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Woman Claiming Self-Defense Arrested For Murder In SF Stabbing

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) - A woman who said she fatally stabbed a man in self-defense after he broke into her home in San Francisco's Hunters Point neighborhood early Sunday has been arrested on suspicion of murder, a police spokesman said Tuesday.

Athena Wortham, 42, was arrested after the fatal stabbing of 40-year-old Anthony Payne, police spokesman Officer Carlos Manfredi said.

The stabbing was reported at 4:47 a.m. Sunday at a home in the 700 block of Kirkwood Avenue.

Wortham told investigators that Payne had gotten into her home through a door she had left open an hour earlier and that she stabbed him with a knife in self-defense when he tried to choke her, police said.

She said she thought Payne had left, but he was found outside of her door, dead of a knife wound to the chest, according to police.

Despite Wortham's claim of self-defense, the ensuing investigation by homicide inspectors led to her arrest on suspicion of murder, Manfredi said.

He declined to give more information about the case since the investigation is still ongoing.

(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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