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Matthew White and his wife Maria Rey Garcia-Pellon
The wife of a former University of Pennsylvania basketball star is charged with stabbing her husband to death in bed, according to court records.

Matthew White, 53, of Nether Providence, Delaware County, was asleep in their rancher when his wife, Maria Rey Garcia-Pellon stabbed him in the neck in the early hours on Monday, the records say.

According to the records, Garcia-Pellon went in the kitchen in the couple's home on the 800 block of Parkridge Drive, sometime around midnight. There, she retrieved a glass of water and two knives.

She returned to the bedroom and slipped the knives under her side of the bed. She took one of the knives out as her husband was asleep.

She stabbed him in the neck, the records allege.

White awoke and the two struggled briefly before he collapsed of his wounds.

"I'm dying, I'm dying," he said, according to the court filing.

Garcia-Pellon then changed her clothes and left the house. She went to the home of a friend and told her White had allegedly been viewing pornography on a computer and she killed him, the records state.

The friend called 911.

"I caught him looking at pornography, young girls, I love kids," Garcia-Pellon told investigators. "I had to do it."

Police found White dead in his bed, according to court records.

Garcia-Pellon was charged Monday night with first degree murder, criminal homicide and possession of an instrument of crime.

She is being held without bail in Delaware County jail and is scheduled for a preliminary court hearing on Feb. 18.

White was starting center in 1979 when Penn made it to the Final Four of the NCAA basketball championship.

He played for the varsity team from 1976 to 1979. He holds the school record for field goal percentage among players with a minimum of 250 made field goals.

He was drafted in the fifth round of the 1979 NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers.

White also played professional basketball in Spain. He last made a public appearance at the Palestra on Feb. 2 as part of a halftime ceremony honoring Penn basketball alumni during that night's game against Cornell.

The couple has only lived in the neighborhood for about two years. Records show they paid $375,000 for the home in 2010 in the Parkridge subdivision of the township. The couple also had a prior address in Swarthmore.

White's biography on the business networking website, LinkedIn, says he has been employed in education management with Aprendia since 2012. He has a master's degree in finance from Wharton.

None of a half dozen or so neighbors in the leafy community seemed to know much about White and his wife, given that they only moved in about two years ago and largely kept to themselves.

They describe White as aloof, and his wife as a bit friendlier.

Jane Albany, 87, who has lived in the neighborhood for decades, recalls telling her husband about Garcia-Pellon.

"I said to my husband, 'There's something sad about her,'" Albany said.

Albany said Garcia-Pellon would chat, but rarely. White did not seem to want to engage in conversation.

"She seemed really sweet, but I felt a real sadness about her," Albany added.

Pete Boyles, 54, a neighbor and retired engineer, also said White was quiet.

"They pretty much kept to themselves," Boyles said.

None of them said they knew White was a Penn basketball legend.

Check back for details as they develop.