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BRIGHAM CITY — A Perry man charged with stabbing his young ex-wife to death in an apparent jealous rage shortly after they divorced was ordered Thursday to stand trial for murder.
A preliminary hearing for Spencer Rumel Gerlach, 20, began with a 911 call that police say Gerlach made after he stabbed 19-year-old Keltsie Gerlach.
"I just murdered my wife and my baby is here," the caller said, sounding slightly breathless as he answered the dispatcher's questions. "I stabbed her with a knife."
When the dispatcher asks whether the caller, who identified himself as Gerlach, whether the woman can be helped, he answers, "No, she's dead," confirming he is "100 percent sure."
For a moment the couple's then 15-month-old daughter can he heard in the recording.
"She's doing all right, though," he assures the dispatcher. "We need social services to come and take her."
Gerlach, 20, is charged with murder, a first-degree felony, and domestic violence in the presence of a child, a third-degree felony.
Gerlach met officers outside his ex-wife's new apartment, 691 S. 600 East in Brigham City, and was arrested without incident on April 15. Police found Keltsie Gerlach stabbed in the stomach, back and neck and located the couple's young daughter in her crib in a bedroom.
The couple had divorced just one month earlier.
Brigham City police detective Chad Panter testified about interviewing Gerlach after he was taken into custody. Gerlach said he knew his ex-wife's finances were strained following their divorce so he brought a pizza to share with her during visitation with their child. He had hoped, he said, to improve their relationship.
Instead, Keltsie Gerlach was on the phone with another man from the moment Gerlach arrived, he said. He believed she was taunting him, talking loudly and flirtatiously as she made plans for the weekend.
"I was extremely frustrated and my heart began to beat faster than it ever had in my life," Gerlach wrote in a statement to police, describing how he went to his car and retrieved a combat-style knife that he kept for personal defense. "I went into the bathroom to try to calm my rage."
Gerlach then placed the 15-month-old in her crib, shut the door and went out to the main area of the apartment to confront Keltsie, who was still talking on the phone, Panter testified. He stabbed her first in the stomach, he told the detective, then more than a dozen times again in her back, buttocks and neck, where the knife remained until police arrived.
She never fought back, Gerlach had told Panter, saying "she didn't have time" and noting he was "twice her size."
Gerlach remained quiet and showed little emotion throughout the hearing, though he appeared briefly troubled and was comforted by his attorney as the list of his ex-wife's wounds were read from an autopsy report.
Though Gerlach's attorney, Bernard Allen, argued against the charge of domestic violence in the presence of a child, noting that Gerlach had taken steps to remove his small daughter from the situation, 1st District Judge Brandon Maynard agreed with prosecutors that the baby was less than 35 feet away at the time of the alleged attack and could have heard what was happening through the apartment's thin doors.
Ultimately, the judge ordered Gerlach to stand trial on both charges. Gerlach will return for an arraignment on Nov. 2.
