After quite some time, Mallika Sherawat is back on the big screen with Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video. The actress made her debut in 2003 movie Khwahish. However, it was the 2004 romantic thriller Murder that made her popular. Directed by Anurag Basu, the actress featured alongside Emraan Hasmhi and Ashmit Patel in it. The film was a remake of 2002 Hollywood movie Unfaithful. Also Read – Mallika Sherawat was harassed by hero of comedy film, ‘Wanted to come inside my room’
However, the fame and popularity also came with a lot of slut shaming for Mallika Sherawat. In the same interview, the Welcome actress revealed how people treated her differently. Mallika said how the culture wasn’t ready for her and a movie like Murder back then. “Only now has Bollywood caught up to where I was in 2004. At that time, actresses were expected to follow a certain code of conduct. They were shy, while I was unapologetic. With Murder, a femme fatale was introduced.” Also Read – Raveena Tandon to Mandakini: Bollywood actresses who looked uber hot in waterfall scenes in films
Further in this entertainment news, the Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video actress said that some big actresses were condescending to her face. She sought solace in Mahesh Bhatt. “I ran to him crying, and he told me, ‘So many sluts in Bollywood, one more won’t matter.’ There was so much slut-shaming. They wanted to make me feel ashamed of the bold scenes I did,” Mallika revealed on the podcast.
Watch Mallika Sherawat in Murder song
Meanwhile, speaking of VVKWWV, directed by Raaj Shaandilyaa, the romantic comedy also stars Rajkummar Rao, Triptii Dimri, and Vijay Raaz. The film mostly received negative reviews by critics. It clashed with Alia Bhatt and Vedang Raina’s Jigra.
A mother from Porter Ranch has been charged with murder in the death of her 3-month-old baby, authorities said Friday.
Jalyn Simone SmithJermott, 21, faces one count of murder and one felony count of assault on a child causing death, according to the L.A. County district attorney’s office. She is scheduled to be arraigned Monday and faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life if convicted, prosecutors said.
Authorities said the baby was found not breathing in his bassinet on Sept. 10 and was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Eric Shannon Johnson, 35, who authorities said is the baby’s father, has also been charged with one felony count of child abuse. He pleaded not guilty Monday and his next court appearance is scheduled for Thursday. If convicted as charged, he faces up to six years in prison.
“Children, especially babies, depend on their parents and loved ones for care and nurturing. It is a profound betrayal when that trust is shattered,” Dist. Atty. George Gascón said in a statement.
During Johnson’s arraignment on Monday, prosecutors said that the baby suffered third-degree burns and a 4-inch head fracture in August — causing blood to collect between the skull and the surface of the brain, ABC7 reported. Prosecutors alleged that Johnson failed to seek medical help for the baby due to fear of repercussions from the Department of Children and Family Services, according to the station.
The case is being prosecuted by the district attorney’s Family Violence Division’s Complex Child Abuse Section and investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department.
“I want to assure the community that we will prosecute these offenders to the fullest extent of the law,” Gascón said. “We owe it to the victim and to all children who deserve a safe and loving environment.”
The trial of Bryan Kohberger, who has been charged with killing four University of Idaho students in 2022, has been set.
The trial will begin on Aug. 11, 2025, and continue through Nov. 7, 2025, according to a scheduling order issued by the state of Idaho. It had been scheduled to start in June 2025.
Other hearing dates will be held before the start of the trial. On Nov. 7, 2024, there will be a hearing addressing motions challenging the death penalty as a possible sentence, if Kohberger is convicted. Prosecutors have previously said they plan to ask for the death penalty if Kohberger is found guilty.
Kohberger has been charged with four counts of murder in the fatal stabbings of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, who were killed in the early morning of Nov. 13, 2022 at a home in Moscow, Idaho. Police arrested Kohberger six weeks later at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania.
Bryan Kohberger arrives at a hearing on September 13, 2023 in Moscow, Idaho.
Ted S. Warren / Getty Images
Kohberger was initially set to go on trial in October 2023, but his lawyer said the defense would not be ready in time. At the time, Kohberger later waived his right to a speedy trial. Kohberger’s trial was then set for June 2025. At the time, the trial was set to be held in Latah County, where the killings occurred.
Latah County District Judge John Judge said that he expected the trial would last three months, including two weeks of jury selection, eight weeks of the trial itself, and another two weeks for the verdict, sentencing and anything else remaining, CBS News previously reported. The new trial dates cover a similar period of time.
But in early September, Judge ordered that the trial be moved to a different part of Idaho, saying that he believed extensive media coverage of the case and statements by other public officials would make it impossible for Kohberger to have a fair trial. The concern was echoed by Kohberger’s lawyers.
Idaho’s Supreme Court moved the trial to Boise, Idaho, more than 300 miles from Latah County. Kohberger was booked into jail there last month.
Goncalves’ family has criticized the handling of the trial, saying in a statement this spring that they were frustrated by how long it has taken for the case to progress through the judicial system.
“This case is turning into a hamster wheel of motions, hearings, and delayed decisions,” the family said.
Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.
Haiti’s rampant criminal gangs are luring more children into lives of crime and sexual abuse, as hunger and poverty in the tiny Caribbean nation drive young people to desperation, according to a report published Wednesday by the U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch. Hundreds, possibly thousands more children have joined the violent gangs in recent months, HRW says, with members forcing youngsters to commit crimes and subjecting them to sexual abuse and violence.
The bloodshed and political chaos that has beleaguered Haiti has shown no signs of abating, with a single gang attack last week in the town of Pont-Sondé, about 40 miles from the capital Port-au-Prince, leaving 115 people dead and at least 16 others seriously wounded, according to local officials.
Myriam Fièvre, the mayor of the nearby city of Saint-Marc, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the toll from the Oct. 3 attack would likely rise further, as authorities still hadn’t managed to access certain parts of Pont-Sondé. At least three infants were among those killed, according to a previous statement from the United Nations human rights commissioner.
A child reacts as families displaced from their homes after a deadly attack by members of the Gran Grif gang, which stormed through the town of Pont-Sondé, killing dozens of people, stand in a park in Saint-Marc, Haiti, to seek help, Oct. 6, 2024.
Marckinson Pierre / REUTERS
The HRW report published Wednesday says the gangs likely started drawing more children into their ranks in response to law enforcement operations against their members by the Haiti Police and the United Nations-backed Multinational Security Support Mission. The MSS mission was recently approved by the United Nations. Led by Kenya, the force has only been partially deployed.
Criminal groups control almost 80% of Port-au-Prince, and HRW says joining the gangs is often the only option children have to obtain food and shelter. Around 125,000 children suffer from acute hunger in Haiti, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Some 2.7 million people live in gang-controlled territory, including 500,000 children.
HRW says almost a third of gang members now are believed to be children. A humanitarian worker in the country told HRW the gangs are using social media platforms including TikTok to attract young recruits.
HRW said girls are sexually abused by gang members and exploited for domestic labor once lured in.
“The [gang] leaders force them to perform sexual acts with them or their members while others watch,” HRW quoted one humanitarian worker as saying. “They tell them that they are their girlfriends and that they must obey them, but in reality, they exploit them for their pleasure and consumption.”
Children accompany armed gang members in a march organized by former police officer Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, leader of an alliance of armed gangs, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in a May 10, 2024 file photo.
