An arrest has been made in connection with the fatal shootings of a Columbus dentist and his wife.According to court records obtained by Columbus NBC affiliate WCMH, Michael McKee, 39, has been charged with two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of Spencer Tepe, 37, and Monique Tepe, 39.Prior reporting in video aboveMcKee is described as Monique Tepe’s ex-husband. The two reportedly married in August 2015 and divorced in 2017. The arrest of McKee, a Chicago resident, comes after both Spencer and Monique Tepe were found by police to have been fatally shot in their home on North Fourth Street in Columbus’s Weinland Park neighborhood on the morning of Dec. 30.Both victims were found by police to have been fatally shot in their home on North Fourth Street in Columbus’s Weinland Park neighborhood on the morning of Dec. 30.However, their two young children, aged 1 and 4, were discovered to be unharmed in the house, as was the couple’s dog.The bodies of both Spencer and Monique were discovered after Columbus police had attempted to conduct a wellness check at the couple’s home that morning. This came after officers received a report from a 911 caller who said that he worked with Spencer Tepe, but could not get a hold of him or his wife after he failed to show up for work that morning. However, police initially went to the wrong address, and left the home just after 9:20 a.m. after no one answered the door.Soon afterward, another person called the police to say that he was at the Tepes’ Columbus home and could hear children inside. He called back moments later to say that he could see a body, with blood visible in the home. First responders later arrived on scene and discovered the couple’s remains just after 10 a.m.This kicked off a police investigation that lasted 11 days without an arrest, with officers at one point asking for the public’s help in identifying a person of interest through surveillance footage that was captured from a nearby home.On Saturday morning, McKee was arrested in Rockford, Illinois. The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office in Illinois states he was booked into custody at 11:57 a.m. He has a scheduled court appearance in the state on Monday, where the extradition process to Ohio will likely begin.According to an affidavit, Columbus police were ultimately able to identify McKee as the primary suspect in the case through the neighborhood surveillance video that they had gathered. His movements were said to have been tracked in the video to a vehicle near the home that was found to have arrived just before the time of the murders and left immediately afterward.McKee was said by police to have been found to be in possession of the same vehicle shortly before his arrest in Rockford.Before moving to Columbus, Spencer Tepe was originally from Mason and graduated from Mason High School in 2007. He would later go on to graduate from Ohio State University, and was described by his family after his death as “a huge Bengals and Buckeyes fan, and lived life with energy, laughter, and generosity.”Meanwhile, Monique Tepe was described as a “joyful mother whose warmth defined her,” as well as “an excellent baker, a thoughtful planner, and someone who found joy in bringing people together.”After the arrest was announced, the Tepe family released a statement that applauded the news.”Today’s arrest represents an important step toward justice for Monique and Spencer,” the statement read. “Nothing can undo the devastating loss of two lives taken far too soon, but we are grateful to the City of Columbus Police Department, its investigators, and assisting law enforcement community whose tireless efforts helped to capture the person involved.””We thank the community for the continued support, prayers, and compassion shown throughout this tragedy,” the statement continued. “As the case proceeds, we trust the justice system to hold the person responsible fully accountable. Monique and Spencer remain at the center of our hearts, and we carry forward their love as we surround and protect the two children they leave behind. We will continue to honor their lives and the light they brought into this world.”Spencer’s cousin Nikk Forte’ in the Cincinnati area told Hearst sister station WLWT:”Since Spencer was young he was a deeply empathic and caring person. He loved his family immensely. He got ordained so he could be the officiant at Madeline and Rob’s wedding. Spencer always wanted a family and always loved being around kids. He was always playing with his younger cousins at family gatherings. My daughter would get so excited when she was a preschooler and Spencer was at a family gathering because he was so much fun. I had PPD with my son. A core memory of that time is on Xmas that year (my son was just a few weeks old) and he was so excited to hold him. He was either at the end of college or starting med school, it was 15 years ago. But he was just so cute being so excited to hold him and he even knew to wash his hands etc first. Mo was an amazing addition to our family. Her warmth and humor made her fit right in with everyone. And she was an amazing mom. I am so relieved right now and so much anger right now. They should still be here.”A celebration of life for the Tepes is scheduled for Sunday.
An arrest has been made in connection with the fatal shootings of a Columbus dentist and his wife.
However, their two young children, aged 1 and 4, were discovered to be unharmed in the house, as was the couple’s dog.
The bodies of both Spencer and Monique were discovered after Columbus police had attempted to conduct a wellness check at the couple’s home that morning. This came after officers received a report from a 911 caller who said that he worked with Spencer Tepe, but could not get a hold of him or his wife after he failed to show up for work that morning. However, police initially went to the wrong address, and left the home just after 9:20 a.m. after no one answered the door.
Soon afterward, another person called the police to say that he was at the Tepes’ Columbus home and could hear children inside. He called back moments later to say that he could see a body, with blood visible in the home. First responders later arrived on scene and discovered the couple’s remains just after 10 a.m.
On Saturday morning, McKee was arrested in Rockford, Illinois. The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office in Illinois states he was booked into custody at 11:57 a.m. He has a scheduled court appearance in the state on Monday, where the extradition process to Ohio will likely begin.
According to an affidavit, Columbus police were ultimately able to identify McKee as the primary suspect in the case through the neighborhood surveillance video that they had gathered. His movements were said to have been tracked in the video to a vehicle near the home that was found to have arrived just before the time of the murders and left immediately afterward.
McKee was said by police to have been found to be in possession of the same vehicle shortly before his arrest in Rockford.
Before moving to Columbus, Spencer Tepe was originally from Mason and graduated from Mason High School in 2007. He would later go on to graduate from Ohio State University, and was described by his family after his death as “a huge Bengals and Buckeyes fan, and lived life with energy, laughter, and generosity.”
Meanwhile, Monique Tepe was described as a “joyful mother whose warmth defined her,” as well as “an excellent baker, a thoughtful planner, and someone who found joy in bringing people together.”
After the arrest was announced, the Tepe family released a statement that applauded the news.
“Today’s arrest represents an important step toward justice for Monique and Spencer,” the statement read. “Nothing can undo the devastating loss of two lives taken far too soon, but we are grateful to the City of Columbus Police Department, its investigators, and assisting law enforcement community whose tireless efforts helped to capture the person involved.”
“We thank the community for the continued support, prayers, and compassion shown throughout this tragedy,” the statement continued. “As the case proceeds, we trust the justice system to hold the person responsible fully accountable. Monique and Spencer remain at the center of our hearts, and we carry forward their love as we surround and protect the two children they leave behind. We will continue to honor their lives and the light they brought into this world.”
Spencer’s cousin Nikk Forte’ in the Cincinnati area told Hearst sister station WLWT:
“Since Spencer was young he was a deeply empathic and caring person. He loved his family immensely. He got ordained so he could be the officiant at Madeline and Rob’s wedding. Spencer always wanted a family and always loved being around kids. He was always playing with his younger cousins at family gatherings. My daughter would get so excited when she was a preschooler and Spencer was at a family gathering because he was so much fun. I had PPD with my son. A core memory of that time is on Xmas that year (my son was just a few weeks old) and he was so excited to hold him. He was either at the end of college or starting med school, it was 15 years ago. But he was just so cute being so excited to hold him and he even knew to wash his hands etc first. Mo was an amazing addition to our family. Her warmth and humor made her fit right in with everyone. And she was an amazing mom. I am so relieved right now and so much anger right now. They should still be here.”
A celebration of life for the Tepes is scheduled for Sunday.
For Texas Ranger Brandon Bess, almost everything about the Mary Catherine Edwards case was different.
