Tacoma man gets 31 years for stabbing to death wife

A Tacoma man was sentenced to 31 years in prison for the stabbing death of his wife last summer. Jay Nathaniel "Nathan" Poe, 28 plead guilty to the 1st degree murder in the stabbing death of his wife Eva, 44 on May 28. After the murder, Poe tried to conceal the crime by burning her body in the fireplace, mistakenly setting his house on fire. When he woke up in the hospital, under police guard, he said to them, “I guess this is about my home burning...I guess this is about me stabbing and burning my wife.”

Poe revealed that after arguing with his wife for several hours, at about 2 a.m. on Aug. 8, the victim told her husband that she was not going to do as he wanted and was prepared to leave their home, documents said.

In probable cause documents Poe said that he has “abandonment issues” and that he was not going to let his wife leave him so he hid Eva's car keys and then put on a pair of gloves, turned off the lights, got a butcher knife out and caught the victim in the hallway and stabbed her more than 15 times while holding her by the throat and ignoring her pleas to stop.

Official documents said after the stabbing, Poe dressed Eva's wounds and changed her clothes because she "looked bad." Poe described in documents how he tried to clean up the scene of the slaying by renting a steam cleaner, buying hydrogen peroxide, bleach, charcoal and lighter fluid, tried to clean up the blood on the floor and then stuffed Eva's body into the fireplace and lit it on fire.

Poe said the body burning in the fireplace accidentally caught the house on fire, documents said.
Police said a passerby saw the fire and called 911. Before authorities arrived, Poe put the charred remains of his wife in a bag and placed them in a closet, where they were later discovered, prosecutors said.

The Pierce County medical examiner said dental records had to be used to identify the victim because her body was so badly burned and that she suffered at least 10 stab wounds to the torso, which caused her death.

Police said parts of the victim's body were also found in the home's fireplace.

The victim worked as a medical assistant in a plasma center, where the perp frequently utilized to get money for his platelets. The plea, then sentencing was done in Pierce County Superior Court. Poe's formal charges were 1st degree murder, arson, and disposing of a firearm.