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Assistant District Attorney Patricia Jackson told jurors Aug. 9 that Dennis Allaben lost control of his wife so he came up with a plan to “stop her dead in her tracks.”

Allaben is accused killing his wife, Maureen, on Jan. 3, 2010, in their Doraville home. Maureen was a set decorator for The Mo’Nique Show, which is filmed in Atlanta and airs on BET. The case is being tried in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Linda Warren Hunter.

According to Jackson, the 47-year-old Allaben strangled his wife, then loaded her body into the back of his pickup truck and drove to Chesterfield, Va., with his two young children—Spencer and Paige—in the front seat.

“Allaben, after dropping his children off with relatives in Virginia, traveled back to Georgia with his wife’s body in the bed of their truck. He later turned himself in to authorities,” Jackson said during opening arguments.

“After the defendant killed her, he put her in a quilt, wrapped her up with duct tape and he threw her body on the bed of his Ford pickup truck like garbage,” the assistant district attorney continued.

In opening statements Allaben’s attorney Steven Frey argued that his client never intended to kill his wife and that it was the end result of a conversation that took a tragic turn.

“I think what the evidence is going to show you is someone who wanted some answers and found himself in a situation where unintended consequences, unforeseen consequences, did in fact become apparent,” Frey told jurors.

“The evidence is going to show that what happened to Maureen was tragic and wrong, but it’s not murder.”