HGP Nightly News – An 18-year relationship that should have been a lifetime ended in violence Sunday morning, leaving a mother of six dead and her reputed husband hospitalized after he reportedly turned the knife on himself. Caslene Toney, 39, was found lying in a pool of blood beneath her home at Long Creek, along the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.
She had been stabbed 12 times. The man accused of killing her is Maurice Hughes, 65, a welder with whom she had shared nearly two decades. They had six children together, aged 18 down to just three years old. It was Toney’s sister who made the gruesome discovery sometime after 6 a.m.
According to police, the sister told investigators that Hughes had come to her home around 6:06 a.m. and called out to her. When she looked outside, she saw him walking away into the Long Creek backlands, a knife in his hand. A chill ran through her. Something was wrong.
She rushed to Toney’s home and found her sister’s body near the front steps, under the house. Police arrived and documented the extent of the violence.
The wounds told a horrific story: below the left breast, to the right breast, both sides of the chin, the right side of the neck, twice to the back of the neck, three times to the upper right back, once to the middle of the lower back, once to the right armpit.
Investigators recovered a blood-stained brown-handled knife a short distance from the body. It is believed to be the murder weapon. Toney’s body was removed to Memorial Gardens Funeral Home.
Meanwhile, police acting on information located Hughes in the Long Creek backlands. He was armed with a knife and had already inflicted wounds on himself. Officers said he was threatening to take his own life.
They managed to restrain him and confiscate the weapon. Hughes was taken to McKenzie Hospital, where he was treated for a major stab wound to the centre of his abdomen and multiple lacerations.
He remains hospitalized.
