[chris]

Sandra Franklin was convicted of murder after her husband, Dr. Peter Franklin, 73, was found stabbed in the chest at the couple's home on Stafford Road in Bainbridge Township, Ohio, on Aug. 16, 2009.

Franklin called 911 that night and told a dispatcher that her husband had attacked her and she had stabbed him. Officers found Dr. Franklin lying in the yard with a stab wound to the chest. He died less than two hours later at Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield Heights, according to police and the Cuyahoga County coroner's office.

Police arrested Franklin, then 57, at the home and charged her with murder in the death of her husband, a doctor with an office in nearby Middlefield, Bainbridge Township Police Chief Jim Jimison said at the time. On the 911 recording, she said, "My husband just attacked me and I stabbed him." She said she used "a knife, a kitchen knife, because he came at me. He hit me," and the call ended after 29 seconds.

Dr. Franklin also reached a 911 operator that night. According to testimony summarized in a later appellate ruling, he told the dispatcher he had been intentionally stabbed in the chest by his wife during an argument that she "won." Both initial 911 calls were disconnected before officers arrived.

The stabbing came nine days after Franklin had called Bainbridge Township police to report that her husband threatened to kill her. Officers who responded to the Aug. 7 call saw no signs of a physical altercation. Dr. Franklin left the house but stayed on the property in a trailer, and police confiscated three handguns from the home, Jimison said. Court records showed the couple had discussed divorce but had not filed.

At trial in Geauga County Common Pleas Court, Franklin testified that her husband hit her, then held something sharp to her throat, and that she grabbed a kitchen knife from the counter because she feared for her life. A jury rejected her self-defense claim and convicted her of murder, felonious assault and involuntary manslaughter.

The trial court sentenced Franklin in May 2010 to 15 years to life in prison and a $15,000 fine on the murder count, merging the felonious assault and involuntary manslaughter counts into it. Ohio's 11th District Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction in March 2012. Franklin, now in her 70s, remains incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, according to state prison records.