Defense says man ‘snapped,’ killed wife

A young woman killed by her husband never called her sister the night of her death to say goodnight.

Rachel Howard, the sister of victim Robyn Burns Gann, said that’s why family members called police on March 2, 2008, and asked them to check the Hixson home that Mrs. Gann shared with her husband, Kenneth Gann.

Ms. Howard’s suspicions were right. Police found Mr. Gann lying on a sofa with a plastic bag taped around his head in an apparent suicide attempt.

But they arrived too late for Mrs. Gann, lying dead on the floor. Prosecutors said Mr. Gann used his bare hands to strangle Mrs. Gann, 25, and then used a pillow to “speed it up.”