From the looks of their pictures together on Facebook, Cindy Huckabee Koon and her husband Allen Koon appear to be a happy couple.
That was until boaters found her body on Black Friday, partially submerged in the Broad River, in New Berry County, South Carolina.
"The body that we had found had met a violent death," said the local Sheriff, Lee Foster.
He said Cindy was stabbed by her own husband, most likely on Thanksgiving.
"It was a rocky relationship," said Foster.
The coroner report shows Koon, the owner of a tree trimming business, went right for his wife's jugular vein.
The couple was no stranger to law enforcement.
They were seen arguing around Prosperity, the town the 1988 Harlingen High School graduate called home before her brutal murder.
The sheriff said the Koon's separated off and on over the last 3 years.
Cindy even filed a protection order against Allen.
"The thing you have to do is, if counseling does not work if separation doesn’t work, then you have to make a determination that you need to end it and move on," said Foster.
The couple have three children together, which the sheriff said may have made it harder for Cindy to walk away.
A prayer posted on her Facebook page refers to her children, reading in part "may they know to their last days that they were deeply loved by me."
It is a lasting reminder of a mother's love, from a life cut short.
Allen Koon was sitting in jail Thursday night, charged with Cindy's murder.
She leaves behind an 18-year-old son and a younger boy and girl who will have to relive their mother's death when the case goes to trial.
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