The Iowa Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a Cedar Rapids man who killed his girlfriend in the apartment they shared. In April of 2005, 22-year-old Wendy Barnes was stabbed to death in her easy chair as she sat at her computer, working for a company that offered phone sex to customers.
Her live-in boyfriend, Robert Stanley Davis, was convicted of her murder. Authorities say just before the stabbing the two had argued via computer instant messages sent to one another as each sat, in separate rooms, in front of a computer. An autopsy recorded 53 stab wounds in the woman’s body.
Davis was convicted of second-degree murder, but he argues he didn’t plan to murder Barnes, but was provoked to stab her in the heat of their argument. The Iowa Court of Appeals found their spat was not that extraordinary and shouldn’t have ignited the impulse to kill.