Idaho man charged with murder more than 6 years after wife was killed

Police say a man charged this week with the 2014 murder of his wife took out a $650,000 life insurance policy on her weeks before her death, staged a robbery and lured her home before putting a shotgun to her head.

He also fired shots through a basement bedroom window of a nearby home, hitting a man, which triggered a 911 call, according to court documents filed in the case.

Jimmy Lee Murphy, 32 is charged with the first-degree murder of Whitney Murphy, who was 26 when she died on Oct. 26, 2014, at the couple’s Yale Road home in southeast Cassia County. He was arrested Wednesday.

When officers attempted to arrest Murphy on Wednesday, they identified themselves outside his Minidoka County home and he fled. Police ordered him to stop, grabbed his clothing, tackled him and deployed a stun gun to subdue him just inside the doorway of the mobile home.

Before the arrest, the Cassia County Sheriff’s Office had brought in the FBI to help with the case. Federal officers interviewed Murphy and then tried to set up another interview with him in late February. Attempts to contact Murphy were fruitless, and the FBI learned he had quit his job on Feb. 26. He was put under surveillance and appeared to be outfitting a van to leave the area, which is consistent with statements he’d made to officers about how he was going to live the “van life.”

According to court documents, when officers arrived after the shooting, it appeared that Whitney had been the victim of a home robbery where she caught the perpetrator and was killed.

Murphy told police he came home that night to find his wife murdered and claimed he had been out washing his truck and checking sprinkler pivots on instructions from his boss to “water the farm” that day. His boss denied giving those orders, police said.

Investigators said nothing was taken from the home, including a portable safe containing $30,000, Whitney’s purse, firearms and other valuables. The only thing missing was Murphy’s shotgun, which was the suspected murder weapon.

The insurance company that issued the life insurance policy on Whitney denied Murphy’s claim after her death, and he then refused to pay for her funeral, police said.

Police said only a few people knew the layout of the neighbor’s home or would have known where to shoot at an occupant in the basement bedroom. Everyone who did, police said, had witnesses or facts that proved where they were that night — except for Murphy.

Murphy also had gunshot residue on his hands, records say, which he at first explained by saying he had been shooting pigeons earlier in the day. No shells were recovered in the area where he claimed he was hunting and the shotgun was not recovered, police said.

Police say people who know Murphy said he was not a hunter and he did not own a hunting license. He later admitted that he hadn’t been hunting but offered no explanation for the gunshot residue found on him.

The timeline for what Murphy said he did the night his wife was killed did not add up, detectives said.

He admitted to cheating on Whitney, said that they had been fighting and that he struggled with depression and suicide, court records said.

A text message he sent to his wife was also recovered, telling her to come “straight home.”

A preliminary hearing is set in the case at 9 a.m. March 12 in Cassia County Magistrate Court.