The husband of a missing Nocona teacher was scheduled to be arraigned this morning in connection with his wife’s Dec. 2004 disappearance.
A grand jury indicted Charles Stobaugh, 54, for the murder of Kathy Stobaugh Thursday, and Denton County investigators along with Texas Ranger Terry Murphree wasted no time serving an arrest warrant for the man many have long suspected killed his estranged wife just days after Christmas 2004.
Murphree told the Denton Record Chronicle, he’s glad Stobaugh is set to face justice.
“It was good to finally take him in,” Murphree said. “It’s been a long time coming.”
Stobaugh reportedly showed no emotion as he was taken into custody.
Some feared the Stobaugh case might never be solved.
Stobaugh was apparently last seen by her husband at his home on Metz Road in Denton County.
She had been missing for five days before the police were notified.
That delay, along with the fact that Stobaugh’s body was never recovered, made it difficult to make a case against Stobaugh.
"The key to the case was time,” Denton County Sheriff's Office public information officer Tom Reedy said earlier this year.
"It was something like four or five days before the police were called," Reedy said.
Reedy said Stobaugh deliberately misled police and the couple’s two children.
"Her daughter saw her car right there (at the Stobaugh home), but at her father's insistence, no one told the police," he said.
The Stobaughs were divorcing and according to her brother, Chris Mundy, the 43-year-old teacher was getting her life back on track after years of abuse at the hands of her husband.
In an interview in early 2007, Mundy, said his sister was on the verge of freedom for the first time in years.
“...She just graduated college, something she’s been trying to do for many years. She had just started teaching kindergarten class (at Nocona Elementary school),” Munday said during a 2007 interview.
The last time he talked with his sister, Munday said she told him she went to Stobaugh’s farm to clear up a few details about the divorce settlement.
He said he talked to her about two hours after she left his house.
He now said he believes Charles Stobaugh may have called her back late that night.
“That was the last time anybody saw her,” he said.
Charles Stobaugh’s version of events is slightly different.
Reedy said from the beginning Charles Stobaugh insisted his estranged wife left his home that day after a brief visit and that when he awoke the next day, her car was parked in his driveway.
Reedy said when Kathy's daughter, Sharee, saw her mother's car at her father's house, she asked Charles Stobaugh where her mother was.
"He told her that she had driven off the night before and when he woke up the car was there. He said she had done that before, was in the habit of doing that, which was a lie," Reedy said.
Stobaugh was being held in the Denton County Jail late Thursday on $100,000 bond.
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