COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - A Columbia man accused of killing his wife admitted Tuesday he buried her body in a park but insisted her death was an accident that happened after he pushed her during an argument.
Joseph Elledge is charged with first- degree murder in the death of 28-year-old Mengqi Ji, whom he reported missing in October 2019. Her remains were found in March at a park near Columbia.
Prosecutors rested their case Monday, after presenting a week of evidence that detailed the couple's troubled and deteriorating relationship. Ji moved to Missouri from China to study at the University of Missouri and stayed after she married Elledge.
On the stand Tuesday, Elledge said he and his wife argued Oct. 8, 2019, after he confronted her about exchanging sexual messages with a man on a China-based messaging service. He said they pushed each other during the argument and she fell and hit her head.
He said Ji moved to a couch and he went for a walk. Later that night, he found her on the couple's bed and he went to sleep. He said he awoke about 5 a.m. the next day to their daughter, Anna, crying. and went to check on her, the Columbia Tribune reported.
When he returned to the bedroom, Ji was unresponsive and he checked her for a pulse but her skin was cold, he said.
Elledge said he didn't immediately call for help because the scene looked weird and "my mind was going 100 miles an hour. I knew people would suspect me." He called that decision "stupid."
Elledge said he placed his wife's body in the trunk of her car and returned to the apartment to think.
"I was panicked. I wasn't thinking at all, really," he said.
He said he drove to places like Jefferson City, Fulton, Ashland and Guthrie, but didn't know where to bury Ji so he returned home.
The next day, Elledge lied to a friend and Ji's mother about her whereabouts, he said, because he didn't know how to explain why he put her body in the car trunk.
With their daughter in the car, Elledge then drove to Rock Bridge State Park about 5 miles south of Columbia. He took about a half-hour to dig a grave and bury Ji, he said. The site was a half-mile from where Elledge had proposed to Ji.
He reported her missing when he returned home. He initially told authorities he and Ji argued and he discovered she had left the apartment when he woke up the next day. He stuck to that story for months as searches were conducted for his wife and he was charged with her murder even before her body was found.