(AP) — A police chief says a former Kansas police instructor admitted that he “bullied” his wife the night before she was found shot to death in the couple’s fire-damaged home.

The Hutchinson News reports that Kingman Chief Marc Holloway testified Friday in Brett Seacat’s first-degree murder trial. Prosecutors allege Seacat killed his 34-year-old wife, Vashti, in April 2011 because she was divorcing him and set a fire to cover up the crime.

Seacat says his wife set the fire and killed herself. He escaped from the fire with the couple’s two young children.

Holloway testified that Seacat convinced his wife to let him stay in their home for several months, despite their marital problems, by threatening to take their children to Mexico. Seacat told Holloway his wife “wasn’t a fighter.”