It didn't take long for Glenwood Freeman to become the prime suspect.

A maintenance man at a Catonsville apartment building had discovered Freeman's wife, Tina Marie Williams, 33, sprawled on her floral-pattered sheets, apparently bludgeoned to death with a clothes iron.

The house had not been ransacked. Williams' credit cards and jewelry were in place. And Freeman had apparently skipped town, Baltimore County police said, leaving behind what appeared to be a hastily packed travel bag and stories of abuse told by Williams' co-workers and family.

That was in September 1996. For the next month, police and FBI agents tracked Freeman through three states. But it would take five years and some luck for police to find Freeman, who had started a new life under an assumed name, prosecutors said.

It all ended yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court when Freeman, 42, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in what prosecutors say was a classic domestic violence case.

Spousal abuse

After police found Williams' body, they interviewed her co-workers at Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where prosecutors said they believed she worked as a nursing assistant.

The colleagues said that Freeman, who did not have a job, forbade Williams from going out with friends from work, even to lunch. They told investigators that Williams had spoken about leaving him.

Williams' aunt, Clara Williams, told police "that the victim has had numerous problems with Glenwood Freeman concerning spousal abuse," Baltimore County Detective James Wayne Tincher wrote in his report.

"The aunt advised that the victim was abused in New York state by Freeman and came to Baltimore to get away from him," Tincher's report said.

Williams, said prosecutor Jason League, was "a prototype domestic violence victim. [Freeman's] got her isolated, he's very controlling of who she can see." League is an assistant state's attorney in Baltimore County.

One step behind

After Williams' death, investigators were one step behind Freeman as he traveled from state to state, according to court papers.

Police interviewed Freeman's friends in Aberdeen, who said he had stopped to say goodbye. Officers took a statement from Freeman's cousin in New York state who told them that Freeman had visited and said he had killed somebody.

Police also interviewed Freeman's brother, Linberg Freeman of Franklin, Va., and found out that Glenwood Freeman had been in that state for at least a few days.

Then the trail went cold and stayed that way for five years, except for occasional, misleading tips that led Baltimore County investigators on fruitless trips.

After years, luck

But last year in Richmond, Va., police officers stopped Freeman's car, saying that he was playing music too loud and that his license plate was obscured.

They learned that the man they stopped was not Christopher Peabody, as his identification cards indicated, but Glenwood Freeman, the man wanted in Baltimore County on a murder charge.

"They get no luck throughout the years, and finally, boom," said League.

League said Freeman had taken the name Christopher Peabody and was living with a woman in Richmond. He said that he had no job, and was supported by a woman, whom he beat.

After Freeman entered his guilty plea yesterday, League said he would ask for a 30-year sentence.

Freeman is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 18.