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Wife charged in stabbing death

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By LISA A. DAVIS

ldavis@tampatrib.com

Published: October 29, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - Pasco County sheriff's detectives arrested a 59-year-old woman in connection with her husband's stabbing death Tuesday night.

Lillian "Lilly" Dolores Fahrer, 5030 Trouble Creek Road, is accused of stabbing her 42-year-old husband, Robert "Rob" William Fahrer, once in the chest with a steak knife about 8:30 p.m.

The couple lived in the Shamrock Heights apartment complex. Lillian Fahrer was detained by deputies shortly after the stabbing.

She is being held at Land O' Lakes Jail on a manslaughter charge. Bail was set at $50,000.

During Lilly Fahrer's first-appearance hearing Wednesday afternoon, her mother-in-law spoke about her late son's marriage.

"They've always had a rough relationship. Twenty years," she said. "She would constantly egg him on."

A prosecutor asked the judge to have Fahrer held without bail because of the seriousness of the charges.

A public defender pointed out that Fahrer didn't have a criminal record. Fahrer told the judge by video conference she had a DUI charge 20 years ago.

Pasco Circuit Judge Walter Schafer Jr. denied the prosecutor's bail request.

Detectives say the couple had been drinking when they began arguing over their front door being broken the day before. Fahrer told detectives her husband pushed her against a wall while they were arguing and that she grabbed the knife from the sink, a report states.

She told detectives that he said, "Go ahead ... and stab me. Kill me. Go ahead." That's when she "snapped," she told detectives, and stabbed him in the chest.

When deputies and paramedics arrived at the apartment, her husband was dead, sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll said.

"She was very cooperative," Doll said of Lilly Fahrer.

Back at the apartment complex early Wednesday afternoon, a screen door to the couple's apartment swayed with the breeze. Yellow crime-scene tape was thrown away atop empty beer cans in a trash bin on the shared porch. Out front, employees from the beauty shop below and neighbors stood outside talking about the night before, though they declined to comment.

Frank Losurdo, the owner of the apartments and the small business complex, said he was surprised when he heard the news.

He said he didn't socialize with the Fahrers, but he spoke with Rob Fahrer from time to time.

"I'm telling you the guy is the nicest in the world," he said. "He looks like a maniac, but he's a really nice guy."

He said he knew Fahrer - whom he called "Bear" because of his Teddy bear-like temperament - changed when he'd been drinking beer.

"I know when he drinks he gets a little uptight," he said.

But for the most part, the Fahrers have been good tenants who have lived there for at least five years.

"They were pretty quiet. They kept to themselves," Losurdo said. "They shut their door, and they drank in their apartment."

Reporter Lisa A. Davis can be reached at (727) 815-1083.

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