A 27-year-old woman from Redmond, Washington was charged Monday with second-degree murder in the strangulation death of her wife.
Ateerraka Scotland admitted to Kent County police that she strangled her cheating wife Tiffany Scotland last month, then  briefly assumed the victim’s identity in a bid to fool authorities.
Ateerraka Scotland, 27, and then tried to explain the death as the result of a “sleeper hold” while the pair were wrestling, officials said. She put her wife, Tiffany Scotland, 26, in the infamous wrestling choke hold in their apartment on March 29, she said.
Scotland was charged Monday in King County with second-degree murder and had bail set at $3 million.
Prosecutors said in court papers that Scotland told police she killed her Tiffany after learning she was having an affair. The suspect also told police that she and two others planned to dispose of Tiffany’s body at a later time and that she assumed the victim’s identity to create the impression that she were still alive, prosecutors said.
“Between the time of the killing and her arrest, the defendant assumed the victim’s identity by using the victim’s phone and sending text messages as the victim, presumably in an attempt to show that the victim was still alive,” the King County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Aterraka and Tiffany were renting a room from a man who called police on the evening of April 3 after discovering Tiffany’s body lying on a plastic garbage bag and beneath a rolled up carpet. Police say that when they arrived at the residence, the roommate said he had gone into their bedroom after becoming concerned because he hadn’t heard from either in several days.
Police say Tiffany’s body had a laceration to her neck and stab wounds in her abdomen and chest and appeared to have dead for several days.
While the man who filed the report was chatting with police, Aterraka texted him and said she wanted to meet to pay the rent, officers then caught up with her at the arranged payment spot near a bus stop and told her of Tiffany’s death.
After initially stating that she didn’t know Tiffany was dead, she then changed her story and said that she and Tiffany had been wrestling when Tiffany fell and hit her head. The third version was that after she confronted Tiffany regarding the affair, the two women wrestled and she put her wife in a “sleeper hold until she became unresponsive.”
Police say Aterraka told them she panicked when she couldn’t find a pulse and called over a friend named Daniella, who arrived with another friend for help, and they told the suspect to leave the bedroom for a few minutes, during which time the victim was moved to the end of the bed and covered up, the suspect told police.
After denying that she knew how the stab wounds occurred she then admitted overhearing Daniella and the friend saying that they had stabbed Tiffany and cut her neck to stage the scene like a robbery.
The prosecutor’s office said Scotland called her family after her arrest asking them to bail her out “so she can leave the area,” Q13 FOX reported.
“After telling her mother that she killed Tiffany, the defendant states ‘I want to hurry up and get out of here.’ Her mother responds, ‘When you get out of there, you better leave town.’ The defendant then states, ‘I plan on it. I just want to have a fresh start somewhere,’” authorities said.
Scotland’s mother asked her daughter if the slaying was self-defense and the woman replied, “Technically, yeah, but this is the one state they’re not going to take my side because of the way I look and the way I dress.”
Records found Scotland was a suspect in a 2016 assault when she allegedly hit her male roommate in the head with a hammer, seriously injuring the man.