Pedro Valtierra Anza/REUTERS
Boys are often used by the gangs to run errands, act as informants to get information on police activity and to transport weapons, HRW says, though they’re sometimes commissioned to assist in carrying out more serious, violent crimes, including kidnapping and murder. For this, they are fed and often paid — money which the young recruits often use to support family members facing poverty.
Gang members often use violence to control child soldiers once they’ve been recruited, beating and threatening them if they refuse to follow orders. One boy interviewed by HRW told the organization he originally joined a gang as an 8-year-old orphan, living on the street. He said he was given a gun and told to wear it on his back.
“Girls are not usually offered incentives for loyalty,” the HRW report says in the report, citing aid workers on the ground. “Instead, they are usually let go after some time, typically when they become pregnant as a result of rape.”
Former President Donald Trump has vowed, if reelected in November, to enact large-scale deportations of migrants, including Haitians.
HRW says more international aid is desperately needed in Haiti and in its new report, it calls on the country’s transitional government to prioritize initiatives to protect children. The transitional council took power in April with a mandate to start rebuilding Haiti’s crippled civilian government after years of turmoil amplified by the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A woman who was attacked and sexually assaulted while out for a walk on the Venice Canals in April has filed a $5-million claim against the city of Los Angeles, charging that the government was derelict in its duty to provide safe streets and protect its citizens.
Mary Klein, 55, who suffered a savage beating that left her with missing teeth and a blood clot in her brain, was attacked around 10:30 p.m. April 6 as she strolled through the upscale seaside neighborhood. Another woman, Sarah Alden, 53, was also attacked that night and later died.
Police later arrested Anthony Francisco Jones, 29; he was charged with two counts of forcible rape, murder, attempted murder, mayhem, torture and sodomy by use of force. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Times does not normally identify victims of sexual assault, but Klein came forward to share her story, saying people should take it as a wake-up call that more social services are needed for people suffering from mental illness and more police protection is needed for everyone.
“That’s why all this crime is happening — we’re ignoring the extreme mental health crisis going on in our streets,” she said this summer.
In filing her claim, Klein said she is trying to drive home the point that the government must do more to protect its citizens. The attack on her, she said, has turned her into an activist for public safety.
Los Angeles City officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the claim.
Klein filmed herself walking up to Los Angeles City Hall on Friday to submit her claim, speaking into the camera as the government buildings loomed behind her. A claim against the city can be a precursor to a lawsuit.
“There is a dereliction of duty by the government in Los Angeles, in California,” she says in her video. “A dereliction of duty to protect its citizens from the criminals and also to fund the police correctly.”
“I have lifelong damages to my jaw, my brain, blood clotting in my brain, due to a transient attacking me on an un-patrolled street in Venice,” she said. The street, she said, “was dark, no lighting, a public street where numerous incidents of violent crime and murder have occurred, and still absolutely no police presence on the street.”
“That’s not the police’s fault,” she said. “That’s the people who defund the police.”
In an interview, she said she was appreciative of Los Angeles officials, including Mayor Karen Bass, the City Council and the Los Angeles Police Department. She said she supports Bass’s goal to expand the LAPD by 1,000 officers.
“This is not about City Hall,” she said. “I see them doing a lot of work to help the community.” But the government as a whole must do more, she said.
A high school student on her way to drill team practice is found murdered on campus. What it took to close the case after 30 years. “48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales reports.
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A Central Florida defendant was sentenced in an attempted murder case after shooting juveniles riding on an ATV.
This month, 66-year-old Michael Regalski was sentenced to 65 years in the Florida Department of Corrections after jurors found him guilty back in August.
Regalski was convicted of three counts of Attempted Second Degree Murder with a Firearm, one count of Shooting at an Occupied Vehicle, and one count of Tampering with Physical Evidence. He was sentenced to 25 years on the first count, 20 years on the second, and 20 years on the third to be served consecutively.
“Today’s sentencing reaffirms the justice sought for the victims and their families involved in this case,” said Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Bill Gladson. “The defendant’s dangerous actions in response to a minor annoyance led to a tragic and senseless act of violence that he will now have 65 years to reflect upon.”
The charges stem from an incident back in April of 2023, in which Citrus County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a call for service regarding a shooting that had occurred.
When officials arrived on scene, they located an adult victim, along with two juvenile victims on an All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV). The victims indicated they were riding on the vehicle in the area when they heard two loud noises and pulled over, thinking the vehicle was malfunctioning.
While stopped, one of the juveniles indicated they felt pain in their lower abdomen, and upon reaching down immediately observed they were bleeding. CCSO officials and other medical first responders were able to stabilize the juvenile, who was then airlifted to a hospital for treatment.
CCSO’s Major Crimes Detective Roscoe Watts responded to the scene to investigate. During this time, he made contact with Regalski, whose home was just south of where the incident occurred. According to Regalski, he had seen the ATV with the three victims pass by his property previously while he was outside his garage. He said he had prior issues with the utility vehicles passing by his property loudly at all hours of the night.
Regalski further admitted when he saw the vehicle passing by his property the last time, he fired his Glock 40-caliber handgun at the vehicle in an attempt to deter the rides from driving by his property. When questioned as to what he did after firing at the utility vehicle, Regalski stated he secured his firearm before entering his residence to wash his clothes and shower.
He then told Detective Watts after he showered, he viewed his home’s video surveillance camera footage of the incident. He claimed nothing was captured on the footage, but still decided to erase the footage after viewing it.
Assistant State Attorneys Kaitlyn Mannis and Blake Shore prosecuted this case.
The murder was grisly and grotesque. Two young women were shot and killed, and their bodies stuffed into luggage — one of them cut into pieces to fit — and shipped on a train from Phoenix to Los Angeles…
The Menendez brothers were given life sentences for gunning down their own parents. Now they’re hoping new evidence could reopen the case. “48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales reports.
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Did a former Idaho state trooper use his law enforcement skills to stage his wife’s death in their bathtub? “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.
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Kootenai County Sheriff’s Deputy Miranda Thomas will never forget coming face to face with a distraught Dan Howard, a former state trooper, at his home in Northern Idaho on a cold winter’s morning in February 2021.
Deputy Miranda Thomas: He would scream and yell, but there were no tears in his eyes. At any point he would, um, act like he was gagging … But nothing would ever actually happen.
Thomas was one of the first responders to Dan Howard’s home, a place he shared with Kendy, his wife of 26 years.
An image from bodycam video of Dan Howard, seated, and Kootenai County Sheriff’s Deputy Miranda Thomas.
Kootenai County District Court
DEPUTY (bodycam): Dan, I know this is hard but, when — when is the last time that you saw your wife alive?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): (crying, unintelligible)
DEPUTY THOMAS (bodycam): Dan, do you want medical to look at you at all?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): No.
DEPUTY THOMAS (bodycam): OK.
DanHoward told police he discovered his wife in the bathtub. He said she had shot herself in the head. Kendy’s own pistol was at the bottom of the tub in murky water.
Kootenai County Sheriff’s Detective Jerry Northrup arrived before midnight.
Peter Van Sant: Were you dispatched … to a possible suicide?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Yes sir. … It was identified as a suicide.
