A Crescentville woman will face a Bucks County judge for allegedly killing a widower during a violent robbery

When an officer in White Pine, Tenn. stopped Meghan Macklin for stealing French fries from a gas station in October, the Crescentville native spun a web of lies.

She said that her name was Janet Webb MacFarland and that she was from Harrisburg and heading to Georgia to escape an abusive marriage, according to a video of her conversation with the officer that was played in court Thursday.

In truth, prosecutors said, Macklin, 46, was a killer on the run. She had stabbed Richard MacFarland, 72, to death inside his home in Wrightstown, stolen his Mercedes and his late wife’s Social Security card, and fled 600 miles from the bloody crime scene.

Macklin was charged with first- and second-degree murder, as well as robbery, abuse of corpse, and related crimes in the death of MacFarland, with whom investigators said she had a violent, turbulent friendship.

“He provided support to her, and it’s not an unreasonable leap to say she took advantage of that,” Assistant District Attorney Brittney Kern said at a preliminary hearing Thursday. “When it didn’t work for him anymore, she killed him.”

MacFarland, prosecutors said, was seeking a romantic relationship, and that didn’t fit in with Macklin’s plans.

In court Thursday, Macklin’s attorney, Keith Williams, said prosecutors had failed to present evidence that she had killed MacFarland inside his cluttered home.

“There is no evidence of how his wounds were inflicted, or who caused them,” Williams said. “You’d have to be guessing. It’s beyond circumstantial.”

Magisterial District Judge Michael W. Petrucci was not swayed, and ruled that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to county court.

Police had previously been called to MacFarland’s home on Apple Hill Road for multiple domestic violence incidents, including one three days before his body was found, according to testimony Thursday.

In that case, prosecutors said, a witness told police Macklin had hit MacFarland in the head, leaving him with a small wound. She told investigators he had threatened to kill her. Officers attempted to separate the two that night, but Macklin said she couldn’t leave — she said MacFarland would not let her drive his Mercedes, according to investigators.

The next day, Oct. 5, was the last time that car was seen in MacFarland’s driveway. Early on Oct. 6, Macklin was recorded on a surveillance camera parking the vehicle at a Wawa in Pipersville, about 11 miles north of MacFarland’s home.

And on Oct. 7, a man interested in buying MacFarland’s home, which he had recently listed for sale, came by and found his body in the living room.

Police responded and discovered that MacFarland had been disemboweled, and had suffered a deep stab wound near his heart. He also had defensive stab wounds on his arms. Investigators estimated that he had been dead for about two days.

But there was no blood nor slash marks on the clothes he was found wearing. His killer had cleaned up the scene, moved his body and dressed him in fresh clothes, according to Kern, the prosecutor.

Nearby, however, investigators found a suitcase filled with blood-soaked bed linens, and a bloody rug that had been on the floor of MacFarland’s bedroom.

As detectives were examining that crime scene, Macklin was being questioned in Tennessee.

Inside the stolen Mercedes was a shoe with a faint bloodstain. It later tested positive as a match to MacFarland’s DNA, according to testimony presented Thursday.

Macklin will be arraigned on murder and related charges in county court next month.