A man from Kansas who is accused of killing his girlfriend on a Carnival cruise ship off the coast of Florida has pleaded guilty to the crime.
Eric Duane Newman of Topeka admitted to murdering his longtime girlfriend, say prosecutors. He has pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree murder with malice aforethought before Chief U.S. District Judge Julie A. Robinson of the District of Kansas, according to the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs.
According to reports, Newman killed Tamara Tucker on January 19, 2019, after boarding the Carnival Elation cruise ship earlier that day in Jacksonville, Florida. The couple was on a roundtrip voyage to the Bahamas, and the two of them were staying on the 13th deck of the ship.
Newman and Tucker had a verbal argument inside their stateroom on the night of the 18th and, at 12:15 a.m. on the 19th, Newman strangled and pushed her over the balcony causing her to fall to her death onto the 11th deck.
Newman will be sentenced on March 18, 2020.