Ranger Brandon Bess: The thing that really got me about the case was, you don’t expect to have this beautiful, young, single, schoolteacher be murdered in her own home …. She was such a great person, came from such a great family.
Ranger Brandon Bess: It was an unusual crime scene. She’s over the bathtub and she’s obviously been sexually assaulted and handcuffed behind her back.
Natalie Morales | “48 Hours“ contributor: Were they … police-grade handcuffs?
Ranger Brandon Bess: Yeah. … Handcuffs have always been a key piece of this.
On Jan. 14, 1995, Mary Catherine Edwards, 31, was found dead by her parents in her townhouse in Beaumont, Texas. She was in her bathtub, handcuffed, and had been sexually assaulted. There were no signs of forced entry, which made investigators think she must have known her killer.
Texas Department of Public Safety
Jan. 14, 1995. It was a Saturday. Catherine, as most people called her, didn’t show up for a family lunch and she wasn’t answering her phone. When her mother and father went to check on her, they had to see what no parent ever should.
911 OPERATOR: What happened ma’am?
MARY ANN EDWARDS: We came over here and found her. … Please send someone over –
911 OPERATOR: OK, we’re sending someone ma’am. Is she — was she shot or what?
MARY ANN EDWARDS: Ah … we can’t tell.
Catherine was 31. Dianna Coe remembers hearing the news.
Twins Allison, left and Mary Catherine Edwards.
Allison Edwards Brocato
The sisters, both schoolteachers, looked so much alike everyone had trouble telling them apart — especially their young students.
Heleniah Adams: Ms. Edwards … was my second-grade teacher.
Heleniah Adams remembers being in her classroom.
Heleniah Adams: Most of us grew up in … a pretty tough environment. … And being around Ms. Edwards was a joy.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Originally, they believed that she might’ve been drowned, but there wasn’t enough fluid in her lungs, so then it kind of became a suffocation by compression.
Heleniah Adams: I just remember being told that our teacher wouldn’t make it to class that day … Everyone just crying.
The police-grade Smith & Wesson handcuffs were always a big clue, but when detectives tried tracing the serial numbers, they came up empty.
Jefferson County D.A.’s Office
Dianna Coe: My mom is the one that told me … And so she said, “have you not heard about Catherine?” … and I go, “my Catherine?”
She had been friends with Catherine and her twin sister Allison since middle school.
Dianna Coe: I was new to the area. … so I knew no one. … and they … just started talking to me … asked me my name … and we were friends from that point forward.
The sisters, both schoolteachers, looked so much alike everyone had trouble telling them apart — especially their young students.
Heleniah Adams: Ms. Edwards … was my second-grade teacher.
Heleniah Adams remembers being in her classroom.
Heleniah Adams: Most of us grew up in … a pretty tough environment. … And being around Ms. Edwards was a joy.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Originally, they believed that she might’ve been drowned, but there wasn’t enough fluid in her lungs, so then it kind of became a suffocation by compression.
Heleniah Adams: I just remember being told that our teacher wouldn’t make it to class that day … Everyone just crying.
Early investigators could not piece together what happened, but those police-grade handcuffs were a big clue.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: It was almost talked about like a ghost story around a campfire.
Aaron Lewallen is a detective with the Beaumont Police Department.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Maybe it was somebody in law enforcement or somebody in security. … Could it have been somebody that we knew?
In the weeks after the murder, police focused on tracing the serial numbers of the handcuffs but came up empty.
They also zeroed in on an old boyfriend — David Perry.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: They focused on him early on because … there was no forced entry.
But Perry was out of town that night. He gave a DNA sample and it was not a match.
David Perry: I wasn’t there. It’s not me.
The crime scene DNA stayed well preserved and the years dragged on and on — until forensic science changed.
FINDING THE KILLER’S RELATIVES: DNA LEFT BEHIND AT THE CRIME SCENE IS TESTED
By 2018, there was a way to take the DNA left at a crime scene and search for biological relatives. A program — Gedmatch — scarfs up all the DNA from people who agree to share it with law enforcement and upload it when they use sites like Ancestry.com and 23andMe.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Ranger Bess approached me … and he asked if I thought we had a case that would fit the bill for that type of investigation. I said, “absolutely. I know the perfect case for this.” And it was the Catherine Edwards case.
So, in April 2020, the DNA from Catherine Edwards’ crime scene went to Othram, a lab outside of Houston, for testing.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: There, they would give us familial matches. And from there, we would start trying to build a family tree to get us closer to our suspect.
But the number of names to pursue was overwhelming.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: When the family tree began to grow beyond my computer screen, (laughs) I started to get a little bit confused. And that’s when … Tina jumped on board.
Det. Aaron’s Lewallen’s wife, Tina Lewallen, an auto crimes detective, began using her off hours to help sort through it.
Det. Tina Lewallen: The matches were all Cajun.
Natalie Morales: Cajun … ancestry –
Det. Tina Lewallen: Yes.
Natalie Morales: — coming from the Louisiana area.
Det. Tina Lewallen: Yes.
Natalie Morales: Specifically.
Det. Tina Lewallen: … particularly Kaplan, Louisiana.
So Det. Tina Lewallen went back to Catherine’s journals looking for clues.
Det. Tina Lewallen: … to see if I could see a Cajun name that jumped out to me. … I did find a few French names and they were quickly eliminated and nowhere in our tree.
And as she was building out the branches, one of the names on the family tree kept coming up: LaPoint.
Det.Tina Lewallen: I’m researching the matches and building my trees and you’re researching other people’s trees … I kept noticing Shera LaPoint — had built that tree, and then I’m working some more, I do some more research. Well, Shera LaPoint built this tree. And I’m like, is she related to our suspect? … I had no idea who she was.
And when they called her, they found out LaPoint had been building her family tree.
Shera LaPoint: It was my family’s DNA kits that I had uploaded to GEDmatch.
And then they found out something that changed the course of the investigation. LaPoint was known professionally as “The Gene Hunter” and already skilled at working these cases. She’d identified one of the women buried along Interstate Highway 45 in the Texas killing fields case.
And she agreed to lend her expertise.
Shera LaPoint: I told him that I was willing to help.
Even if it meant taking a hard look at her own relatives.
Shera LaPoint: It was kind of scary because I’m putting my own second cousins in this tree and I’m thinking, oh my gosh, you know, could one of my grandfather’s sister’s grandchildren have — have done this, they lived here in Texas.
It was a complicated, multilayered process using publicly available DNA, birth and death records — finding parents, siblings and cousins.
Shera LaPoint: As you build those trees, you look for information that … is pertinent to the case that you’re working on. We had a tag for people who were in Beaumont … She was a teacher. As you build tree, you look at people who are in education.
The tree grew up and down and sideways – there were almost 7,500 names.
Shera LaPoint: That’s a lot of hours, a lot of work and a lot of people in a family tree.
All the while, Det. Tina Lewallen hardly slept, working through most nights — knowing there was a killer still out there.
Det. Tina Lewallen: Every day counted; every day mattered … I needed to get it solved.
THE FAMILY TREE PAYS OFF: IDENTIFYING A SUSPECT WITH A SURPRISING CONNECTION TO MARY CATHERINE
Hunkered down at their computers day after day, constantly back and forth on the phone, Det. Tina Lewallen and genealogist Shera LaPoint are quickly becoming great partners.
Det. Tina Lewallen: She was a team player from jump. Never had met me. … we talked so often that we became friends.
Natalie Morales: Best buds.
Shera LaPoint: Best buds. I don’t know what else to say.
And when they needed DNA, they turned to Det. Tina Lewallen’s husband, Det. Aaron Lewallen, and Texas Ranger Brandon Bess.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: So, from that point, me and Brandon Bess would drive around Texas and go talk to these people.
