Freezer Murder Suspect In Court

A traveling preacher accused of killing his wife and hiding her body in a freezer will face rape, sex abuse and incest charges during his murder trial.

Anthony Hopkins' attorneys, Jeff Deen and Sid Harrell, asked Circuit Court Judge John Lockett to separate the cases, but prosecutors argued the sex abuse of one of Hopkins' eight children was the motive for his wife's murder.

Hopkins was arrested in July 2008 after police found his wife's body in a freezer at the family's home on Rylands Street. Hopkins was preaching at a revival in Jackson, Alabama when sheriff's deputies took him into custody.

According to court documents obtained by News Five in 2008, Hopkins' daughter lead police to her mother's body. Arletha Hopkins, 36, had never been reported missing, but investigators believe she had been dead since November 2004, shortly after she gave birth to the couple's youngest child. A cause of death was never determined because the body was so badly decomposed, according to Rich.

Anthony Hopkins' daughter, who was 17 when she went to police, told investigators her father began raping her in 2001 when she was 11 years old. Several months after Hopkins was arrested, his teenage daughter gave birth to a baby. During Wednesday's hearing, prosecutors told the judge that DNA from the baby confirmed Anthony Hopkins is the father.

Jury selection in the case is scheduled to begin April 5th. The jury will be selected from a pool of 50 potential jurors.