Dieter R. Zimmerman, 73, called police around 7:45 a.m. from the couple's home on Indian Field Court, a townhouse development off Belgrove Drive near the Rockland border, to tell them what happened, authorities said.
Township police found Zimmerman with “several scratches and a bleeding cut on a finger” and his 69-year-old wife, Jaquelin, on a floor in an upstairs bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.
She'd been stabbed several times in the upper body, responders said.
Zimmerman, formerly of Ridgefield Park, told police that he'd stabbed his wife about an hour or so earlier with a butcher block knife, responders told Daily Voice. He claimed he'd been depressed, they said.
Jacqueline Zimmerman was pronounced dead at the home by an Advanced Life Support unit that responded to the call, authorities confirmed. The Medical Examiner's Office later confirmed the death.
The knife also was recovered, police said.
Detectives from Musella's office charged Zimmerman with murder and weapons possession and sent him to the Bergen County Jail to await a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack.
The Bergen County Sheriff's Bureau of Criminal Identification collected evidence.
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