Woman admits attack on husband who later died

LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — A woman has admitted she stabbed and beat her husband before he suffered a fatal heart attack.

Forty-eight-year-old Tonya Potter pleaded guilty but mentally ill Tuesday for the May 2009 death of her 48-year-old husband, Robert, at their Lancaster home. Authorities say Potter attacked him with a barbecue fork and a baseball bat before he was stricken with a heart attack.

Defense attorney Patricia Spotts says her client is bipolar and doesn’t remember the attack.

Investigators say Potter had been out drinking before getting into an argument with her husband and attacking him. Robert Potter called an ambulance for his wife thinking she’d had a nervous breakdown then suffered a fatal heart attack as emergency personnel tended to her.