Celia Flewellen began her last morning by telling her husband, Richard, that their marriage of 14 years was over.

She would keep their two little girls. He would be forced to leave their yellow-brick house in Beechview by the end of October.

Richard Flewellen, 38, lay in bed, simmering for a few minutes. Then, police said, he attacked and killed his 40-year-old wife as she dressed for an appointment at Homewood Montessori School, where she was the principal.

The source of the police theory is Flewellen himself. He told homicide Detective Dennis Logan he "felt used" by his wife, so he grabbed a hammer, sneaked behind her, and beat her on the head and face. After that, Flewellen plunged a steak knife into her chest and back.

Flewellen sat impassively in a courtroom yesterday as police and prosecutors used his own words to build a murder case against him.

Within an hour, Deputy Coroner Tim Uhrich found Logan's testimony sufficient to hold Flewellen for trial on a homicide charge in his wife's Oct. 9 death.

Flewellen said nothing during the hearing, but his lawyer, Public Defender Christopher Patarini, announced that he pleaded not guilty.

In a separate but related ruling, District Justice Richard G. King found sufficient evidence for Flewellen to be tried on charges of arson, creating a catastrophic situation in Beechview and abusing his wife's corpse.

Flewellen is accused of using paint thinner or other flammable liquids to start at least five fires inside his house after killing his wife. Twenty-five percent of her body was burned in the fire.

Arson investigators said the fire had the potential to spread throughout Beechview, where houses are only 5 to 10 feet apart.

Most everyone in the neighborhood had regarded the Flewellens as a striking and happy couple.

She was a rising star in Pittsburgh's public school system, somebody with charisma and an easy way with students, staff and parents. He drove a Port Authority bus and had reigned as a champion bodybuilder. Their 10- and 12-year-old daughters were unfailingly polite and well-behaved.

Next-door neighbor Ed McMullen said everybody liked the Flewellens, whose lives seemed smooth.

In court, Logan provided a different perspective.

He testified yesterday that Celia Flewellen woke the morning of Oct. 9 and told her husband she "could not stand him." She said she had felt that way since 2000.

The couple had had "sexual problems," Logan went on. Mrs. Flewellen said she could not live with her husband much longer, setting the end of this month as his deadline for moving out.

Richard Flewellen had spent 18 months remodeling the family's home at 2304 Candace St. He told Logan he considered his wife a user. Flewellen did not want to be put out of the house he had rebuilt.

So, Logan testified, Flewellen decided to kill her. Then Flewellen would take his own life.

Logan quoted Flewellen as saying the couple's children would be all right without a mother or father. They had able grandparents to raise them.

Logan said that, after Flewellen killed his wife, he whisked his daughters from the home and drove them to his mother's house. Flewellen told the children their own mother was sick.

Then he returned to Beechview and set fires in the basement and second and third floors of his home.

As his house burned, Flewellen fled.

Logan interviewed Flewellen in West Penn Hospital about a day later. By then, Flewellen was on dialysis for poisoning. He had consumed about a cup of windshield cleaner.

First Assistant District Attorney Ed Borkowski called this "a half-hearted suicide attempt" by Flewellen.

Logan said Flewellen was not on any medication or painkillers when they talked at the hospital. Flewellen also volunteered that he had not been under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs when he killed his wife.

Patarini asked if Flewellen seemed upset and, possibly, was not thinking clearly during the police interview.

"No, surprisingly he was not distraught," Logan replied.

Patarini also tried to suggest that Flewellen did not plan to kill his wife.

Patarini pressed Logan on where Flewellen had obtained the weapons he supposedly used in the killing. Logan said Flewellen told him that he kept the hammer under his bed for protection. The steak knife, for some unexplained reason, was on the dresser in the couple's bedroom.

As for the tensions between the Flewellens, Patarini suggested that the blowup might be traced to the victim.

He asked Logan if Mrs. Flewellen was "a homosexual" and whether she became angry with her husband that morning

Logan said there were "questions about her life outside of marriage," but no angry exchanges occurred between the couple immediately after she said she wanted a divorce.

Following their talk, Mrs. Flewellen went downstairs and showered, Logan said. Afterward, she returned to the bedroom to dress.

"Not a single word was spoken between them" at that point, Logan testified.

But Flewellen, hammer in hand, approached his wife from behind and attacked, Logan said.

Flewellen, yesterday wearing the red jumpsuit of a prisoner, spoke to Patarini once during the hearing. Mostly, though, he stared at the defense table.

He left the courtroom before Mrs. Flewellen's relatives were ushered out. They declined to talk about the case.