SAN DIEGO -- An ex-convict accused of beating his wife to death with a flashlight while she slept in their Talmadge apartment last week pleaded not guilty Monday to a murder charge.

Thomas Everett Taylor II, 63, was ordered held on $1 million bail.

Deputy District Attorney Jessica Schuster told Judge David Szumowski that police were sent to the couple's home on 47th Street around 5:30 a.m. last Thursday.

Neighbors had reported the sound of glass crashing and seeing furniture being thrown out of a second-story window, the prosecutor said.

When officers arrived, they saw the defendant in the front yard and ordered him to stop, but he refused and balled up his fists in an aggressive manner, Schuster told the judge.

Police hit Taylor with pepper-spray, bean bags and a Taser before finally wrestling him to the ground, the prosecutor said.

When officers went upstairs, they found 58-year-old Brenda Martin-Taylor dead in bed under the covers, with serious injuries to the left side of her head, Schuster said.

A large police-style flashlight -- believed to be the murder weapon -- was later found in the living room, she said.

"We don't know what could have caused this," Schuster said outside court.

She said Taylor and his wife had been together for 40 years and had been married for nearly 25.

Defense attorney Allen Cazares told the judge that the defendant worked part-time in real estate and did maintenance work at the apartment building.

Taylor served at least one prison sentence in the 1970s and '80s for a homicide in Illinois, according to family members and news reports.

According to articles published in the San Diego Union and Tribune, Taylor -- a Vietnam veteran -- was on parole for a homicide when he was arrested in 1984 on a warrant in connection with the stabbing death of a Chicago man.

Taylor faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of murdering his wife. A status conference was set for April 13 and a preliminary hearing for April 17.