A Nashville husband has been charged with beating his wife to death with a hammer and then burying her body in a hole he hired a worker to dig on the couple’s land, according to police.
Joseph Glynn, 70, was arrested Saturday after he admitted to investigators he killed his wife, Jackie Glynn, 76, on New Year’s Day at their Green Hills, Tennessee home, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.
The following day, Joseph Glynn allegedly put his wife’s body inside a plastic cargo box before driving her remains about 60 miles to the couple’s other property in DeKalb County to dump her body in a hole previously dug out by contractors.
Joseph Glynn told their children that their mother had left because she was terminally ill, according to police.
Suspicious of their father’s account, the children reached out to their mother’s medical provider and were told she was not terminally ill.
Her body was discovered in a freshly covered hole — about six feet wide, ten feet long, and six feet deep — by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office on Friday, still inside the cargo box and covered in new roofing shingles and dirt, Fox 17 reported, citing police.
A Silver Alert was issued for the missing wife the same day her body was discovered.
Joseph Glynn had a contractor dig the hole on Dec. 16, claiming it would be used as a burn pit, according to investigators.
The allegedly murderous husband reportedly told detectives he disposed of the hammer he used to kill his wife murder in a community center trash compactor.
Jackie Glynn’s car was also found by police in DeKalb County, with her husband suspected of towing her vehicle in an attempt to hide it.
Joseph Glynn is also accused of selling items belonging to his wife in the days after he murdered her, as well as contacting a realtor to sell their DeKalb County property where he had buried her body, according to Fox 17.
He is currently being held in the Davidson County Jail on a $1,030,000 bond and also faces charges of abuse of a corpse and evidence tampering, according to police.
His first scheduled court date is Tuesday morning.
Jackie Glynn was a beloved member of the greater Nashville area who owned and operated the historic wedding venue, the Riverwood Mansion.
Friend and colleague Tricia Alsup began working at the venue with Jackie and Joseph Glynn the year they opened for business, describing her as a mentor dedicated to her work.
“I started working for her in 1997. I actually got married there. She was part of making my dreams come true as well as so many brides, workers, and vendors,” Tricia Alsup told News Channel 5 Nashville on Friday.
Lesli Emmetts, a friend and vendor regularly hired by Jackie Glynn as a photographer at the venue, described her friend as a “tiny woman with Big dreams” in a commemorating Facebook Post.
“Such a sad day with the tragic news of a friend of over 25 years whose life was horrifically taken,” her longtime friend wrote.
“Jackie was a tiny woman with Big dreams, and Bill and I were honored to watch her live, create, build, and curate her dream of having the most amazing wedding venue where Nashville Couples could say I Do.”