Ranger Brandon Bess:Convincing someone … to give their DNA up, to give a piece of themselves up to you in a homicide investigation can be very difficult.
Ranger Brandon Bess: When we would sense, um, anxiety in someone, Aaron would immediately tell them, “hey, who do you want to play you in the movie …”
Ranger Brandon Bess:And they would look at Aaron like he was crazy … and say, (laughs) um, “what are you talking about.” “Well, this guy’s a Texas Ranger, everything they do turns into a movie. Who do you want to play your role in this movie?” (laughs) That calmed them down every time … and I of course threw out there, “hey, I’ve already got Brad Pitt. So, you know, you can’t — you can’t be Brad – cause Brad’s playing me.”
Natalie Morales: Was there ever a time though that somebody actually thought … my uncle may actually be a killer. Who knows?
Ranger Brandon Bess: In every one of these cases that I’ve worked using DNA and genetic genealogy, you have at least one person, usually two or three that says, you know what, I had that weird Uncle Joe …
Once the uploads were compared to the killer’s DNA, if the amount of shared genetic material was low, they knew it was a dead end.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Cause there were times when we would come across a name and I’m like — you get that that butterflies in your stomach … like, “hey, maybe this is our guy” … And then … turns out it’s not our guy.
After almost three month of ups and down and nearly nonstop work, LaPoint hit paydirt.
Shera LaPoint: It was about 10:30 at night.
She was working a family line very distantly related to her own.
Shera LaPoint: It was a very common Cajun name, Thibodeaux. … I got to a couple who were in Beaumont … I was able to see from, uh, records that they had two sons.
This was a major lead: a family, in Catherine’s town, with two sons who went to Forest Park High – the same school Catherine did — at around the same time.
Shera LaPoint: I put the names in the tree and I messaged Tina and I said, um, “there’s a couple in Beaumont.”
Shera LaPoint: I’m tired, I’m going to bed. And I turned my cellphone off and I fell asleep on the sofa … and when I woke up the next morning, my phone had just blown up.
Natalie Morales: And it was you on the other end?
Det. Tina Lewallen: Yes.
Natalie Morales: What were you saying?
Det. Tina Lewallen: This is them. We found them. Just didn’t know which one.
Natalie Morales: OK … it’s either Michael Foreman or Clayton Foreman. What did you do to — to figure that out?
Clayton Foreman went to the same high school as of Mary Catherine Edwards.
Dianna Coe
Det. Aaron Lewallen: The first name I ran was Clayton … And when I came across his prior conviction for the sexual assault, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I’m like, “this is our guy.”
In 1981, a 19-year-old woman told police that Clayton Foreman bound her hands and raped her. She had also gone to Forest Park High School where Clayton was the manager of the football team. Clayton Foreman was convicted but was given probation and paid a fine.
Natalie Morales: But he did not have to give a DNA sample at that time.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: No. This was back in the early ’80s. We didn’t have sex offender registry, uh, no DNA database.
And then they found another connection: it went all way back to Dianna Coe, Catherine’s friend from middle school.
In high school, Coe fell madly in love. Her boyfriend had graduated three years ahead of her, and they got engaged.
Dianna Coe: He was so kind. … He had the most wonderful personality.
And when she started planning her wedding, she immediately turned to her old friends Catherine and Allison.
Dianna Coe: And they were one of the first ones I thought of as, uh, bridesmaid and — and I asked them and they said yes.
And the groom? The man Coe married back in 1982? Now he was their number one suspect: Clayton Foreman.
Natalie Morales: She in fact did know him.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Yes.
In hindsight, there were signs. When Coe found out about Clayton Foreman’s legal troubles, the wedding was less than three months away.
Dianna Coe: … and … the wedding invitations had already been mailed out.
Dianna Coe: And I said, “rape?” I said, “oh, there’s no way.”
Clayton Foreman and Dianna.
Dianna Coe
But she never got any details and her fiancé explained it away.
Dianna Coe: … he kept telling me, it — it was a big misunderstanding … And so in my mind, I thought, well, he must be telling the truth because if he got arrested, he’s not in jail.
Natalie Morales: But you didn’t really believe it was rape?
Dianna Coe: Right.
Coe’s sister, Anne Anderson, and her brother, Scooter Daleo, were not so sure and neither were their parents who wanted her to call it off.
Scooter Daleo: And I said, well, “Dianna, why don’t you just wait?” … And she didn’t wanna wait. She wanted to marry Clay. She was in love with him.
Anne Anderson: … she’s believing him and she’s wanting to get married, then — then we have to support as a family.
Dianna Coe: And he was like, I’m so, so sorry. … I love you. I want us to be married. I want us to have a family. … And so, I was like, OK, you know. So I went — I went through with it.
Dianna and Clayton Foreman stayed married for a little more than 11 years and they had a son. The relationship began to fray over Foreman lying about their finances and it ended after he had an affair. And looking back, Coe can see that he had an unhealthy fascination with police officers and the tools of their trade — like handcuffs.
Dianna Coe: I remember that he had ordered those handcuffs. … Well, he had ’em hung over the rearview mirror … And I — I didn’t think anything of it.
When Catherine was killed, they were divorced, but Coe remembers calling her ex-husband to talk about it.
Dianna Coe: I think I was, you know, crying and I said, “oh, my God,” I said, “somebody has murdered Catherine.” And — and he goes,” oh, really?” Just like no emotion … When we hung the phone up, I can remember ’cause I was like kind of squinting and kind of like going, God, that’s kind of odd.
With all the mounting evidence, Foreman needed to be found. He was 60 and no longer living in Beaumont. They quickly tracked him to Reynoldsberg, Ohio.
Natalie Morales: What was he doing there?
Det. Aaron Lewallen: He was an Uber driver at the time. … I was able to send a lead, uh, to a field office up there … and basically did what we call a trash run.
Natalie Morales: You need to collect a piece of DNA so that you can ensure that it’s the — the right guy, right?
Trash recovered from Clayton Foreman’s home was tested for his DNA.
Jefferson County D.A.’s Office
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Correct. Uh, so, that’s what they did. … They surveilled his house … and then went and snatched a bag of trash … and sent it to me.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Uh, so, I brought that stuff to Houston, to the DPS crime lab. And from there they tested it.
The likelihood that the DNA belonged to Clayton Foreman was a big number — 461 septillion. It doesn’t get better than that, says LaPoint.
Shera LaPoint: I mean, you can’t fight those odds. You cannot fight those odds.
And that was all they needed.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: And I got a text from a — a DPS lab technician. And she said, “go get his ass.”
Det. Aaron Lewallen and Ranger Bess were about to hop a plane to Ohio, ready to face the man they felt sure had killed Catherine.
And while they’re doing that, Det. Tina Lewallen pays a visit to Coe.
Natalie Morales: Did they tell you we had — they had DNA, though? Tina told you that?
Dianna Coe: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Dianna Coe: And I just went (gasps) “Oh my God, please don’t tell me it was Clay –”
Dianna Coe: I almost fell to the ground. … I was just like, “oh, my God.” Like, “oh, God, I can’t believe he’s done this.”
CONFRONTING CLAYTON FOREMAN
When Ranger Bess and Det. Aaron Lewallen arrive at the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office to confront Clayton Foreman, they have a cover story – it’s about a lost item from one of Foreman’s Uber rides.
Ranger Brandon Bess: We go in under the — uh, under the ruse of someone had left, uh, a purse in his car. So he came in — voluntarily to talk about a purse that was in the car.
It was April 29, 2021 — 26 years after Catherine Edwards was murdered, and they are sure they are sitting in front of the man who murdered her.