EVIDENCE NOT ADDING UP FOR INVESTIGATORS
Northrup immediately began analyzing what was before him.
Det. Jerry Northrup: For a woman to shoot herself in the tub, nude, is unusual. It doesn’t mean it can’t happen It just means that it’s unusual.
Northrup, a crime scene expert, says something was missing from this death scene — especially considering Kendy had suffered a head wound.
Det. Jerry Northrup: There would be a lot more blood that was produced. And I just didn’t see that on her face, on her body or in the tub.
Thomas also saw some curious things.
Deputy Miranda Thomas: I went into the house and found a packed duffle bag. … Was someone planning on leaving the house?
In the laundry room, the dryer was running. It was full of clean bath towels and mats.
Deputy Miranda Thomas: Having a … dryer running at midnight, very odd, because I don’t do laundry at midnight. Sure, you could but …
And despite the shock of finding his wife dead, Dan Howard appeared to have recently showered, changed his clothes, and applied fresh deodorant.
Deputy Miranda Thomas: You can tell that he’s got deodorant lines on his T-shirt.
Peter Van Sant: Did something seem un-suicide-like to you?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Certainly. … There was no, other signs of like a suicide note.
It’s often standard procedure to check people at a shooting scene for GSR, gunshot residue. And as a former state trooper, Dan Howard would know that. Yet Northrup says Dan was uneasy about being tested.
Det. Jerry Northrup: Mr. Howard stuck his hands into his coat pockets, and then he began twisting them to and fro, back and forth repeatedly, until we told him to stop and remove his hands.
Peter Van Sant: Back and forth as if he’s trying to wipe something off?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Yes. That was the impression that we were getting …
Peter Van Sant: What was the result?
Det. Jerry Northrup: It was negative.
Peter Van Sant: It was negative.
Even though detectives were suspicious of all those little pieces of evidence that didn’t seem to add up, they could not rule out the possibility that Kendy Howard could have taken her own life.
Kendy’s sudden passing stunned those who loved her.
Michelle Lampert: She loved life … I have never had so much fun with somebody … no care in the world.
Michelle Lampert was one of Kendy’s best friends.
Michelle Lampert: She always laughed. … my favorite is spin class … and then to the brewery … nothing like spin class and brewery, but she felt like that was OK.
Brooke Wilkins: She was a great mom.
Brooke Wilkins is Kendy’s daughter from an earlier relationship.
Peter Van Sant: Tell me about your mom. She just seems really special.
Brooke Wilkins: She was. She had a big personality. … She was happy to talk to anyone and make a friend and joke around.
Kendy was a small town girl from northern Idaho — sporty and outdoorsy, says her brother Brian Wilkins.
Brian Wilkins: She … rode her horse a lot, had sheep for 4H and … and, well, she had a goat, too, at the same time.
Dan and Kendy Howard
Brian Wilkins
Kendy was just 22 when she married former Marine-turned-Idaho state trooper Dan Howard. He was six years older.
Peter Van Sant: Did she talk about the attraction?
Brooke Wilkins: She did think he was very handsome. And I think the sense of security is a topic that was brought up quite a bit.
The couple settled on 10 acres in the town of Athol, just a speck on the map, located 21 miles north of Coeur D’Alene. They had a son together, Wyatt. Like his dad, Wyatt became a Marine. A neighbor, Cari Maitland, says Dan and Kendy’s marriage seemed strong.
Cari Maitland: They were affectionate towards each other and … they were generally respectful to each other.
Kendy worked at a local medical center. During 26 years of marriage, they made good money in real estate in this fast-growing state. By the time of Kendy’s death, the couple had more than $2 million in assets. And yet, money created friction between them.
Michelle Lampert: Her money was his money and his money was his money. … He never wanted to spend money.
And there was more friction in the marriage, according to friends, after Dan Howard — working as a trooper for the Idaho State Police — shot and killed a woman during a traffic stop. Dan was cleared of all wrongdoing, but the incident took its toll on Kendy.
CariMaitland: I do believe … she did become depressed.
Years later, Dan Howard would leave the Idaho State Police.
Cari Maitland: And things kind of changed between them.
Kendy’s brother Brian Wilkins helped Dan find work on the North Slope — the oil fields of Alaska. He’d work three weeks straight and then come home for three weeks.
Michelle Lampert: She was free for three weeks is when she really decided to experience life.
Brian Wilkins says the couple grew apart.
Brian Wilkins: There was arguing, bickering pretty much the whole time I’d be up there around him. But I didn’t think it was anything.
But Brooke Wilkins says it was the beginning of the end of their relationship. Kendy was frustrated and lonely.
Brooke Wilkins: She’s very vocal that she does not love him; that there’s no love in this marriage.
Lampert says Kendy had an affair, and even planned plastic surgery.
Michelle Lampert: She was just super excited.
And that’s when Kendy told Dan she was moving out and wanted a divorce. And she had started the process of buying a new house.
Michelle Lampert: And I think she really felt that it would be OK.
By the end of January 2021, just days before her death, Kendy met with a divorce lawyer. When Dan came home from work —
Michelle Lampert: She just told him … I mean, she just told him everything. And I think [at] that point I did get scared. … She said he was fine. He wasn’t fine.
QUESTIONING DAN HOWARD’S VERSION OF THE EVENTS
Michelle Lampert: It never made sense to me. It never made sense.
When first responders examined Kendy Howard’s body in her bathtub, she had a gunshot wound to the back of her mouth and her pistol was in the water. Dan Howard told everyone that Kendy had taken her own life.
Peter Van Sant: Were you buying that?
Brian Wilkins: No. … I couldn’t see her leaving her kids and granddaughter.
When he learned his sister was dead, Brian Wilkins rushed over to her house. He walked right up to Dan Howard.
Brian Wilkins: There was no emotion. He wasn’t crying. … I asked him if he’d ever hurt my sister. … he wouldn’t look at me in the eye and he said, “no.”
Kendy’s friend, Michelle Lampert, was also certain Kendy had not taken her own life.
Michelle Lampert: Kendy was not depressed. … You don’t think about doing plastic surgery. You don’t go work out. You don’t go to spin class.
But Cari Maitland, Kendy’s neighbor, says Kendy hadbeendeeply unhappy. Months earlier she says Kendy told her about problems in her marriage.
Cari Maitland: She’s just crying and crying and crying. … And — and she’s like, “I don’t even deserve to be here.”
Maitland doesn’t think there’s any mystery about what happened in that bathroom.
Cari Maitland: I do believe that Kendy committed suicide.
In the hours following Kendy’s death, Northrup said he had questions about Dan Howard’s version of events.
Det. Jerry Northrup: There’s a — an order to things and a logical order … it did not make sense.
When first responders arrived to the Howard home, the clothes dryer was running. It was full of clean bath towels and mats.
Kootenai County District Court
One thing that didn’t make sense that night was the clothes dryer running when first responders entered the house. There were still six minutes showing on the display. So Northrup did some digging.
Det. Jerry Northrup: I went to the manufacturer’s site, pulled up the specifics about the times for cycles … And then took that information and compared that against the time at which the 911 call was placed.
Peter Van Sant: And what do you learn?
Det. Jerry Northrup: That it was started within a minute of the 911 call.
