Husband beats newlywed wife to death, says he found body in yard, FL cops say

A husband called 911 to report that a stranger dropped off his wife naked and dead in their front yard 10 months after they got married, according to Florida authorities.

But deputies said her husband, David Armstrong, is the one who killed her.

Armstrong, 38, has now been sentenced to 42.5 years in prison after pleading no contest to a second-degree murder charge and criminal mischief, the State Attorney’s Office for the Seventh Judicial Circuit announced Sept. 4.

McClatchy News reached out to Armstrong’s defense attorney for comment on the case Sept. 5, but she was out of office.

Armstrong told deputies with the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office that an unknown man dumped his injured wife on their front lawn in St. Augustine shortly after midnight on Dec. 19, 2022, according to an arrest affidavit.

Armstrong said the man told him to come get his wife and threatened him with a gun, deputies said.

When first responders arrived, they noted the woman appeared to have been dead for several hours, according to investigators.

Armstrong told investigators his newlywed wife left home to use drugs the day before the incident and added she “suffered from mental illness, was a narcotics user and (was) part of a prostitution ring,” according to the affidavit.

But other people who knew the woman contradicted the characterization, and the woman didn’t have any drugs in her system at the time she died, deputies said. The only DNA found on her body was from her and her husband, according to the report.

The autopsy revealed the woman had been beaten to death and had blunt force injuries to her head and upper body.

Investigators said they learned two months earlier, Armstrong called 911 to report his wife had been kidnapped outside their home. But detectives found her after she said she fled their home because Armstrong tried to kill her, according to the affidavit.

During that investigation, the woman was hospitalized under the Baker Act for mental health treatment, and she told another person during treatment that she “wanted to be free” from her husband, adding he withheld her medication and “held her down with cinder blocks” to keep her from fleeing in the middle of the night, deputies wrote in the affidavit.

After nearly six months of investigation, authorities arrested Armstrong in April 2023.

Armstrong was on probation for a case in Georgia involving charges of first-degree cruelty to children, false imprisonment, simple battery and obstructing or hindering of law enforcement, records show.

This story was originally published September 5, 2025 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Husband beats newlywed wife to death, says he found body in yard, FL cops say."