Cops: Man murders wife while kids hide nearby

updated 5:01 a.m. ET June 23, 2009

BROWNSBURG, Indiana - An Indiana man arrested Monday night was accused of stabbing his estranged wife to death while his two daughters, 12 and 8, hid in a closet. Authorities said the older girl called police and told a dispatcher, "Daddy killed Mommy."

Joseph L. Warnock, 41, was arrested about 9 p.m. in the same neighborhood of Brownsburg where he had once lived with his wife, Angela Warnock, 38, said Lt. Roger Call of the Hendricks County Sheriff's Department.

The wife was found stabbed in her bed at home on Sunday night. Investigators say the couple was going through a divorce and she had a protective order requiring him to stay away from her and their daughters.

The killing came two days after the wife obtained a two-year extension on the order.

Detective Sgt. Charles Morefield said Warnock forced his way into the home through a patio door just before midnight Sunday and went to a bedroom where his wife was sleeping with the girls.

Police said that when he began stabbing his wife, the girls ran into a closet and hid there for at least 15 minutes while their father was in the home.

When he left, the 12-year-old girl called police and told an emergency dispatcher "Daddy stabbed Mommy."

His arrest came after police scoured the area Monday around the couple's home just west of Indianapolis. Instead of driving to the subdivision, police said Warnock parked his car in a church parking lot and walked across a field to get to the house.

Warnock was being held in the county jail in Danville. It was not immediately known if he had an attorney.

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