MEMPHIS, Tenn. — UPDATE 11/5/2021 - The Shelby County DA’s Office said Friday a jury took just over a quarter of an hour to convict a Parkway village woman for the murder of her husband, whose ringing cell phone led investigators to his body in a plastic tub in the attic of their home in 2016.
43-year-old Latosha Starks-Twilley was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 47-year-old Waddell Twilley. The conviction carries a sentence of life in prison.
Prosecutors said Waddell Twilley was reported missing June 18, 2016. His vehicle was still parked in his driveway in the 4100 block of Cottonwood and his wallet and other belongings were in the home.
Investigators said the couple’s 11-year-old son called his dad’s cell phone, and heard it ring through an upstairs wall with no answer. They said Latosha Starks-Twilley claimed to not know where her husband was, and told them a hole she was digging in the backyard was for a garden.
The DA’s office said the son asked neighbors to call police, who also called the phone and heard it ring inside a crawl space behind a padlocked door in a closet. Inside the crawl space, investigators found the victims’ body in concrete in a plastic tub, covered with clothes, dirt, cigarettes, and debris.
Police said the victim’s hands and feet were cuffed, and his head wrapped in plastic and duct tape. They said the cause of death was suffocation.
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6/20/2016 - Police say the wife of a man found dead in a plastic storage container Saturday is now charged with his murder.
Police charged Latosha Starks-Twilley with abuse of a corpse after her husband was found in the attic of their Parkway Village home.
Officers were called to the home at 4127 Cottonwood to investigate a death. When they arrived, family members on the scene told them they believed the victim had been harmed after his cell phone was heard ringing behind a wall space upstairs in the victim’s house.
After searching the home, officers found the body of Waddell Twilley inside a plastic storage container along with clothing items, dirt and concrete mix. The container was hidden inside an attic crawl space.
Latosha Twilley told police she last saw her husband alive early Saturday morning inside the house, but could not account for his whereabouts afterward.
Local 24 has learned she is also a registered sex offender who tried to kill the 13-year-old boy she had sex with. A look into her past shows Starks-Twilley has spent the last 10 years on the registered sex offenders list. In 2006, Starks-Twilley pleaded guilty to aggravated statutory rape and aggravated assault. According to a police affidavit, she claimed the 13-year-old boy raped her so she shot him in his back as he slept.
Twilley has been charged with first degree murder and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.
