. Phillip said that when he refused, Billy Ray Martin got violent.
“He said, 'I'm going to get a bat, and I'm going to kill you,'” Phillip Martin said. “He said I ought to get that fire extinguisher over there and hit you with it, and he kept asking the people, 'Why are you protecting him? He's a demon.'”
Phillip Martin said he never imagined that the man he said attacked him would later be accused of killing his wife.
“He started throwing verbal insults at me and said he was going to kill me. 'I'm going to kill you,'” Phillip Martin said. “That's what he said, 'I'm going to kill you,' and called me a demon, all kinds of things.”
Billy Ray Martin is being held without bond.