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): We’re asking you to visit with us about a crime that we’re investigating. OK?
Natalie Morales: Did he immediately go, uh-oh, you know —
Det. Aaron Lewallen: No, he didn’t
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): So, the crime that we’re looking at is the murder of Mary Catherine Edwards. … and she was murdered in 1995.
Natalie Morales: I guess he pretty quickly realized he wasn’t there to give up a purse.
Ranger Brandon Bess: He did …
Dianna Coe, center, with her bridesmaids Allison, left and Mary Catherine Edwards.
Dianna Coe
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): And we found a picture of — a wedding picture that she and her sister, uh —
DET. AARON LEWALLEN: Allison.
RANGER BESS: — Allison were actually in your wedding.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Right.
RANGER BESS: And —
CLAYTON FOREMAN: 1982.
RANGER BESS: — 82. OK.
RANGER BESS: Do you ever remember anyone ever coming to you — about that crime?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No.
RANGER BESS: Were you aware of the crime even?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No.
RANGER BESS: You didn’t know the crime occurred?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No, sir.
RANGER BESS: OK.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: … we backed him into a bunch of hard corners. He claimed that he didn’t even know that she was dead.
Clayton Foreman, left, is questioned by Texas Ranger Brandon Bess and Beaumont Police Det. Aaron Lewallen on April 29, 2021, in Ohio.
Jefferson County D.A.’s Office
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): You didn’t know that, um, Catherine Edwards was murdered?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No, sir. Did not.
RANGER BESS: Do you remember them from school? Do you remember the girls from school?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Not really. Because they were freshmen.
RANGER BESS: When you were a senior?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Yes, sir.
RANGER BESS: OK.
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): So, on Mary Edwards, Mary Catherine Edwards. Um, didn’t know her well? Did you ever visit with her at all?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No.
RANGER BESS: Um, did you ever go in her house at all? Any house that she ever lived in?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No.
RANGER BESS: OK.
During questioning, Clayton Foreman denied knowing Mary Catherine Edwards – or that she was murdered.
David Perry
Det. Aaron Lewallen: You know, “did you know where she lived?” No. Had no idea.
Natalie Morales: So, and he’s denying, denying …
Ranger Brandon Bess: He is denying … you know, in these DNA cases, when you — whether you’re gonna get a confession or not, you wanna build up that background of, “hey, did you know them?” Number one.
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): Did y’all have much acquaintance with them or was it just like a high school friend thing?
RANGER BESS: How did you know them?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: I think they were bridesmaids for my — my ex-wife.
RANGER BESS: That’s right.
RANGER BESS: Did you ever go on a date?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Never dated.
Ranger Brandon Bess: All the way up to, “did you ever have sex with this person?”
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): Never obviously had sex with her.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No.
RANGER BESS: Never?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Never.
Ranger Brandon Bess: Did you go to college together? Did you do all — everything was a no,
Det. Aaron Lewallen: And we had those denials several times. And then, so, towards the end of the interview, we asked him, well, if all those things are true, can you explain how your DNA ended up on her and on her bed?
RANGER BESS (Foreman questioning): Do you understand DNA?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Mm-hmm.
RANGER BESS: And do you understand how DNA works? You understand you’re made of DNA?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Right.
RANGER BESS (referencing Det. Aaron Lewallen): He’s made of DNA. I’m made of DNA.
Ranger Brandon Bess: I think that Foreman knew enough about DNA that he thought he would’ve been caught already. He knew that he had never submitted his DNA —
Ranger Brandon Bess: He had no clue that he was going to be arrested that day.
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): Clay, I’mma level with you. Right here and now, I want you to hear me real close.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: All right, sir.
RANGER BESS: That crime scene was processed really well. … and your DNA was on Catherine’s bed and was inside Catherine.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: OK. I mean, I don’t know how it got there, but, if you say it was there.
RANGER BESS: There’s only one way for it to get there.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: OK.
RANGER BESS: Um, and that’s by you putting it there.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: OK.
RANGER BESS: Do you understand that?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Uh —
RANGER BESS: Do you understand the implications of that? The day that she died, the night that she died, your DNA is in her and your DNA is on her bedspread. … Now I don’t want you to say anything right this second. I want you to think about the next words that come out of your mouth. I want you to think very hard about that. … OK?
RANGER BESS: There’s two people that know that story. … You’re one of them and she’s the other. And she can’t talk.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Mm-hmm.
RANGER BESS: What I ask you is now to be honest with us completely and tell us, you know, how did that happen?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: I’m not going to say anything. I probably need an attorney now, I think.
RANGER BESS: You probably need one or you do need one?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Well, if you’re saying I did that, then I’ll probably need an attorney to talk to.
RANGER BESS: Well, that’s all we got then. We’re going to let you walk out of that door just like we told you.
Ranger Brandon Bess: It’s a grainy video, but you can probably see us grinning at each other — that he thinks he’s walking outta here, he thinks he’s fixing to leave here.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: So, as he got out, down the hallway, headed towards the elevator, we stopped him and arrested him for the murder of Catherine Edwards.
And after all those years and all that work, Aaron Lewallen and Brandon Bess had one thing left they needed to do.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Uh, if you remember back when we were talking about the crime scene, she was handcuffed. … So, we had talked to the DA’s office beforehand and got permission to use those handcuffs.
When Clayton Foreman was arrested and charged with the 1995 murder, they did so with the very handcuffs that had bound Mary Catherine Edwards the night she died.
Brandon Bess
The very handcuffs that bound Catherine the night she died.
Natalie Morales: How did it feel to put those handcuffs on him?
Ranger Brandon Bess: Very good … it’s a moment I’ll never forget … you feel like you got to do something for Catherine there .,.. you know, like physically got to do for her, is take those cuffs that bound her when she was murdered and put them back on the guy that murdered her. It’s — you know, it may seem small to some, but it was a really big deal to us, and it felt good.
Even though they’d had their suspicions about him, when Det. Tina Lewallen broke the news to his ex-wife Dianna Coe that Clayton Foreman was arrested for the murder of Catherine Edwards was still a shock.
Scooter Daleo: … she calls me … And she says, “Clay murdered Catherine.” And I said, “do what?”
Anne Anderson: Your brain doesn’t — because it — it knows him as a person, as a — as — as somebody that you — you know, your brother-in-law or your brother.
Dianna Coe: That was — that was — that was hard. … I thought of Allison … And I just — I — I just couldn’t believe it. … my — my thought immediately went to Allison and I just said … “Allison. … oh, my God, she’s gonna hate me.”
But Det. Tina Lewallen assured Coe, on the contrary, that Allison was very concerned for her.
Dianna Coe: And — and she said, she’s – “she’s worried for you.” And she said, “do not — do not think that.”
THE TRIAL OF CLAYTON FOREMAN
On March 12, 2024, nearly 30 years after Mary Catherine Edwards was found dead in her town house, Beaumont prosecutor Patrick Knauth and his colleagues Mike Laird and Sonny Eckhart are ready for trial.
Mike Laird: This is not going to be easy, uh, for a lot of people, cause it’s been a long time coming. … you gotta remember this happened in 1995.
MIKE LAIRD (in court): You’re gonna get to learn a lot about DNA.
And they are extremely confident about their case against Clayton Foreman.
JUDGE JOHN STEVENS (in court) : Mr. Burbank, do you wanna make an opening statement at this time?
TOM BURBANK: No, your honor.
Tom Burbank Is defending Foreman.
Patrick Knauth: He didn’t really have anything. And he knew it.
The prosecution calls Catherine’s twin sister Allison.
