Mpls. man allegedly stabs wife 70 times in front of daughter

A charge of first degree murder is pending against a Minneapolis man accused of fatally stabbing his wife 70 times in front of their daughter early Friday morning.

Billy Nash had been arrested last week in connection with another domestic assault against the woman.

He was released three days later under a court order not to contact his wife, but prosecutors say he immediately returned to the residence in violation of that order.

Prosecutors say Nash stabbed his wife in the head and chest, and finally relented when their daughter grabbed him around the neck and pulled him from her mother. The charging document says Nash told police officers he killed his wife, because "she was driving me crazy," and he didn't agree with how she was spending their money.

Marlene Senechal with the Hennepin County Attorney's office says the judge who released Nash last week made the decision based on the information available at the time.

"We're always looking at ways that we can better predict which offenders would be the most dangerous, but predicting these things is always very difficult," Senechal said. "In hindsight you can always say we should have done this, we should have done that, it would have been better if we'd done that."

The killing comes one day after police in St. Paul announced they were ramping up their efforts to prevent domestic violence, because current approaches often fail to protect victims.