Det. Jerry Northrup: It suggested that he was doing actions like starting laundry … rather than his claim that he was checking on Kendy Howard and — and that he was inconsolable and upset … it just — it didn’t add up.
And there were other red flags for Northrup.
Peter Van Sant: Did you find any signs of a struggle, that there’d been some sort of a physical confrontation between these two?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Yes, we did. Up in the master bedroom, we noted on the floor that there were pieces of broken glass.
Kendy Howard “was in that tub of water, with a gunshot wound to her head. And the gun was still in the water of the bathtub,” Deputy Miranda Thomas told “48 Hours.”
Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office
And there was that question of the amount of blood in the bathtub.
Peter Van Sant: With a wound to the head, that water will be much darker red-colored, right? From the blood?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Yes, sir. Based on my experience, that would be consistent. That the — the fact that there wasn’t — was inconsistent.
Peter Van Sant: Inconsistent, suggesting it might not be a suicide?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Correct. … Everything started directing us to the path that this was a staged crime scene.
Detective Sergeant Ken Lallatin, now retired, was the lead investigator.
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Nothing about this case felt right from the beginning.
DET. SGT.KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): Hi Dan … So what happened tonight?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): Marital problems … she wants a divorce one day … she doesn’t the next … So she brought home divorce papers, just preliminary ones.
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): We just grew apart, I guess.
Lallatin says he quickly became convinced Dan Howard was playing them.
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: I had the sense that Dan had a story that he had planned to share with us that evening … it felt very contrived.
Peter Van Sant: Almost scripted in a way?
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Absolutely. Yeah, definitely scripted.
One example, Lallatin says, was Dan Howard telling him that Kendy had once put a gun to her head.
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): She put the gun to her f****** head … it freaked me the f*** out… and um I thought for sure… ‘here we go’ and she dropped the gun and f****** shot through the floor.
DETECTIVE (bodycam): Same gun?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): Same gun.
Lallatinsays Dan Howard told him, that after a heated argument that night over splitting their finances, Kendy went upstairs to take a bath. A short time later Dan heard what he described as a “thud.”
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): It sounded like something hit the floor or something. I don’t know.
But he didn’t investigate for more than an hour. That’s when Dan Howard says he found her: dead in the tub.
Peter Van Sant: How many times have you ever described a gunshot as a thud?
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: I don’t think I’ve ever described a gunshot as a thud. … I certainly would not expect someone who served in the Marine Corps, served … approximately 20 years in law enforcement, someone who was a firearms instructor, someone who had been on their SWAT team. I think if anybody’s going to know what the sound of a gunshot is from inside a residence, it’s going to be Dan Howard.
As the morning came, Dan Howard called his stepdaughter Brooke Wilkins, and told her the news … it didn’t go well. Lallatin says he could hear Brooke shouting at Dan through the phone.
DAN HOWARD (bodycam, shouting back at his phone): What? What are you talking about? …
DET. SGT.KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): Who was that Dan? …
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): It was my daughter, Brooke …
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): Did she just accuse you of this?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): No.
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): That’s what it sounded like. … Why would she do that Dan? Why would she think you did this? … I haven’t heard someone that angry in a long time … I’ll be honest with you. I was not expecting anything like that … I was across the room and I could hear her. She’s angry …
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): Kids don’t want to believe their moms would do that.
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Not one time have I ever been to a suicide or even heard of one where one of the family members … call and accuse her stepdad of murdering her mom. … it was a very powerful moment. … and I literally was able to see Dan Howard almost physically shrink down.
Peter Van Sant: Like the walls are closing in?
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Oh, a hundred percent.
WAS THE DEATH SCENE STAGED?
In the early morning of Feb. 3, 2021, Dan Howard’s behavior continued raising the suspicions of Kootenai County detectives. They had just overheard that phone call from his stepdaughter, Brooke Wilkins, accusing him of killing her mother.
Peter Van Sant: And you’re believing that no way she shot herself.
Brooke Wilkins: Right. … I tell him that … I don’t know what happened, but … “I know you did this.”
Detective Sgt. Ken Lallatin confronted Dan about Brooke’s accusation:
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): I gotta tell you, that phone call put chills down my spine. …
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): You did it, didn’t you Dan?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): No, I didn’t.
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): I didn’t think so, but now, after listening to that, I think you did, didn’t you?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): How the hell, how the hell — she doesn’t know. She wasn’t here.
“Dan (Howard) knows things that most normal people, ordinary people, don’t know,” says retired Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office. “Things like killing someone and staging it to look like a suicide.”
Brian Wilkins
Within minutes, Dan Howard stopped responding to questions. Detectives were now very suspicious, because, as an ex-cop, he had special skills.
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Dan knows things that most normal people, ordinary people don’t know.
Peter Van Sant: Things like what?
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Things like killing someone and staging it to look like a suicide.
Kendy Howard’s gun was found in the bathtub. The medical examiner concluded Kendy died from that gunshot. Her daughter, Brooke Wilkins, says her mother never took her gun out of the safe.
Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office
But there wasn’t enough physical evidence at the scene to arrest him. What’s more, later that day, an autopsy was done. The medical examiner concluded Kendy died from that gunshot. Brooke Wilkins was perplexed. She says her mother never took her gun out of the safe.
Brooke Wilkins: Mom never touched a gun. She wouldn’t have used a gun. … there’s something not making sense here.And … I’m so lost and confused because … you know, Dan’s not arrested.
What Brooke Wilkins didn’t know was that the investigation was zeroing in on Dan Howard. Just hours after Kendy’s death, Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney Stan Mortensen was called in to consult with detectives. They pieced together a detailed timeline of the couple’s relationship.
Peter Van Sant: What did you learn about Dan Howard?
Stan Mortensen: So we learned … that Dan Howard was not the person that we thought he was … at home and behind and closed doors, he was a different person.
Investigators focused in on an alarming incident Dan Howard was involved in from 2013, when he was still a state trooper. Dan had found out Kendy was having an affair with a neighbor — who also happened to be Dan’s good friend. Enraged, Dan confronted him at his office.
Det. Jerry Northrup: He … threatened to — I believe his words were — splatter his brains all over the walls.
Peter Van Sant: Threatened to kill him?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Threatened to kill him.
Dan Howard was accused of repeatedly harassing the neighbor, and eventually pleaded guilty to two felonies and served almost four months in jail in connection with that incident. He was allowed to resign from the Idaho State Police. After that, Kendy’s friend Michelle Lampert says the couple’s relationship seemed to change.
Michelle Lampert: She was stuck to him like glue, just like glue, like hanging all over him. And she was never that way before. .. I think back, going, was she scared?
In the years that followed, Lampert says Dan was controlling and quick to anger — especially when it came to Kendy’s spending.
Michelle Lampert: Dan never wanted to go do anything cause that would spend money. … I just don’t think she was her full personality when he was around.
But when Dan was about to head back to Alaska for work —
Michelle Lampert: She was a totally different person … I think she realized the more she was free, the more she loved life. And she didn’t have to be under his thumb.
They continued to grow apart. Then Kendy told Lampert about an explosive argument, just seven months before her death.
Michelle Lampert: She had hidden credit cards and he found the bills and that started that argument … He … grabbed her and held her and there was bruises on her neck and her … She sent me pictures … You could see ’em. Clear as day in the pictures. …She just told me not to tell anybody.
