US Open tennis ref accused of killing husband with coffee mug

A prominent professional tennis referee who was preparing to officiate at the US Open in New York was arrested on Tuesday on charges of bludgeoning her husband to death with a coffee mug.

Lois Ann Goodman, 70, was taken into custody on a warrant filed a week ago by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. She was charged with the April 17 slaying of her husband, Alan Goodman, 80, prosecutors said.

The district attorney's office said Goodman will remain in custody in New York while waiting to be extradited to Los Angeles, where she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors said that they would ask the court to set bail at $1-million.

She is accused of killing her husband by beating him to death with a coffee mug at the couple's home in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles.

According to Los Angeles police's Lieutenant Dave Storaker, Goodman had called authorities to report that she found her husband dead in their home, with no sign of forced entry.

She surmised that her husband had fallen down the stairs after suffering a heart attack.

But details of her account aroused suspicions, and police conducted several searches of the home for evidence, which included a broken coffee cup that roughly matched the multiple contusions on the husband's head.

Storaker said the coroner ruled the death a homicide on August 2.

The case was presented to the district attorney and charges were filed. Since Goodman had left town by then for the US. Open, Los Angeles police coordinated with homicide detectives in New York City to help make the arrest.

Storaker declined to discuss a suspected motive but said investigators were looking into "whether there were problems in their marriage".

Goodman served mainly as a line judge and had worked at the annual US Open for at least the past 10 years, said Tim Curry, a spokesman for the US Tennis Association.

Like all on-court officials, she worked as an independent contractor of the association, he said, adding she was arrested at her hotel before Tuesday's start of qualifying rounds.

He said tournament officials were not aware she had been under suspicion in a murder investigation.

The main draw of the tournament, played at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre in Flushing, New York, opens on Monday with the men's and women's first-round matches.