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UNION, MO (KPLR) - Deborah Marsch went missing on Friday and now police say she was strangled after putting up a fight near a park bench in Union, Mo. She came to the park with her dog to sip coffee when police say Timothy D. Shults attacked her. Shults is now charged with murder in the 1st degree.

"Hard to understand how anyone could do anything like this to someone they didn't know," said Norman Brune, Union police chief.

Shults did have a paper trail of run-ins with the courts including orders of protection from two different women. Police were led to question Shults after relatives of his estranged wife contacted them out of concern. They said he broke into her apartment and abducted her.

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"He took her from the residence, and they drove various places. She ended up able to talk him into bringing her back. Its still being investigated," said Washington police chief Ken Hahn.

Shults led police to Marsch's body after being questioned about abducting his estranged wife. Investigators are still surprised this case led them to a man they say had no reason to attack the woman he did.

"I can't understand it," said Chief Brune.

"She was a person who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He did not know her at all," said Robert Parks, Franklin County prosecutor.

Shults was jailed on a $1,000,000 bond and is expected to be arraigned within the next two weeks.