Kendy never reported any kind of abuse from Dan Howard to authorities.
Peter Van Sant: How long had this physical abuse been going on? Do you have a sense?
Stan Mortensen: We — we really don’t know. It had been going on at least … six months before she died.
Then, just four nights before Kendy Howard’s death, deputies were called to the Howard home. Kendy’s mother had asked for a welfare check, after hearing a panicked Kendy on the phone. A visibly nervous Kendy answered the door.
DEPUTY (bodycam): You mind if we talk to you guys really quick?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam, sitting on couch): Sounds fine to me.
Hours earlier, Kendy had picked Dan up at the airport, coming home from the oil fields of Alaska. And apparently upset him by saying she wanted a divorce. Kendy tells a deputy she needs to get something from the bedroom.
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam, stuttering): And — so, I can go?
DEPUTY (bodycam): Yeah, do you mind if I follow you?
That let the deputy speak with Kendy away from Dan Howard.
Kendy Howard is seen in bodycam video during her conversation with the deputy.
Kootanai County District Court
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam) I asked for a divorce and he just got home. He’s not taking it good.
DEPUTY (bodycam): OK.
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam) I can’t say what he was going to do …
DEPUTY (bodycam): Did it ever become physical?
KENDY HOWARD: I think I had woke up in time so it wouldn’t.
DEPUTY (bodycam): OK. When you woke up, where was he?
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): Standing over me …
DEPUTY (bodycam): Was he yelling? Was the argument like a —
KENDY HOWARD: No, that’s the thing —
DEPUTY (bodycam): So he’s always kind of just that calm?
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): (unintel) It’s weird.
DEPUTY (bodycam): OK. Alright.
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): I know what I seen. I know what he was going to do …
The deputy helped Kendy leave the house. But investigators would later say they couldn’t arrest Dan Howard because Kendy never told deputies Dan had physically harmed her. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Julia Schoffstall later learned that Kendy had told friends what had happened.
Julia Schoffstall: She wakes up in early morning hours to Dan standing over her … wearing dark clothes … black latex gloves … a pillow in his hand … the look in his eyes … it was a look that she had never seen before and that she wholeheartedly believed in that moment that he was going to kill her.
But later that day, Kendy, returned home.
Julia Schoffstall: She told friends and family that … he wasn’t stupid enough to try something again, that she felt like she had some level of safety …
Peter Van Sant: What’s the tragedy in this case to you? The biggest tragedy of all?
Julia Schoffstall: That she was so close to getting out.
In the text messages to Kendy, Dan Howard said it was all a misunderstanding and he was willing to work things out. But there were other signs he wasn’tOK. The day before Kendy’s death, her brother Brian Wilkins took a long road trip with Dan.
Brian Wilkins: He started asking me about who Kendy was having an affair with.
Brian Wilkins says Dan Howard figured out Kendy was seeing the real estate agent who was helping her buy that new house near her hometown.
Brian Wilkins: You could tell, he was mad.
The next day, Kendy Howard was dead. To prosecutors, the circumstantial evidence against Dan Howard was adding up. After reviewing Kendy’s autopsy and photos taken of Kendy’s body, investigators discovered that, in fact, Kendy had multiple bruises all over her body.
Stan Mortensen: Her body was riddled from head to toe with bruises and some lacerations.
And her jaw had been broken.
Stan Mortensen: I believe that Kendy was beat severely by Dan.
So what really happened that night? The theory that Kendy’s death scene could have been staged began to take on a new light.
Stan Mortensen: Kendy did not die from a gunshot wound …
Peter Van Sant: Wait, wait. Stop. She was shot, I understand, in the mouth … the bullet lodged in her vertebrae. And it didn’t kill her?
Stan Mortensen: Exactly. We believe that Kendy was already dead when she was shot.
HOW DID KENDY HOWARD DIE?
Julia Schoffstall: Dan always had a level of control over Kendy. And I think by February 2nd, he had realized that that control was gone.
Kendy Howard
Brian Wilkins
Weeks into the investigation, prosecutors believed the circumstantial evidence showed Kendy Howard died at the hands of Dan Howard. But with the medical examiner’s ruling that Kendy had died from a gunshot wound, and no DNA evidence linking Dan Howard to Kendy’s gun, prosecutors faced challenges. So, they called in other experts to take a second lookat the evidence, including forensic pathologist Dr. Jennifer Nara.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: I looked at the autopsy report, I reviewed all the photos … all the X-rays, the toxicology results … I did not agree with the original cause of death, that she died from a gunshot wound at the head.
Nara walked “48 Hours” through her analysis.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: When … I looked at what the trajectory was, the path the bullet took inside Kendy’s mouth, I thought that was unusual … cause it was going in a slightly downward direction. Typically in gunshot-wound suicides, they go either straight back to the mouth or go slightly upward.
Peter Van Sant: And can you demonstrate the path of this bullet?
Dr. Jennifer Nara uses a rod to show the direction that the bullet traveled through Kendy Howard’s mouth, tearing through her tongue.
CBS News
Dr. Jennifer Nara (demonstrating): Yeah, I sure can. So, I have a skull model here … I’m gonna take this rod to show the direction that the bullet traveled through the mouth, through the tongue. … and it tore through the tongue … like a torpedo. … it just went through the center of the tongue.
Peter Van Sant: Would there have been a lot of blood?
Dr. Jennifer Nara: Absolutely. … it’s gonna bleed like crazy.
Peter Van Sant: Because the heart is beating at the time that the bullet went through that tongue.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: Exactly.
But, when Nara reviewed the photos of the crime scene, she says she didn’t see the amount of blood she would have expected to.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: There was not enough blood.
And there were those bruises on Kendy’s body and her broken jaw, which Nara says were sustained before Kendy had died.
Peter Van Sant: Injuries that — that suggested a physical struggle of some sort.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: Correct. … She’s got bruises throughout her body. She’s got bruising on both sides for her neck, which is consistent with her being possibly choked.
Peter Van Sant: What did you conclude?
Dr. Jennifer Nara: I believe that … Kendy Howard was already dead when she sustained that gunshot wound. … she was already strangled or choked to death. And when she was placed in the bathtub, she was already dead.
So, how then did Kendy die? Prosecutors say Dan Howard used a restraining technique he learned back in his days as a state trooper.
Julia Schoffstall: We believe that he utilized a technique known as a carotid restraint.
Peter Van Sant:Show me how it works.
Stan Mortenson (demonstrates): So, what you would do is, you’d place your arm around somebody’s neck and head, and their chin is gonna be in the crook of your elbow.
Prior to becoming an attorney, prosecutor Stan Mortenson had been a sheriff’s deputy, and, like Dan Howard, had been trained in administering the carotid restraint hold — rarely used, as it cuts off blood flow to the brain.
Stan Mortenson: If it’s applied too long, it can cause death. … And that right there was our theory on how Dan killed Kendy.
Peter Van Sant: It’s an interesting theory, but you do concede it is a theory, right? … no witness came forward to say that Dan told me he did this or … there’s no physical evidence that proves that he did this, right?
Stan Mortenson: Not the carotid restraint technique, correct. … but Dan knew how to use this technique and taught other people how to use it. So, we weren’t just grabbing this theory out of thin air. This was something that Dan actually knew.
