Wife Dies After Alleged Strangulation, Husband Faces Murder Charge

By Taylor Bennett. Oct 11, 2026

A Domestic Assault Case Becomes a Murder Case

Sandra Porter died after spending more than a week in a hospital, and her husband now faces a second-degree murder charge tied to the alleged assault that preceded her death.

Huntersville police said officers went to a home on McGinnis Lane at about 6:37 p.m. on September 22 to assist paramedics. Sandra Porter was found unresponsive and taken to a hospital for treatment. Police said their investigation determined that her husband, Cody Franklin Porter Jr., 66, had allegedly strangled her until she lost consciousness.

Porter was arrested after the initial response. Court records cited by WBTV and WSOC-TV show he first faced charges of assault by strangulation, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Those charges placed the alleged violence inside the couple’s home at the center of the case from its earliest stage.

Sandra Porter remained under medical care after the September 22 incident. She died on October 1. The following day, investigators charged Cody Porter with second-degree murder, changing the legal posture from an assault case to a homicide prosecution.

Police Point to New Medical and Investigative Findings

Huntersville police said the upgraded charge was based on Sandra Porter’s death, the circumstances surrounding the original alleged assault, and additional medical and investigative findings. Authorities have not publicly detailed those additional findings, and available reporting does not establish what led to the confrontation at the home.

The murder charge is an allegation, not a conviction. Porter is accused of causing his wife’s death, and the case will move through the court process where prosecutors must prove the charge. Police have said the investigation remains active while court proceedings are pending.

The timeline is important to the case. Officers responded to a medical emergency in the home on September 22, investigators alleged an assault by strangulation, and Porter was initially charged while Sandra Porter was still alive. Her death nine days later prompted detectives to reassess the case and file the second-degree murder charge on October 2.

Huntersville police said they were limiting further public detail because the investigation remains active and court proceedings are pending. That leaves the charging records and the department’s explanation of the upgraded count as the clearest current account of how the case changed after Sandra Porter died.

A Family Home Now Sits at the Center of the Case

The publicly available record is restrained about the Porters’ life before the alleged assault. Police have not announced a motive, and the reporting does not establish whether anyone else was present when Sandra Porter was injured. Those unanswered points remain part of an ongoing investigation rather than facts that can be filled in from inference.

What is established is that the case began with Sandra Porter unresponsive inside the home she shared with her husband, continued through more than a week of hospital treatment, and then changed after her death. For her family, the medical emergency did not end with the first arrest; it became a homicide case after she did not recover.

Cody Porter now faces the second-degree murder charge in addition to the legal consequences arising from the original domestic assault investigation. The charge remains pending. Sandra Porter’s death, and the sequence from an alleged assault at home to an upgraded murder case, remains the central fact investigators and the court must now address.

The original charges also show how investigators treated the September incident before Sandra Porter’s death. Assault by strangulation and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill were filed alongside a domestic-violence count while she remained hospitalized. The later murder filing did not erase that chronology; it added a new charge after the medical outcome changed. Huntersville police have limited further public detail because the investigation and court proceedings are still pending. That leaves the charging documents and the department’s explanation of the upgrade as the clearest current record of how the case moved from an emergency response to a homicide prosecution.

References: WBTV | WSOC-TV