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Former NFL signee pleads guilty to murdering wife in Park City

This undated photo provided by the Salt Lake County Jail shows Anthony D. McClanahan. Prosecutors say McClanahan, a former professional football player, sliced his wife's neck and then crawled on the ground outside their rented Utah condominium before flagging down a police officer. Murder charges filed Monday against McClanahan say the bloody Nov. 2 scene in Park City indicated his 28-year-old wife Keri "KC" McClanahan put up a desperate struggle. (Salt Lake County Jail via AP)

  | March 19, 2019, 4:16 a.m.
| Updated: 5:29 p.m.

A former football player who once signed with the Dallas Cowboys has pleaded guilty to murdering his wife in 2017 in Park City.

Anthony Darnel McClanahan, 47, previously had claimed two or three men had attacked his wife, 28-year-old Keri Colleen "KC" McClanahan, on Nov. 2, 2017. In a pending, unrelated case in Salt Lake County, Anthony McClanahan also is charged with kidnapping his 8-year-old son in Arizona and bringing him to Salt Lake City a month before his wife's homicide.

During the night of the homicide, a neighbor at the McClanahans’ condo complex had called police early that morning to report that a man — who turned out to be Anthony McClanahan — was crawling on his stomach through the corridors.

McClanahan, who was barefoot, flagged down a sergeant who arrived, investigators wrote in charging documents. He then began convulsing and making “snow angel” motions with his arms, police wrote.

McClanahan claimed his wife and "his baby" had been attacked by two or three men but wouldn't give his wife's name or location, police wrote. Officers found no evidence that a baby or small child had been with McClanahan.

But they did find KC McClanahan's body in the couple's condo, police wrote. She and her husband both had cuts to their face; her cuts were consistent with a blade attached to a bracelet she had owned.

A person who had been speaking on the phone that night with Anthony McClanahan said she overheard a confrontation between the couple.

KC McClanahan’s sister told The Tribune that KC was planning to visit her in Washington, D.C., the next day. She also said Anthony McClanahan had previously been violent toward KC.

Anthony McClanahan was signed and then cut by the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s. There’s no record of him ever playing in an NFL game.

FOX 13 reported that prosecutors agreed to drop McClanahan’s kidnapping charge in exchange for his guilty plea. He will be sentenced April 29 for first-degree felony murder.

Editor’s note: The Salt Lake Tribune and FOX 13 are content-sharing partners.