In April 2023, Dan Howard was charged with murder. He was also charged with domestic battery from an incident seven months before Kendy’s death. He pleaded not guilty.
Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office
It took two years for the prosecutors to build their case. Finally, in April 2023, Dan Howard was charged with murder. He was also charged with domestic battery from that incident seven months before Kendy’s death, when she took those photos of her bruises and sent them to her friend Michelle Lampert. He pleaded not guilty and posted bail. Dan Howard was ordered to wear an ankle monitor while he awaited trial.
In his opening statement, prosecutor Stan Mortenson said Dan and Kendy Howard had fought over finances that night, and it turned physical, with Dan bruising Kendy, breaking her jaw, then killing her with the carotid restraint hold. Then, he said, Dan Howard staged the scene by placing Kendy’s body in the bathtub and shooting her.
STAN MORTENSEN (in court): Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence will come in and will demonstrate that this was not a suicide. … Evidence will show that Kendy died of asphyxiation. … Evidence will show that Dan Howard is guilty of murder.
Dan Howard’s lawyer, Jason Johnson, countered the state’s claims by asserting that an emotionally troubled Kendy Howard has shot herself.
JASON JOHNSON (in court): She is struggling with whether she wants to leave Dan.
He pointed out that Dan Howard’s DNA was not even on Kendy’s gun.
JASON JOHNSON (in court):The gun had Kendy’s blood on it. … But Dan is excluded.
And he dismissed the State’s assertion there was a physical fight that night.
Jason Johnson: Kendy did not have any … DNA under her fingernails. … there were no defensive marks on Dan.
Johnson also said the investigators were all wrong about the lack of blood at the scene, pointing out that several hours had passed before some of the crime scene photographs of the bathtub had been taken and some of the water could have drained.
JASON JOHNSON (in court): How much blood went down that drain?
Johnson attacked the prosecution’s claim that Kendy Howard was dead from asphyxiation before she was shot by calling that medical examiner who performed Kendy’s original autopsy.
JASON JOHNSON (in court): Your cause of death is gunshot wound?
DR. JOHN HOWARD (in court): That’s my opinion.
More than a week into the proceedings, the trial recessed for a long weekend break. That night, prosecutors learned of a new, dramatic development that seemed to be right out of a television crime show. It seemed Dan Howard was making a run for it.
WAS DAN HOWARD MAKING A RUN FOR IT?
With his trial winding down, Dan Howard, who was out on bail with an ankle monitor, suddenly took off.
Peter Van Sant: This was the great escape. He was hoping to get away?
Stan Mortenson: He did it right after we finished with all of our evidence.
A deputy was tracking Dan Howard that night.
Stan Mortenson: You know, this is I-90, going 70 miles-an-hour. He abruptly took an exit and then got back on the highway … you know, looking in his rear-view mirror, “is somebody following me?”
About an hour later, Dan Howard made it to the Spokane International Airport.
Peter Van Sant: He’s right there at the airport terminal.
Stan Mortenson: He’s right there at the airport terminal. Dan was taken out of the car. He was put into handcuffs.
Dan Howard claimed he had gone there to help a friend return a rental car — not to make a run for it.
Stan Mortenson: And I think it’s possible that he was gonna cut the ankle monitor off, leave it in his car and then drive away in another rental car.
Instead, Dan Howard’s drive was a short one back to a jail cell in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. His bail was revoked. Days later, the prosecution made closing arguments.
JULIA SCHOFFSTALL (in court): Ladies and gentlemen, the state has shown you … this was not suicide ’cause a dead person cannot shoot themselves in the mouth.
The jury was not told about Dan Howard’s escape attempt. His defense attorney insisted that Kendy took her own life.
JASON JOHNSON (in court): The scene is consistent with suicide.
And that Dan Howard did not have the skills to “stage” a murder scene.
JASON JOHNSON (in court): There’s no evidence that he worked as a detective. No evidence that he had any sort of homicide training. Uh, no evidence of the knowledge of staging a scene.
After 10 days of trial, 62 witnesses and just over eight hours of deliberations, the jury reached a verdict: guilty of second-degree murder.
Brooke Wilkins: I cried. There was — I think I gasped that — there was crying and —
Peter Van Sant: And did you look at Dan?
Brooke Wilkins: I’m looking at him and as he turns there’s just — there’s no expression. There’s no look of remorse.
Dan Howard had shown no emotion. But two months later at his sentencing, he begged the judge for leniency.
Dan Howard make a plea for leniency at his sentencing.
Pool
DAN HOWARD (in court): I love my wife, and I miss her. (cries) And … I am not that monster, I assure you, that, um, people have portrayed me to be. Kendy and I had, um, 28 years together. And, um, raised a family. Had mostly a good marriage and a good life. … I’m not that animal that they portray me to be. … It is not my intention to anger the court or disrespect the process that, uh, I used to believe in … But, your Honor is about to sentence an innocent man to prison.
But the judge wasn’t moved.
JUDGE LAMONT BERECZ (in court): What we know beyond a reasonable doubt is that you strangled your wife. You murdered her. And then you staged her naked body in the bathtub, shot her through the mouth, and tried to pass this off as a suicide. … You killed a mother. You killed a grandmother. You killed a sister. … You snuffed that out because of your own pride, greed, and anger.”
“Pride, greed, and anger,” said the judge. But others kept coming back to the word “control.”
Julia Schoffstall: To me, this case was about a man who thought that he could control a woman. … And if he couldn’t get his way, he was going to force it.
Brooke Wilkins: I cried. … it’s such a relief. … that … people got to hear what actually happened.
Brooke Wilkins’ daughter Kenly was just 8 when her beloved grandmother was murdered. Now 12, she treasures these glass chickens that her grandma collected.
Peter Van Sant: Do you feel a connection to your grandmother when you — when you see these?
Kenly Wilkins: Yeah.
Brooke Wilkins: She had had a china hutch.
Kenly Wilkins: Yeah, a china hutch. It was just full of chickens. So I’d always just try and like, look at how many different colors there were.
Peter Van Sant: Pretty cool grandma. You loved her, didn’t you?
Kenly Wilkins: (Nods yes)
“She wanted to just love life. And she loved life,” Michelle Lampert said of her friend, Kendy Howard.
Brian Wilkins
Peter Van Sant: What is the hardest thing for you?
Kenly Wilkins: Probably her smile.
Peter Van Sant: It’s tough, isn’t it?
Kenly Wilkins: Yeah. (cries)
Michelle Lampert: I want justice for Kendy. … what I hope they get from the story that you don’t have to live like this. … I wish I could have stopped it. I’m still shocked that we’re still talking about domestic violence … And that sometimes you can’t do anything. (cries)
Dan Howard was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Produced by Chuck Stevenson and Lauren Clark. Cindy Cesare, Danielle Austen and Sara Ely Hulse are the development producers. Megan Kelly Brown is the associate producer. Greg Kaplan and Michael Baluzy are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
A 27-year-old man who shot two of his Topgolf coworkers — killing one of them — in December has pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder.
Victor Salazar-Guarache took a plea deal in Adams County District Court on Thursday, according to court records.
Salazar-Guarache pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder, court records show. The plea deal dropped charges of first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree attempted murder and a violent-crime sentence enhancer from his case.