Patrick Knauth: We wanted to remind everyone, this is about Catherine and her family. And that’s the way we wanted to start off with …
Allison Edwards Brocato testifies at the trial of the man suspected of killing her twin sister in 1995.
KFDM/Pool
Here at 60, sitting before them, was the spitting image of what could have been.
ALLISON EDWARDS BROCATO (in court): That is a picture of my sister Catherine.
Reliving the day she lost Catherine.
ALLISON EDWARDS BROCATO (in court): … and then the next thing we know, you know, my mom and dad drove up (crying) and told us what — I mean, they — there were no words. She was dead. That was all that mattered. … I didn’t know how, what or anything. … I didn’t know what happened to her, it was just that she was gone was all I knew.
The pain and the loss still so palpable.
ALLISON EDWARDS BROCATO (in court): Four years later, I had a daughter, and her name is Catherine (crying), Catherine Ann after my sister and she never got to know her. … That’s the hardest part …
Heleniah Adams, Catherine Edwards’ student when she was 7, is now 37 and sat in the courtroom nearly every day.
Heleniah Adams: It was times … when they would show photos or when they showed the videos of her on the floor … it was as if your heart was breaking all over again.
Detective Tina Lewallen and genealogist Shera LaPoint, along with other crime lab technicians, walk the jury through the process of the genealogy and the DNA match.
Ranger Bess and Det. Aaron Lewallen go through the final stages of the investigation. All carefully coordinated to make the chain of evidence airtight.
And on the last day, the prosecution calls all the women who had been scarred by Foreman – and were alive to say so.
TOM BURBANK (in court): He was your supervisor?
KRISTY WEIMER: That’s correct.
An old co-worker.
KRISTY WEIMER (in court): Whenever I opened up the drawer, there was a pair of handcuffs.
A former fiancée who found pictures of young girls.
TERESA BREWER (in court): He said to me that he had them so that he could fantasize about taking their virginity.
His ex-wife, Dianna Coe, who agreed to testify.
TOM BURBANK (in court): Did you think at the time you were in love with the defendant?
DIANNA COE: Yes.
Natalie Morales: When you saw him at trial … How hard was that for you?
Dianna Coe: That was very hard … And uh — it was very embarrassing to me and — and I do feel ashamed.
And it was during the trial that Coe learned about what really happened to that 19-year-old woman in the months before she and Foreman married.
Dianna Coe: … it was the most horrific thing that I could have ever heard. … I couldn’t imagine what she went through and was so brave to get up and say what she said.
She was the final witness, returning to the night her car got stuck and Foreman — falsely claiming he was a policeman — offered to help.
PAULA RAMSEY (in court): First he — he tied my hands back.
MIKE LAIRD: He tied your hands behind your back?
PAULA RAMSEY: Yes.
MIKE LAIRD: Did he threaten to cut your throat if you didn’t?
PAULA RAMSEY: Yes.
MIKE LAIRD: This whole thing took a while, didn’t it?
PAULA RAMSEY: Yes, sir. I’m sorry.
MIKE LAIRD: What happened then?
PAULA RAMSEY: He — he took me home.
MIKE LAIRD: Did he say something that — that you felt was odd?
PAULA RAMSEY: Yes. He said three things. He said, “stop crying. I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
And there was another women who did not testify but went on the record. An alleged victim of Foreman’s violence — also a high school friend of Dianna Coe who did not press changes. She told investigators Foreman attacked her from behind and put a gun to her head.
Pat Knauth: She had indicated back in ’85 or ’86 that he had, uh, come to her apartment and knocked on the door and told her that he was having financial and marital problems with Dianna, and he needed somebody to talk to. And so … she let him in.
Prosecutors suspect Foreman used a similar ruse the night he appeared at Catherine Edwards’ door.
Pat Knauth: That’s the way we thought he got to Catherine, ’cause Catherine was very, very Christian, very giving, very naïve … And that’s a wonderful thing to be, except when you’re faced with Clayton Foreman.
Dianna Coe: I’ve always wondered, did he say something about me? Hey, it’s Clay and, you know, I need to talk to you about — something about Dianna. It’s always — I’ve always wondered, but I thought I’ll never know.
After seven days of prosecution testimony, the defense calls no witnesses, and attorney Burbank closes.
TOM BURBANK (in court): You heard different things in reference to sex things and stuff like that, okay, still doesn’t make him a murderer.
TOM BURBANK (in court): You may not like him cause of what people said, but I submit to you, they have not proven murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
The prosecution wraps up its case.
PAT KNAUTH (in court): And it’s so easy to believe that evil doesn’t exist … It is here in this courtroom here today.
PAT KNAUTH (in court): These are things I wish I didn’t know exist and I’m sorry I had to talk to you about it, but I didn’t bring us here, he did.
Now it would be up to a jury to decide Clayton Foreman’s future.
Knauth wants them to remember Catherine Edwards didn’t have one.
PAT KNAUTH (in court): And I do pray that Mike and I and Sonny have done a good job for Catherine, and you. I hope we’ve done our job.
THE AFTERMATH: LOOKING BACK
It takes less than an hour for the jury to come back with a verdict.
Clayton Foreman is found guilty and sentenced to life for the murder of Catherine Edwards.
Larry Delcambre: It didn’t take long ’cause all the evidence was there, … once it got into the DNA …more or less sealed it for him.
Larry Delcambre, juror No. 2, says he and his fellow jurors had very little to talk about.
Larry Delcambre: He had no defense that it wasn’t him … there’s no denial there.
Heleniah Adams: It felt like, hey, this thing does work.
For Heleniah Adams – finally some justice for a favorite teacher after all.
Heleniah Adams: I wanted to close that door, finally. She meant so much to me.
Natalie Morales: And when you heard those words guilty, what was that like for you?
Det. Aaron Lewallen: We did it.
Natalie Morales: Was it — was it an emotional, we did it?
Det. Tina Lewallen: This whole case was emotional.
For detectives Tina and Aaron Lewallen, genealogist Shera LaPoint and Ranger Brandon Bess, it was the ending they’d all worked for, but it left lots of room for reflection.
Shera LaPoint: And I think the justice system has worked and he’s where he needs to be. … But to say that that’s honestly justice for Mary Catherine, it’s frustrating to know that he lived a life … and she should have been able to — to live a life and have children and go on. That is frustrating.
Det. Tina Lewallen: I never used the word closure. I never used the word justice.
There’s no justice. He got to live 26 years that he got to get married. He got to have kids. She did not. There’s no justice.
Ranger Brandon Bess : I don’t — I don’t believe there is such a thing as closure. … Not on this earth.
Bess always wanted a confession, they all wanted to know why.
Ranger Brandon Bess: 70% of the time you’re not gonna get that and — and 100% of the time you’re not gonna get the whole story anyway.
Det. Tina Lewallen: We all wanted those answers and because he was spineless and didn’t talk to us or give us any information, we’ll never know the details behind it.
And everyone was still reeling, asking themselves how it was that Clayton Foreman walked among them and no one saw his monstrous core — all those years hiding in plain sight.
Det. Tina Lewallen: So, when we identified him, I actually have mutual friends with him that were in shock. … They could not believe it was him because they knew he was such a nice guy. He had fooled so many people for so long.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: I personally believe that there are more victims out there. We just hadn’t found them yet.
Dianna Coe: I find it hard to believe that he has not … assaulted other people. I — I really feel with — all my — with all of my being, I feel that there are others.
Scooter Daleo: I believe that.
Anne Anderson: I believe it ,too.
Natalie Morales: And how do you think he was able to conceal this darker side?
Anne Anderson: That’s the part I cannot — I can’t — figure that out.
