Home / Dallas News / Arlington murder suspect insisted her boyfriend came home with stab wound, police say

Arlington murder suspect insisted her boyfriend came home with stab wound, police say

The woman suspected of stabbing her boyfriend to death in Arlington earlier this month insisted he already had the wound when he came home from a club, according to an arrest-warrant affidavit.

Leah Noelle Franklin
Leah Noelle Franklin(Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office)

Leah Noelle Franklin, 31, faces a murder charge in the death of Antonio Daniel Merle. She was arrested in Louisiana on Saturday, and online records show she remains in the Caddo Parish jail.

Officers were called about 12:30 a.m. Jan. 11 to the 5700 block of Prescott Drive in Arlington, where officers found Merle lying in a bedroom with a stab wound to his chest, according to the affidavit.

Franklin, who police said was Merle’s girlfriend, told police that she and Merle were at a club when someone “poked” him, according to the affidavit. But then she changed her story, saying she wasn’t with Merle at the club and that she hadn’t seen him since the previous day, the affidavit says.

She rode to the hospital in the ambulance with Merle but later left the hospital and police didn’t know where she was, according to the warrant, which was signed Jan. 11.

A woman who was not named in the affidavit told police that she was at home with Franklin and Merle on Jan. 10 and went to her bedroom for the night around 8 p.m. But she came out of her room around 9:30 or 10 p.m. when she heard the two yelling at each other, telling them to leave, she said.

About 10:45 p.m., the woman heard Merle yelling her name. When she walked into the room where he was, Merle was standing in the corner with a small wound on his chest and blood on his shirt, she told police.

The woman told Franklin to call police. While they waited, Franklin held a towel to Merle’s wound, the affidavit says.

Jennifer Edwards speaks during a vigil for Marc "Flea" Strickland, an 18-year-old victim of a shooting at Dallas ISD basketball game, at Bushman Park on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020.

Police found a small knife in a kitchen garbage can, police said.

A detective had been in touch with Franklin by phone a few times on Jan. 11, and Franklin insisted Merle had come home from the club with a stab wound, the affidavit says.

She said she wasn’t involved in the stabbing, but she was “worried to speak with [police] because of what’s happened in their past and she felt she was being blamed,” the affidavit says.

Franklin was indicted in Tarrant County in November on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In that case, she was accused of hitting Merle with a metal broom while she was brandishing a knife, according to the criminal complaint.

Franklin will be extradited to Tarrant County, but authorities did not say when the transfer would take place.

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