The then-26-year-old Topgolf dishwasher was arrested in December after a midnight shooting in the parking lot of the Thornton Topgolf, 16011 Grant St., left one man dead, police said.
Bryce Holden, a 22-year-old Topgolf dishwasher, was shot multiple times and died from his wounds, police said. The kitchen manager who walked out with Holden also was shot.
As Holden and the manager exited the building and entered the parking lot, Salazar-Guarache got out his car and fired 12 shots at the pair, continuing to shoot even after Holden fell, according to his arrest affidavit.
A Lyft driver who was picking up another employee told officers he saw Salazar-Guarache exit his vehicle and, when he returned to his car after the shooting, it appeared Salazar-Guarache was laughing, the affidavit stated.
Salazar-Guarache will next appear in court for a sentencing hearing Oct. 11, according to court records.
After family members of a slain Navajo woman described their grief in a federal courtroom, the judge on Monday sentenced her boyfriend to life imprisonment for first-degree murder in a case that became emblematic of what officials call an epidemic of missing and slain Indigenous women.
Five years after Jaime Yazzie was killed, her relatives and friends cheered as they streamed out of the downtown Phoenix courthouse after U.S. District Court Judge Douglas L. Rayas handed down the sentence for Tre C. James.
Yazzie was 32 and the mother of three sons when she went missing in the summer of 2019 from her community of Pinon on the Navajo Nation. Despite a high-profile search, her remains were not found until November 2021 on the neighboring Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona. At the time, the FBI offered a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for Yazzie’s disappearance and/or death.
James was convicted last fall in Yazzie’s fatal shooting. The jury also found James guilty of several acts of domestic violence committed against three former dating partners.
Yazzie’s three sons, now ages 18, 14, 10, and other relatives attended Monday’s sentencing, along with several dozen supporters. Another dozen or so supporters stayed outside to demonstrate on the sidewalk, chanting and beating drums.
Jaime Yazzie
KPHO-TV
“There is no sentence you can impose that will balance the scale,” Yazzie’s mother, Ethelene Denny, told the judge before the announcement. Denny detailed the pain the family has suffered from the moment Yazzie disappeared, through a desperate 2 1/2-year search and the ultimate shock and heartbreak when her remains were found.
Denny told the judge she researched the right words to use, as English is her second language, CBS affiliate KPHO-TV reported.
“Looking through dictionaries, I wanted to have that powerful wording and everything to say my statement,” Denny said.
Federal prosecutors also played an earlier recorded video statement from Yazzie’s father, James Yazzie, who has since died.
“It’s not right,” the elder Yazzie said in the video, who was clearly ailing and had trouble speaking. “Taking my daughter away and taking my grandkids’ mom. It hits me right in the heart.”
“To see him again, it brought joy to my heart, but my heart is still breaking and being put back together,” Yazzie said.
The FBI hailed the sentence.
“Today’s sentence underscores the fact that Jamie Yazzie was not forgotten by the FBI or our federal and tribal partners,” FBI Phoenix Special Agent in Charge Jose A. Perez said in a statement. “Our office is committed to addressing the violence that Native American communities in Arizona face every day and we will continue our efforts to protect families, help victims and ensure that justice is served in each case we pursue.”
Yazzie’s case gained attention through the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women grassroots movement that draws attention to widespread violence against Indigenous women and girls in the United States and Canada.
The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs characterizes the violence against Indigenous women as a crisis.
Women from Native American and Alaska Native communities have long suffered from high rates of assault, abduction and murder. A 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice found that more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women – 84% – have experienced violence in their lifetimes, including 56% who have been victimized by sexual violence.
“We got justice for Jamie. We did it,” Yazzie’s family and friends chanted outside the federal courthouse in Phoenix after the sentence was handed down, KPHO-TV reported.
Supporters of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement wait outside the U.S. District Court in Phoenix, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, during a hearing where Tre C. James was sentenced to life imprisonment in the fatal shooting of his girlfriend Jamie Yazzie on the Navajo Nation in 2019.
APPLE VALLEY, Minn. — An Apple Valley man was sentenced to a decade in prison Monday for his role in the shooting death of his ex-girlfriend, court records show.
Willie Selmon pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in June. His 120-month term is well below the sentencing guidelines for the charges.
A plea agreement filed in June said the state would seek a sentence of 261 months (almost 22 years), which is on the low end of the guidelines. The defense argued for a downward departure and was granted it because the crime was “less onerous than usual” and Selmon is “particularly amenable to probation,” according to the departure report.
A criminal complaint states Selmon went to his ex-girlfriend’s home on July 10, 2022, to get some things. When he arrived, his ex-girlfriend — Michelle McGill — and her son, Billy Pryor Jr., were sitting in separate vehicles in the driveway.
According to the complaint, Pryor told Selmon he had a gun and started shooting, hitting Selmon in the face twice. Selmon ran to McGill’s vehicle, thinking Pryor would stop shooting if his mother was between, the complaint states. Both men continued shooting, though, and McGill was hit 10 times, according to an autopsy report. She died at the scene.
The silent stones tell both sides of an epic story, the life and death of Timeline: The Blaze Bernstein murder caseBlaze Bernstein. They are a marker of a violent murder, but also a promise in the belief of a better future. A monument to the best of humanity, and the very worst of human behavior.
You can find the stones in a tranquil corner of Borrego Park, in suburban Orange County, California. There are hundreds of them, hand-painted, with messages of tolerance, love and peace. “And they’re getting sent to us from all around the world,” says Gideon Bernstein. “It’s great to see the messaging. It’s always positive,” adds Gideon’s wife Jeanne Pepper.
A hand-painted stone with the likeness of Blaze Bernstein in Orange County, California’s Borrego Park.
KCBS
Jeanne and Gideon are the parents of Blaze Bernstein. On Jan. 2, 2018, then-19-year-old Blaze left his house. Sometime later that night, he was murdered in Borrego Park, stabbed 28 times; his body buried there in a shallow, muddy grave.
By all accounts, Blaze was an exceptional young man — an Ivy League student at the University of Pennsylvania, considering a career in medicine, a writer and budding chef. “I call him a unicorn,” Jeanne Pepper tells “48 Hours” correspondent Tracy Smith in “The Life and Death of Blaze Bernstein,” airing Saturday, Sept, 21 at 9/8c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Theirs is a loss they continue to live with to this day. “I think about Blaze all the time, because when I see things, I think to myself, ‘what would Blaze be doing now?’” says Pepper.
Blaze died because of something far more fundamental. He was targeted, and according to investigators, slaughtered, because of who hewas – a gay, Jewish man. Tony Rackaukas, then the Orange County district attorney, says this was a hate crime. Authorities say Blaze’s killer was a neo-Nazi, a member of a small violent hate group called “Atomwaffen,” whose beliefs were deeply anti-LGBTQ + as well as virulently antisemitic.
The killer is Samuel Woodward. He had once been Blaze’s classmate back in high school. That’s about all Blaze and Woodward had in common, according to classmate Raiah Rofsky, who tells Smith, “They were so different … about as different as you could be.” Rofsky remembers Woodward’s unsettling presence. “He was very quiet — very withdrawn, didn’t really talk to people.” Rofsky tells Smith Woodward had a reputation. “Racist, homophobic, sexist.”
