Willingboro woman kills husband with fire extinguisher, lawyer claims self-defense

[Jack Ryan]

Laciana Tinsley

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WILLINGBORO >> Laciana Tinsley did more than extinguish her relationship with her husband.

The 42-year-old Willingboro woman was charged Monday with killing her husband with a fire extinguisher inside their township residence on the first block of Hancock Lane, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office announced in a press release.

Tinsley, a former Jehovah’s Witness, bludgeoned her husband to death by striking him multiple times in the head with a fire extinguisher, prosecutors said.

The husband, 74-year-old Douglas Tinsley, was pronounced dead at the scene at approximately 12:30 p.m. on Monday.

Authorities did not immediately release a motive. An autopsy will be performed Tuesday.

Tinsley was arrested at the home. She was sent to Burlington County Jail and is scheduled to have her first appearance in court on Tuesday.

A public defender who appeared with Laciana Tinsley at her initial court appearance Tuesday said Douglas Tinsley was suffocating his wife at the time. The lawyer claims she was acting in self-defense.

In an April 2016 interview with the Trenton Monitor newspaper, Tinsley, a former Jehovah’s Witness, described her longing for a new faith. The mother of three children was baptized with her daughter at St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Burlington, the newspaper reported.

“I really feel God. I feel a connection; He is real,” Tinsley told the newspaper. “I want to let people in the Jehovah Witnesses become more informed about the Catholic faith. I want to involve people also in the black community.”

Monday’s murder marks a rapid pace of homicides in the small Burlington community that boasts a population of over 31,000.

In the past month and a half, there have been four homicides in the township.

Nasim Byrd, 22, of the first block of Placid Lane, was found suffering from multiple gunshot wounds on his street on Jan. 15. He died a short time later.

On Dec. 13, 16-year old Ibn Perry was shot to death on the first block of Plumtree Lane. Then on Dec. 27, Tariq Mughal, 32, was fatally shot on the first block of Genesee Lane.

No arrests have been made in any of the shooting murders.

Residents and officials took issue with a Trentonian cover calling the township “Killingboro,” but the bloodshed has been too noticeable to ignore.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.trentonian.com/general-news/20170131/willingboro-woman-kills-husband-with-fire-extinguisher-lawyer-claims-self-defense