U.S. murder suspect blames medicine

The alarming admission was delivered between laboured breaths and anguished pauses. “I think I killed my (wife) ...” a man’s low voice says on the phone.

The 911 operator asks him to elaborate: “What — what do you mean by that? What happened?”

“I had a dream and then I turned on the lights and she’s dead on the floor,” the man says. “Um, I have blood all over me and there’s a bloody knife on the bed and I think I did it.”

So begins a disturbing 6½-minute call, made just after 1 a.m. Friday, in which North Carolina resident Matthew Phelps, 27, appears to confess to killing his wife, Raleigh police said.

In audio from the emergency call, published by the Raleigh News & Observer, Phelps can be heard sobbing as he expresses bewilderment over what took place; he tells the dispatcher that he doesn’t know what time it is or when he woke up. He does say he took cough medicine before he went to bed.

“I took more medicine than I should have,” Phelps says. “I took Coricidin ... She’s not moving. Oh my God.” Coricidin is a cough and cold medication made by Bayer.

When police arrived at the home in northeast Raleigh, they discovered 29-year-old Lauren Phelps with multiple stab wounds.

Matthew Phelps was arrested Friday and charged with murder. He is scheduled to make a court appearance Tuesday.