Dianna Coe: I can’t — Uh, I — I don’t understand it. I don’t know how he could. Like I always say, it’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Larry Delcambre: I have my own speculations. I think somebody — I think some people are demon-possessed or — or demon-influenced, cause that’s pure evil. There’s nothing else you can explain. That’s just evil.
Dianna Coe: I was married to a monster is what I was married to and didn’t know it.
Anne Anderson: And didn’t know it.
Dianna Coe: I think if he would — if he wouldn’t have married me, she’d still be alive.
:I had no idea who Catherine Edwards was … but after I read decades of her journals … I feel like I know her,” said Det. Tina Lewallen.
Allison Edwards Brocato
But in the wake of the trial, it was time to turn away from Foreman and remember Catherine Edwards as she was and in her own words.
Det. Tina Lewallen: Wow, I didn’t realize the timing on this one. December the 11th 1994. She was murdered a month later. (Reading from Catherine’s journal): “I have given my life to God and I will follow his path for me. That gives me a feeling of great relief and peace.
Det. Tina Lewallen (reading from Catherine’s journal): “The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.”
The vibrant beloved schoolteacher in her prime, gone far too soon.
Natalie Morales: If you could talk directly with Mary Catherine Edwards, what would you wish to tell her?
Shera LaPoint: Oh my gosh. (crying) Um, I think I would say I love her and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this happened to her. … And, um, I was honored to be given the privilege to help give answers, very honored, very honored. She was a very special person. She really was.
Heleniah Adams: Unfortunately, it introduced me to real loss — to trauma, to fear, to grief, to heartbreak. To all the feelings.
Heleniah Adams: A podcast I watched, they — they would always ask aspiring lawyers, “when did you fall in love with law?” And I think that’s when I fell in love with law, in the second grade, when Clayton Foreman took my light from me.
Adams is a student once again. She is studying for her master’s in criminal justice and plans to apply to law school — a tribute to her teacher.
Clayton Foreman is eligible for parole in 2061. By then, he will be 101 years old.
“48 HOURS” POST MORTEM PODCAST
“48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales and producers Jenna Jackson and Mary Murphy examine the DNA technology that cracked the cold case of Mary Catherine Edwards’ murder. They discuss a detective and genetic genealogist who sifted through nearly 7,500 names on a family tree to identify a single killer, Clayton Foreman, and how police and a Texas Ranger arrested him. They also discuss how the Smith & Wesson handcuffs used to bind Mary Catherine came full circle and the revelation that she had been a bridesmaid at the Foremans’ wedding.
Produced by Mary Murphy. Jenna Jackson is the development producer. Doreen Schechter is the producer-editor. Shaheen Tokhi is the field producer. George Baluzy, Grayce Arlotta-Berner and Chris Crater are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
Detectives are investigating the deaths of 30 seven-year-old Spencer Tepe and his wife, 3-nine-year-old Monique, after their bodies were found this week in their Columbus, Ohio home. Local media reported officers found no obvious signs of forced entry and no firearm was found at the scene. Police say they’re looking into the deaths as *** double homicide, not *** murder-suicide. There’s no gun. There would be no way to do the murder-suicide, so that’s why they excluded that. Quickly. The other clue is, of course, the children are left safe. The owner of the dental practice Spencer Tepe worked at called 911 Tuesday morning when he uncharacteristically missed work. An officer responded at 9:22 a.m. but did not get an answer. WSYX reported, citing police records. *** friend called police just before 10:00 a.m. I can hear kids inside and I swear I think I heard one yell, but we can’t get in. Around 10:03 a.m., another person called 911. He appears dead. He’s laying next to his bed of his bed and there’s blood. Police have not released any details about *** possible suspect or motive and are asking the public for any information on the case. CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem says regardless of motive, this type of crime. Rare given the fact that this doesn’t happen often and there was no signs of forced entry, burglary, you’re going to look to people who they may have known or people who knew where they lived, unfortunately and begin there. I’m Lee Waldman reporting.
An arrest has been made in connection with the fatal shootings of a Columbus dentist and his wife.According to court records obtained by Columbus NBC affiliate WCMH, Michael McKee, 39, has been charged with two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of Spencer Tepe, 37, and Monique Tepe, 39.Prior reporting in video aboveMcKee is described as Monique Tepe’s ex-husband.Both were found by police to have been fatally shot in their home on North Fourth Street in Columbus’s Weinland Park neighborhood on the morning of Dec. 30.However, their two young children, aged 1 and 4, were discovered to be unharmed in the house, as was the couple’s dog.Spencer Tepe is originally from Mason and graduated from Mason High School in 2007. He would later go on to graduate from Ohio State University and practice dentistry in Columbus until his death.McKee was arrested in Illinois on Saturday morning. The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office states he was booked into custody at 11:57 a.m. He has a scheduled court appearance in Illinois on Monday.”Our family is devastated by the tragic and senseless loss of Spencer and Monique,” family members of the couple had said in an earlier statement released shortly after their deaths. “They were extraordinary people whose lives were filled with love, joy, and deep connection to others.””Together, Spencer and Monique shared a beautiful, strong, and deeply happy relationship,” the statement continued. “They loved to travel, to laugh, and to build a life rooted in love. They were proud parents of two beautiful children and their beloved Goldendoodle, and they created a home filled with warmth, happiness, and connection.””We are heartbroken beyond words,” the statement concluded. “While no outcome can ever undo this loss, our family is committed to seeing this tragedy fully and fairly brought to justice, and to honoring Spencer and Monique by protecting the future of the children they loved so deeply.”This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
An arrest has been made in connection with the fatal shootings of a Columbus dentist and his wife.
However, their two young children, aged 1 and 4, were discovered to be unharmed in the house, as was the couple’s dog.
Spencer Tepe is originally from Mason and graduated from Mason High School in 2007. He would later go on to graduate from Ohio State University and practice dentistry in Columbus until his death.
McKee was arrested in Illinois on Saturday morning. The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office states he was booked into custody at 11:57 a.m. He has a scheduled court appearance in Illinois on Monday.
“Our family is devastated by the tragic and senseless loss of Spencer and Monique,” family members of the couple had said in an earlier statement released shortly after their deaths. “They were extraordinary people whose lives were filled with love, joy, and deep connection to others.”
“Together, Spencer and Monique shared a beautiful, strong, and deeply happy relationship,” the statement continued. “They loved to travel, to laugh, and to build a life rooted in love. They were proud parents of two beautiful children and their beloved Goldendoodle, and they created a home filled with warmth, happiness, and connection.”
“We are heartbroken beyond words,” the statement concluded. “While no outcome can ever undo this loss, our family is committed to seeing this tragedy fully and fairly brought to justice, and to honoring Spencer and Monique by protecting the future of the children they loved so deeply.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Police say surveillance footage and a recovered vehicle tied Monique Tepe’s ex-husband, Dr. Michael David McKee to the fatal shootings of the Columbus couple
Michael David McKee, 39, has been arrested and charged with two counts of murder in connection with the fatal shooting deaths of Dr. Spencer and Monique Tepe, whose bodies were found in their Columbus home on December 30, 2025.
Credit: Winnebago Sheriff’s Office
McKee, identified as Monique Tepe’s ex-husband, was taken into custody on January 10 in Winnebago County, Illinois, and is being held pending extradition to Franklin County, Ohio. His initial court appearance has been scheduled for January 12, per Winnebago County.
Police have said a suspect vehicle was identified through neighborhood surveillance and later located in Rockford, Illinois, where evidence linked McKee after the homicides. According to public court records, McKee has no prior criminal charges in Ohio, his motive for killing the couple is unknown.
