HAMILTON, Ontario -- A 27-year-old chemist was charged Thursday with the second-degree murder of noted historian and archaelogist Dr. Edith Mary Wightman in her McMaster University office last month.
Under a three-member police guard, Michael Allen Crowley of Welland, Ontario, was formally arraigned on the murder charge in Ontario Provincial Court.
Dr. Wightman, a Scottish-born world-renowned Roman scholar and archaelogist, was found murdered in her McMaster University office by security guards Dec. 17.
Sgt. John Reid said she was fully clothed, lying on the floor with her eyes and mouth bound with surgical tape and her hands handcuffed behind her back. An autopsy determined she had choked to death on a piece of cloth that had lodged in her windpipe.
Police said her credit cards were missing and they believed robbery was a motive for the killing.
