A fitness model was arrested after his personal-trainer husband was found stabbed to death at their Harlem apartment.
Donald Zieben-Hood, 40, called police around 4 a.m. Friday claiming to have woken up after a knife fight to find his 34-year-old husband, Jacob Zieben-Hood, dead on the toilet, according to sources.
Police found Jacob “slumped over on the floor covered in blood with gashes from his head and multiple stab wounds to the back of his leg, including a stabbing on the back of his calf that penetrated his muscle,” the prosecution claimed at his arraignment late Sunday, the New York Daily News reported.
One of the wounds severed an artery, causing him to bleed to death, according to police who are investigating it as a homicide.
The dead man’s husband, a fitness model, also had several cuts on his arms, which required stiches — and blamed his dead husband of being the one to attack him.
The couple had been fighting for months, according to prosecutors, who said Donald “demonstrated an escalating pattern of violence toward his husband in defiance of multiple public court orders, culminating in his husband’s death.”
Jacob Zieben-Hood, who was studying to be a doctor, had called his father that night, telling him that his husband was “coming after him” and not allowing him to leave their 138th Street apartment.
“The victim’s father heard the defendant’s voice in the background screaming at the victim and calling him derogatory names,” the prosecution said.
The model was arrested for violating an order of protection issued by a judge in November that barred him from having contact with Jacob, which he immediately confessed to police, according to the report.
“I had an order of protection placed against me. I’m getting arrested, right?” he asked the dispatcher, prosecutors said at his arraignment Sunday night.
A judge denied Donald’s bail and the case is being investigated as a homicide.
Both men were models and social media influencers.
“They’ve been arguing for months, and I’ve been complaining,” a neighbor, who only gave a first name, Craig, told the Daily News. “I know couples fight, but this was abnormal. They were very loud. Slamming doors all the time.”
“I knew something tragic would happen,” he added. “It’s unfortunate.”
Donald was charged with first-degree burglary, weapons possession and aggravated criminal contempt.
The medical examiner’s office will determine if Jacob’s wounds were an accident, self-inflicted or a homicide, according to the Daily News.
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