The candles were lit and the mood was romantic. But Saturday night the couple, married just two years, fought, and ended horribly. A fight ensued during which retired New York City police officer Clarence Cash, 49, shot his wife, Tracey Young, in the head and torso, killing her in their Briarwood, Queens, eighth-floor apartment, according to the New York Times and numerous other published reports.

Young was with the Criminal Investigations Division of the New York State of the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. She did surveillance and undercover work hunting down cigarette bootleggers and was considered one of the departments most accomplished investigators, according to reports.

Cash was retired after a career at the 32nd precinct in Harlem, according to the New York Daily News. The paper reported that when he turned himself in to police at 6 a.m. Sunday morning, he kept repeating, She didn't deserve that. He is being charged with murder and illegal weapons possession

Young's own mother was slain 31 years ago by her own partner.