Tuesday, April 3, 2012

St. Louis, MO: Husband charged in wife's killing in Vinita Terrace

VINITA TERRACE • Jamie Fields-Arrington saw plenty of domestic abuse cases in her career as a parole officer but was unable to escape her own troubled marriage, relatives said Monday.

They say they believe that her husband killed her because he didn't want their marriage to end. Marion Lamont Arrington, 43, was charged Monday with second-degree murder and armed criminal action.

"He was totally obsessed with her and wanted to control everything about her life," said Fields-Arrington's aunt, Tena Johnson of St. Louis County. "I think it was so close to home that she couldn't see it even though everybody else could. She didn't think he was capable of taking her life."

Police say Arrington fatally shot his wife Saturday after an argument in the parking lot of a hair salon in Vinita Terrace.

Arrington, of the 700 block of West Nixon Drive in O'Fallon, Ill., is jailed in St. Louis County in lieu of $250,000 cash bail.

The couple had been quarreling as they sat in a car outside Headlines Hair Studio, 7951 Page Avenue, police said. Fields-Arrington was shot three times inside her husband's car and was bleeding when she ran into the hair salon and collapsed. She was taken to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where she died.

Police found Arrington's car in Illinois on Saturday. He turned himself in to St. Louis police Monday afternoon.

Fields-Arrington, 33, lived in the 11800 block of Northport Drive in north St. Louis County. She had worked with the state probation and parole office since June 2, 2008.

Fields-Arrington was seeking a divorce from her husband, relatives said. Their marriage was a tumultuous one since they wed last May.

"She knew a couple weeks after she married him that she made a mistake," said her mother, Debra Fields-Williams. "He was real possessive. He basically cut her off from all her friends."

The couple had been staying with relatives in north St. Louis County after a fire Jan. 3 destroyed their home on Aspen Pointe Drive in O'Fallon, Mo. Johnson said Arrington moved out about a month later because they weren't getting along.

Fields-Arrington had a 6-year-old son, Austin, from a previous relationship. He is in the first grade at Jana Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District.

On Saturday, Fields-Arrington went to the salon to return her husband's cell phone that he had left in her car the night before when they had gone out for ice cream with Austin, relatives said.

Fields-Arrington attended Ritenour High School but graduated from a school in eastern Tennessee, her mother said. She graduated from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1997 with a degree in criminal justice and psychology.

She loved to travel, dance and spend time with her son, Fields-Williams said. Her daughter's only sibling, a brother, died in a car crash 19 years ago,

Visitation will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Solomon's Temple, 5569 Page Avenue. A service will follow, starting at noon. Another service will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday in Johnson City, Tenn., where Fields-Arrington lived during her childhood. She will be buried there next to her brother.

"I think Jamie would want women to learn something from her death," her mother said. "She was someone who dealt with crime every day, and it happened to her. To other women, get help. Do not hesitate. Do not stay."


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