ScreenshotCredit: Franklin County Clerk of CourtsScreenshotCredit: Franklin County Clerk of CourtsScreenshotCredit: Franklin County Clerk of Courts
The couple’s two young children, ages 1 and 4, were inside the home at the time of the slayings but were unharmed. Investigators believe the victims were shot sometime between 2 AM and 5 AM on the day they were found. Police released surveillance footage of what has now been confirmed as McKee in a nearby alley. The Tepe’s brother-in-law, Rob Misleh, shared the family’s statement: “Today’s arrest represents an important step toward justice for Monique and Spencer. Nothing can undo the devastating loss of two lives taken far too soon, but we are grateful to the City of Columbus Police Department, its investigators, and assisting law enforcement community whose tireless efforts helped to capture the person involved. We thank the community for the continued support, prayers, and compassion shown throughout this tragedy. As the case proceeds, we trust the justice system to hold the person responsible fully accountable. Monique and Spencer remain at the center of our hearts, and we carry forward their love as we surround and protect the two children they leave behind. We will continue to honor their lives and the light they brought into this world.”
Public records show that McKee and Monique, then known as Monique Frances Sabaturski, were married in August 2015 and officially divorced in 2017 in a Franklin County domestic relations case filed as Monique Frances Sabaturski vs. Michael David McKee (Case No. 17DR-1691). Court filings obtained by Plunder Studios include a 55-page packet of divorce documents. Per Plunder, Mckee and Monique were married for less than one year, mutual restraining orders were grant, and McKee was a physician turned surgeon, while Monique was working at Nationwide. Police released the following statement on Facebook, continuing to ask for information from the public: “THE COLUMBUS DIVISION OF POLICE CONTINUES TO ACTIVELY INVESTIGATE THE HOMICIDE OF SPENCER AND MONIQUE TEPE. AN ARREST WARRANT WAS ISSUED FOR MICHAEL D. MCKEE FOR MURDER. HE WAS TAKEN INTO CUSTODY WITHOUT INCIDENT IN ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS. SO, WE DO NOT COMPROMISE THE ACTIVE AND ONGOING CASE PROGRESS, INFORMATION WILL BE RELEASED AS APPROPRIATE. ANYONE WITH INFORMATION FROM THIS INCIDENT IS ASKED TO CONTACT THE COLUMBUS POLICE HOMICIDE TIP LINE AT 614-645-2228.”
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The Columbus Homicide Department has not responded to Los Angeles’ request for comment or request for the probable cause arrest affidavit.
A 38-year-old man was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of murder in a fatal Denver stabbing, police said.
Denver officers responded at about 9:51 p.m. Monday to a stabbing in the 4200 block of North Lipan Street in the city’s Sunnyside neighborhood. Paramedics took the man who was stabbed to the hospital, where he later died from his injuries.
Christopher Fielder was arrested Tuesday in Glendale and booked into the Denver Downtown Detention Center on Wednesday on investigation of second-degree murder, according to jail records.
The man who was stabbed to death will be identified by the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner.
Investigators believe Fielder and the victim had been in an on-again-off-again relationship, and police said there had been prior conflicts between the two. Denver police did not specify what conflicts had been documented.
On Jan. 14, 1995, Mary Catherine Edwards, 31, a beloved elementary school teacher, was found dead in her townhouse in Beaumont, Texas.
Her parents found her. It was a terrible scene: she was in her bathtub, handcuffed, and had been sexually assaulted. There were no signs of forced entry, which made investigators think she must know her killer. The police-grade Smith & Wesson handcuffs were always a big clue, but when detectives tried tracing the serial numbers, they came up empty. Early investigators questioned various law enforcement officers and came up with nothing either.
The case went cold, but as Beaumont Police Det. Aaron Lewallen told “48 Hours contributor Natalie Morales, “Could it have been someone that we knew?… It was almost like a ghost story told around the camp fire …” Morales reports on the search for answers in an encore of “Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards,” airing Saturday, Jan 10 at 9/8c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
On Jan. 14, 1995, Mary Catherine Edwards, 31, was found dead by her parents in her townhouse in Beaumont, Texas. She was in her bathtub, handcuffed, and had been sexually assaulted. There were no signs of forced entry, which made investigators think she must have known her killer.
Texas Department of Public Safety
Thanks to carefully preserved DNA from the crime scene and the advent of genetic genealogy, Det. Aaron Lewallen, his wife Tina Lewallen, also a detective — along with Brandon Bess, a Texas Ranger in the cold case division, and Shera LaPoint, a professional genealogist — spent almost three months working together in a nonstop push to finally solve the case.
After all the early leads and the suspicion that someone in law enforcement had been involved, the family tree they constructed revealed someone else. Their chief suspect turned out to be not a law enforcement officer, but a man who went to the same high school as Edwards: Clayton Foreman.
And then they learned that Edwards and her identical twin sister Allison had been bridesmaids in Foreman’s first wedding. The sisters were good friends with his first wife, Dianna Coe, who also went to the same high school.
Coe remembers them fondly, telling Morales how kind they were to her when she moved to a new town and started a new school.
“I was new to the area … so, I knew no one. And they … just started talking to me and asked me my name … and we were friends from that point forward,” Coe said.
The sisters were the first people Coe thought of to be bridesmaids at her wedding. She and Foreman stayed married for 11 years. They were divorced by the time of the murder, but in hindsight, Coe began to see things in a different, darker, light. She remembered her ex-husband’s fascination with the police officers and their tools of the trade, like handcuffs and billy clubs. As Coe told Morales, “He had a billy club that he kept…by the bed. You know, said it was for protection. And I remember that he had ordered those handcuffs … Well, he had them hung over the rearview mirror.”
Coe also remembered a disturbing conversation with her ex-husband when she heard Edwards had been murdered and called to talk about it.
“I think I was, you know, crying and I said, ‘oh, my God,’ I said, ‘somebody has murdered Catherine,” Coe told “48 Hours.” “And — and he goes, ‘Oh, really?’ Just like no emotion, which I thought that was odd.”
The police-grade handcuffs found on Mary Catherine Edwards were later used to arrest her killer.
Jefferson County D.A.’s Office
A DNA match quickly established that Foreman had indeed been at the crime scene. And when Det. Aaron Lewallen and Ranger Bess went to question Foreman, they had an arrest warrant. They also brought something with them — something very symbolic.
Together, they had taken the time to work out an arrangement with the prosecutors so they could use the handcuffs taken as evidence at the crime scene. When they arrested Foreman for the murder of Edwards, they did so with the very handcuffs that had bound her the night she died. He wasn’t one of them, but in the course of the investigation, they learned Foreman had been falsely claiming to be a police officer.
The handcuffs — such a focus in the beginning — came full circle at the end. Bess will never forget how it felt. As he told Morales, “It’s a moment I’ll never forget … you feel like you got to do something for Catherine there … You know, like physically got to do for her, is take those cuffs that bound her when she was murdered and put them back on the guy that murdered her … It may seem small to some, but it was a really big deal to us, and it felt good.”
The jury in Foreman’s murder trial deliberated for less than an hour before finding him guilty of the murder of Edwards. Foreman was sentenced to life in prison.
Police in Vallejo announced Monday the arrest of two juveniles in connection with a deadly shooting that took place at a home last year.
On the afternoon of Sep. 11, officers were called to a residence on the 100 block of Carolina Street on reports of a shooting. During a sweep of the home, officers located a man with at least one gunshot wound.
The man was pronounced deceased at the scene by paramedics.
During the investigation, detectives identified two juvenile suspects and presented the case to the Solano County District Attorney’s Office on Dec. 16. The DA filed murder charges against both teens and arrest warrants were issued.
