The FBI arrested a woman on a homicide warrant tied to her husband’s slaying one month ago in Harvey, a Harvey police spokesman said Tuesday.
Sarah Buckingham, 42, of Chicago Heights was arrested by the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force early Monday, said Garrett Croon, a spokesman for Chicago’s FBI field office. Buckingham was turned over to Harvey police for questioning on Tuesday, said Sean Howard, a spokesman for Harvey police.
“She was at a residence near 87th in South Chicago, where a relative of Ms. Buckingham lived, I believe,” Howard said.
The couple was inside their home in the 15000 block of Broadway Avenue in Harvey when they got into an argument, Howard said. Neighbors would later tell investigators that there was a history of domestic violence reports at the home.
“And it’s our understanding that Ms. Buckingham was the aggressor in all of those previous situations,” Howard said.
Buckingham has at least two arrests on domestic battery and battery charges.
Howard said that on Aug. 19, about 4:30 a.m. the couple again was fighting, “when it turned physical and the suspect stabbed the victim in the chest with a large blade.”
Robert Tyler, 46, was pronounced dead shortly after 5 a.m. of a stab wound to the chest, according to Howard and information provided by the Cook County medical examiner’s office. The couple was legally married, but she used her maiden name, Howard said.
Harvey police believed Buckingham had fled the area and they turned over their files to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and were granted the warrant for her arrest. She was picked up without incident on a warrant that was issued Sep. 6, Croon said.
“Obviously we’ve had some success in our homicide rates over the last four years, but this one was a domestic, which posed no threat to the public,” Howard said. He explained their homicide clearance rate has been 88- to 90 percent in the past three to four years. They’ve run ads in various publications about their low violent crime rate during the past 20 years, he said.
“You can’t predict a domestic homicide, especially a domestic situation given the confines of a married couple’s house,” he said. “This is an open and shut case.”
kdouglas@chicagotribune.com
Twitter: @312BreakingNews