And when word spread that Blaze had gone missing while home in California on college winter break, and that the last person known to have seen him was Woodward, Rofsky’s reaction was immediate. “The only reason I could think of Sam meeting up with Blaze is because either number one, he wanted to hook up with him, or two, because he was planning to murder him.” That was January 2018.
Detectives arrested Woodward just 10 days after Blaze disappeared in Borrego Park.
It has been six painful years. There were COVID delays, and a revolving door of defense lawyers who raised questions with the court about Woodward’s mental health and ability to defend himself. It all left Jeanne Pepper and Gideon Bernstein frustrated and waiting for justice. “Slow justice is no justice,” says Pepper. “It’s not fair to victims and it’s not fair to the deceased.” In 2022, Woodward was found competent to stand trial. Finally, in April 2024, the murder trial began.
Remarkably, after all they have endured, the couple turned their grief into hope. They founded what they call “a kindness movement” – promoting “positivity” and random acts of kindness in Blaze’s name. They call their movement “BlazeItForward.”
Some of the hundreds of hand-painted stones, most left by total strangers, in the memory of Blaze Bernstein at Borrego Park.
CBS News
In Borrego Park, where Blaze took his last breath, there is that extraordinary response — the hundreds of hand-painted stones, most left by total strangers, in the memory of Blaze Bernstein.
The silent stones speak of tolerance and Blaze’s transformation into a kind of martyr; his murder a marker of rabid hate. His spirit gives inspiration to LGBTQ + people, wherever they live and with whomever they love.
Jeanne Pepper tells Smith, “Blaze’s life mattered and he has a legacy, to create good news, to inspire people to be better, to be kinder. And to work on repairing the world, because it’s not too late and we can make it better.”
Attorneys representing Nima Momeni, who is accused of fatally stabbing tech executive Bob Lee, could be calling the victim’s ex-wife to the witness stand in the upcoming trial.
In court documents filed Friday, CBS News Bay Area has learned exclusively that the defense team, including Florida-based attorneys Saam Zangeneh and Bradford Cohen along with California-based attorneys Tony Brass and Zoe Aron, plan to call Krista Lee to the witness stand.
It is unclear what she may say during testimony.
The defense team also declared on an earlier version of the list that they plan to call Momeni’s sister, Khazar and Jeremy Boivin, who allegedly supplied drugs to Khazar and a friend the day prior to the fatal stabbing, as witnesses.
This comes after a pre-trial hearing took place that aimed to set ground rules for the trial that is expected to begin in the coming weeks.
Both the prosecution and defense were present at the hearing, as well as the defendant and several family members, including Momeni’s mother and Lee’s ex-wife Krista.
In pre-trial hearings, the defense requested that video allegedly recorded by San Francisco Police Department detectives during surveillance after Momeni’s arrest be dismissed from appearing during trial.
In court documents filed by the prosecution, prosecutors said they have video of Momeni appearing to reenact the stabbing in outside the Burlingame law office of his former attorney.
The defense team argues the video “is not relevant” and should be deemed inadmissible due to attorney-client privileges.
The defense also seeks to have video from search warrants conducted of Momeni’s home be dismissed from evidence. In court documents, the defense claims that Momeni “owned various knives and weapons that have no link to the people’s case.”
Mention of the murder weapon’s relation to a set found in Khazar Momeni’s apartment should also be excluded from evidence, according to documents filed by the defense. A paring knife found near the stabbing that contained DNA from both Lee and Momeni matches the brand of knives found in Khazar’s home.
The defense argues the connection is “pure speculation as there is not one piece of evidence that show the knife came from the apartment.” On Wednesday, a judge denied this motion.
Pre-trial hearings continue on Monday.
Jury selection is expected to begin next week, at the earliest.
LAWRENCE — The suspect in a murder on Christmas Eve at the Energy Lounge nightclub has been captured, authorities said.
Franklin Laras, 27, who allegedly shot and killed Edward Javier Perez, 29, “is now in custody,” Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker announced Thursday night.
Laras now faces arraignment Friday in Salem Superior Court.
Details on Laras’ capture were not available Thursday night.
An arrest warrant charges Laras with murder and two counts of firearms violation with two prior violent or drug crimes.
Laras has been wanted by police since the shooting at Energy Lounge at 459 Broadway. He was placed on the state’s most wanted list.
At 12:20 a.m. on Christmas Eve, Lawrence police responded to the nightclub for reported gunfire.
Officers found Javier-Perez wounded. He was treated by Lawrence police and emergency medical technicians and taken to Lawrence General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Laras was identified as the suspect after an investigation by Lawrence police, state troopers and Tucker’s office.
Laras is alleged to have had an altercation with Javier-Perez shortly after entering the nightclub. Laras allegedly drew a handgun and fired a shot at Javier-Perez from close range, according to a previous state police release.
He then fled the scene.
Laras was considered armed and dangerous. He also has ties to Springfield and Palmer, Massachusetts, state police said.
Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter/X @EagleTribJill.
HUGO, Minn. — A 45-year-old man who was the subject of an overnight manhunt in Hugo earlier this week has been charged in his mother’s murder.
Trevor Wunderlich faces a second-degree murder charge in Washington County. He was taken into custody on Tuesday morning after law enforcement searched the rural area for roughly 17 hours.
Charging documents say officers responded to an open 911 line shortly before 6 p.m. on Sept. 16, and that dispatchers could near noises on the phone that were consistent with an ongoing assault.
Officers arrived to the home, on the 15000 block of Ingersoll Avenue, to find 68-year-old Charlene Wunderlich lying on the floor in “obvious distress,” charges state. Trevor Wunderlich was sitting in a chair next to her, and though officers tried to detain him, he ran out the back door of the home.
Charlene Wunderlich told officers that her son had assaulted her, documents say. She lost consciousness and died later that evening at the hospital.
Law enforcement locked down the area, and found Trevor Wunderlich at 11 a.m. in a camper on a separate property, about 3 miles away from the home.
The woman who owned the camper told WCCO that her dogs were growling at it, and when she opened the door, she yelled at her son to call 911. The woman’s son called police, ran into the camper and told Trevor Wunderlich he had a gun. He then told Trevor Wunderlich to bear hug a tree. He complied, but then he took off down the driveway, where squad cars and K-9 officers were waiting for him.
Trevor Wunderlich remains in custody. A second-degree murder charge carries a maximum sentence of 40 years.
Note: The above video first aired on Sept. 17, 2024, before Trevor Wunderlich was charged.
A 22-year-old man pleaded guilty in a Salinas court to two counts of murder, the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday.
Eliazar Arellano Ayron pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder while personally using a firearm for the benefit of the Sureño gang, prosecutors said.
King City street cameras captured the license plate of the vehicle involved in the murders. A search warrant was served at the Salinas residence associated with the vehicle and one of the firearms used in the murders was located.
According to prosecutors, Ayron fled the jurisdiction after the murders, but a task force assembled and successfully apprehended him nine months later in a rural and remote area in Groveland, an unincorporated town in Tuolumne County.
The other Sureño gang members included Raul Lucas, who in 2022 was sentenced to 58 years to life on the same case, prosecutors said.
Ayron is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 4, where he is expected to receive 70 years to life in state prison.
Ayron’s conviction is considered two strikes under California’s Three Strikes Law.
