Published: August 22, 2008 11:03 pm      

Charged with wife’s murder, social studies teacher jailed on $500,000 bond

CUMBERLAND — A middle school teacher remained jailed on $500,000 bond Friday after being charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife at their residence Thursday.

Cory Francis Yantz, 38, was arrested a short time after he called Cumberland Police in a 911 call to report that he had returned to the couple’s third-floor apartment on Fayette Street where he said he found his wife deceased and lying on the kitchen floor.

Cumberland Police and C3I investigators converged on the scene, where they found 34-year-old Tonya Jean Yantz deceased and lying on the floor with stab wounds to the neck and chest. Yantz was straddling his wife’s body and stepped away when armed officers ordered him to do so, according to court documents.

A large knife believed to have been used in the slaying was found next to her body, police said.

It was 3:29 p.m. when the sixth-grade social studies teacher placed the call to Cumberland Police, stating he had found his wife stabbed to death in the kitchen of their West Side residence.

District court documents indicated Yantz had been home for approximately a half-hour before he called 911 to report the stabbing.

Yantz had reportedly returned home after having taken part in an Allegany County Board of Education system-wide staff development workshop at Allegany College of Maryland.

Investigation determined the couple had experienced marital problems and that Tonya was involved in an extramarital affair for the past three weeks with a man that she had met recently. A man at the scene identified himself to police as her boyfriend, according to the court record.

Police also developed information that Yantz had indicated to a male friend that “if he ever caught his wife cheating on him he would kill her.”

Yantz reportedly had also made a statement Wednesday to a woman who gave him a ride home that he “could not take another divorce and he would just kill his wife,” according to court documents.

Yantz was hired by the Allegany County Board of Education on Aug. 22, 1994. He was employed the first two years as a teacher at South Penn Elementary prior to being assigned to Washington Middle School where he has remained since that time.

Yantz was placed on administrative leave without pay Friday, according to Mia Perlozzo, the board’s public relations specialist.

A court commissioner ordered Yantz held without bond Thursday. Bond was set at $500,000 during a bond review hearing Friday in district court.

Contact Jeffrey Alderton at jlalderton@times-news.com.