By Lisa Maria Garza

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The wife of a jogger who was slashed to death on a popular Dallas hiking trial this month has died of an apparent suicide, police said on Monday, nearly two weeks after the killing in which a former Texas A&M football player has been charged.

The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office said Patti Stevens, 54, was found dead in the garage of her home on Sunday by officers responding to a call seeking a check on her welfare.

The body of Stevens' husband, Dave Stevens, 53, was discovered on October 12 at White Rock Creek Trail with injuries consistent with a "large blade knife" attack, according to police.

Thomas Johnson, 21, a wide receiver on the Texas A&M football team in 2012, was arrested shortly after the attack and confessed to killing the jogger, Dallas police said.

Patti Stevens told The Dallas Morning News last week that she had not been able to eat or sleep since learning of her husband’s death.

"Dave was the love of my life and I’m lost without him,” she said in an interview with the newspaper on Oct. 19.

Johnson was a freshman wide receiver for Texas A&M who went missing from the College Station campus in November 2012, a few days after catching three passes in the Aggies' upset victory over then-No. 1 Alabama.

Johnson resurfaced three days later unharmed in Dallas and never returned to play college football. He had been a standout football player at Dallas Skyline High School. After leaving A&M, he was arrested and charged with burglary and auto theft in Dallas County in 2014.





(Editing by Jon Herskovitz and David Alexander)