In his murder trial this week, Charles "Tony" Maddox of Shakopee is prepared to say he was in shock when he dressed as a woman, bought luggage and pretended to be his wife leaving town from the airport.

He's accused of leaving her car there with a note, ostensibly from her, saying she was going back to Indiana.

But all along, his wife, local newspaper reporter Ruth Anne Maddox, lay dead of head and neck injuries, wrapped in a tarp in their garage.

Opening statements are set for Tuesday in Maddox's second-degree murder trial for the slaying of his wife in Scott County in November 2008.

Court papers say she threatened to use explicit e-mails, which she had confronted Tony with, as leverage during their impending divorce.

Ruth Maddox had filed for divorce but didn't want to leave her pets with Tony Maddox, a 45-year-old bartender. Friends had urged her to leave anyway.

On Nov. 11, 2008, two Shakopee Valley News co-workers reported to police that she had not shown up for work. Police went twice to the couple's Prior Lake home and spoke with Tony the second time. "He told them that he had received a text from Ruth Anne Maddox saying she was going out of town," court papers say. "He refused to cooperate further with the search for her."

After visiting the house a third time, police got a search warrant. They arrived at 3 a.m.

Tony Maddox allegedly told them then that Ruth's body was in the garage. He also told officers that they had argued the night before and "she attacked him with a knife and screwdriver, and that he choked her to death," court papers say.

Opening arguments are expected to describe how Maddox, dressed as a woman, drove Ruth's car to the airport Nov. 11, the day her co-workers called police.

His attorneys will call an expert to testify about acute stress disorder, the first step of post-traumatic stress disorder. The defense contends that the disorder caused Tony's behavior.

The issue went to the Minnesota Court of Appeals, with prosecutors trying to block the stress disorder testimony. Ruling on several questions, appellate judges said that evidence of acute stress disorder could be introduced, with limits.

Joy Powell • 952-882-9017