Woman 'killed husband during row'

Gintaras Pupeliene was killed by a single stab wound to the chest

A woman stabbed her husband in the heart with a kitchen knife during an argument, a court has heard.

Daiva Pupeliene, 36, denies murdering 34-year-old Gintaras Pupeliene during a row in Northampton on 17 December.

Police called to the scene at a bedsit in Alcombe Road in the town found Mr Pupeliene with a single stab wound to the chest.

Prosecutor Christopher Donnellan QC told a jury at Northampton Crown Court that the attack followed an argument.

The court heard the knife punctured Mr Pupeliene's lung and pierced his heart.

Sandwich factory

He staggered downstairs and collapsed and died in the doorway of the house.

"The charge is murder because from all the evidence you can be sure that at the time she stabbed him with the knife, Daiva Pupeliene intended to kill Gintaras Pupeliene, or to at least do him very serious harm," said Mr Donnellan.

He said the blow was not intended to be a warning and Mrs Pupeliene did not wave the knife across her husband, but stabbed him deliberately with a thrust aimed at a slight angle downwards towards his heart.

The court heard that a mobile telephone found in the victim's pocket recorded the argument between the pair.

Mr Donnellan said the row appeared to be about the defendant's failure to go to work at a sandwich factory and the fact that she spent the morning drinking.

In interview Mrs Pupeliene repeatedly denied stabbing her husband, the court heard.

The trial continues.