A 56-year-old Jamaican man living in London, Ontario, has been charged with second-degree murder following the death of his wife.

Alton Farquharson, a pastor originally from Manchester, Jamaica, was arrested early Friday morning after police responded to a call at an apartment building on Westminster Avenue in south London around 5:15 a.m. on December 19. Inside one of the units, officers found the 47-year-old woman suffering from what police described as a traumatic injury.

The woman was taken to hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Police have not disclosed the nature of her injuries or the circumstances leading up to the incident.

Farquharson was taken into custody at the scene and later appeared in court on Friday. He was remanded and is scheduled to return to court on December 23.

London police have identified the killing as femicide, a term used in Canada to describe the killing of women because of their gender, most often in the context of intimate partner violence. The charge places the case within a broader pattern that authorities in the city have been increasingly vocal about in recent years.