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Police: Totem Pole Death Was Murder

INTERNATIONAL FALLS, Minn. (WCCO) -- A Minnesota man told police his wife was accidentally crushed to death by a totem pole last year, but now investigators say he meant to kill his wife.

Police said 49-year-old Carl Muggli, of International Falls, was arrested in southern Texas on Tuesday.

He and his late wife Linda Muggli ran a totem pole business. Last November, Carl Muggli told police a pole the two were working on fell onto his wife.

She was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

About a week after the incident, a tipster told the Koochiching County Sheriff's Office about intimate Facebook entries between Carl Muggli and a woman in Alabama.

The woman from Alabama later told police she was on the phone with Carl Muggli when he was arguing with his wife about a divorce. She says he called back saying there had been an accident.

Carl Muggli moved to Stockdale, Texas after his wife's death.

He will be returned to International Falls to face murder charges.

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