Police said one of the suspects turned himself in around 7 p.m. on Jan. 2, while the other suspect turned himself in around 7 p.m. Monday. Both teens were booked into the Solano County Juvenile Detention Facility.
Due to their ages, the suspects’ identities have not been released.
An 18-year-old was charged in Craven County with the murder of his grandfather.
Around 11:45 p.m. Monday, the Craven County Sheriff’s Office says they were called to a reported assault at a home on Sydney Road.
Dispatchers told deputies that the suspect had left the home.
While on their way to the residence, deputies spotted a car matching the one driven by the suspect and pulled it over on Highway 55 near Wetherington Farm Road.
Deputies arrested the driver, Derrick White.
When law enforcement got to the Sydney Road home, they found 77-year-old Anthony White dead from multiple stab wounds. They charged Derrick White with his murder, and they believe he also assaulted his grandmother.
As the man accused of killing a Raleigh teacher sits in jail, one
past victim says more should have been done to keep the alleged murderer off
the streets.
36-year-old Ryan Camacho is facing multiple charges in the killing
of Zoe Welsh, a long-time science teacher at the private Ravencroft School.
Police say Camacho attacked Welsh while she was on the phone with 911, after he broke into her home.
For Wes Phillips, the killing hits far too close to home.
“It’s not like there weren’t signs,” said Phillips, a long-time
Raleigh resident and father. “We were really adamant about the danger that we
felt we were in, and perhaps other people were in, and it just wasn’t taken
seriously.”
According to Phillips, nearly a decade ago, Ryan Camacho stalked,
harassed and terrified his family for more than a year. Camacho’s actions,
Phillips said, forced his family to move twice, and pleas that something be
done went unanswered.
Phillips said one of the scariest moments came on October 8, 2016, during
Hurricane Matthew. Phillips said he was with his son at their then-home in
Mordecai when he looked outside and saw Camacho.
“It was like a horror movie, like he was standing there in a black
jacket, staring at us in front of our house during a hurricane. Not talking,
like making sure that we knew who he was,” Phillips said.
Phillips had already moved his family once that year, he says, to
get away from Camacho, who had lived next door to the family in the Five Points
area. Phillips said the move came after property damage and disturbing
behavior from Camacho.
On October 8, Phillips called the police and then jumped in his
car, shooting video on his cell phone. At one point in the video, Camacho can
be seen trying to open the driver’s side door.
“I had locked the car, and he was pulling on the door, trying to
get in,” Phillips said.
Phillips said Camacho eventually disappeared, returning several
days later. Phillips said he and his son were out when his wife looked outside
to see Camacho walk up and grab a large rock.
Security video taken that day shows a man throwing a rock into the
windshield of Phillip’s car, and then through the sunroof, before punching and
kicking the car several times.
Phillips moved his family again after that, trying to put as much
distance between his family and Camacho as he could.
Two years later, Camacho returned to the Phillips’ now former
Mordecai townhome, this time with a gun.
“He shot into our building where he thought that, I can only
assume, where he thought that we lived,” Phillips said. “That’s something that
stays with us.”
No one was injured in the shooting. Court documents show Camacho
did face multiple charges for shooting into an occupied dwelling, ultimately
spending two years in prison.
Phillips says that wasn’t enough.
He said he called the police three
to four times about Camacho before that, and attempted to have a no-contact
order served. He said Camacho ultimately faced no charges for harassing his
family.
“Part of the reason I’m here is it makes me really angry. It makes
me angry that it feels like there was a complete institutional, just failure
here that led to, you know, a woman being killed,” said Phillips.
WRAL has been asking prosecutors and judges why Camacho hadn’t
faced more serious consequences sooner.
In an interview on Monday, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin
Freeman did point out that Camacho has spent a significant amount of time behind
bars, much of that time for shooting into Phillips’ former home.
“He has spent a lot of time bouncing between the prison system and
the local jails over the last few years and has really been in custody all but
maybe a total of 12 months within the past 6 years,” Freeman said.
Freeman also pointed out that in December, Camacho faced breaking and
entering charges, and prosecutors did push to have Camacho involuntarily
committed. That request was ultimately denied by Judge Louis Meyer.
WRAL has reached out to Judge Meyer for comment. So far, we’re
still waiting for a reply.
“The judge has to make a decision based on the evidence available
to them at that point in time. They don’t have the benefit of course of a
crystal ball and look and see what’s going to happen,” said Freeman. “Based on
the evidence that was available to the court at the time, the court did not
find that he met the threshold for involuntary commitment. For involuntary
commitment, the judge has to make a finding that they are a danger to
themselves or others. And when we talk about danger in that context, it’s an
imminent danger to themselves or others.”
For his part, Wes Phillips said he doesn’t know what needs to
change to keep dangerous people off the streets. But he is now haunted by a new
question.
“My wife and I are asking ourselves right now as we think about
what happened this past week,” said Phillips, “how close did we come to being
that person, and could that have been prevented?”
One man has been arrested and charged with murder after police in Prince George’s County said he took part in a gunfight outside a banquet hall that left three people dead.
One man has been arrested and charged with murder after police in Prince George’s County said he took part in a gunfight outside a banquet hall that left three people dead over the weekend.
The shooting happened early Saturday morning outside Irving’s in Marlow Heights and involved people who were attending a birthday party at the establishment, according to police. Irving’s has been shut down and county officials implied the banquet hall did not follow proper security protocols.
Pierre Davis, 33, of D.C., 26-year-old Kevon Williams, also of D.C., and 27-year-old Ronez Proctor, of Waldorf, Maryland, were killed as a result of the gunfight.
Davis and Williams, police said, killed each other in an exchange of gunfire, while 39-year-old Antonio Lancaster, of Laurel, Maryland, is charged with Proctor’s murder.
Lancaster was arrested after the shooting in Fairfax County, Virginia, and is awaiting extradition to Maryland. He’s been charged with first and second-degree murder as well as two counts of attempted murder and other gun charges.
An argument inside Irving’s, which was hosting the private birthday party, led to the shootout. As of Monday, Irving’s is closed and a hearing will take place to determine whether or not the business can reopen.
“You cannot wreak this kind of havoc in our community and expect to go unpunished,” Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Tara Jackson said during a news conference on Monday.
Police said Proctor was not armed nor involved in the gunfight. According to charging documents, Proctor tried to help one of the other men who’d been shot, which led to a struggle between him and a group of partygoers. During that struggle, the documents say, Proctor was pushed to the ground, at which point Lancaster approached him and fatally shot him from close range.
“We believe that alcohol contributed to irrational thinking and behavior — not that it excuses anything that happened. But it also explains why it’s really important for these establishments to abide by the law, because if there are disputes, security should be there to address those disputes, both inside and outside of these establishments,” Prince George’s County Executive Aisha Braveboy said.
During Monday’s news conference, Braveboy said this shooting serves as a warning to businesses in the county that are not prioritizing public safety.
“Having establishments open that late at night without security is a problem, and it’s a problem that will not be tolerated in Prince George’s County,” she said. “This is your notice that we will shut you down, that you must have a security plan on file with the Prince George’s County Police Department, that you must have operating cameras inside and outside of your establishments.”
Police said they believe the men who opened fire outside Irving’s did know each other in some way, as the birthday party was invite-only.
American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate
By Eric Lichtblau Little Brown and Company: 352 pages, $30
If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.
Have you heard of Orange County? It’s where the good Republicans go before they die.
It should come as no surprise that Orange County, a beloved county for the grandfather of modern American conservatism, Ronald Reagan, would be the fertile landscape for far-right ideology and white supremacy. Reaganomics aside, the O.C. has long since held a special if not slightly off-putting place, of oceanfront leisure, modern luxury and all-American family entertainment — famed by hit shows (“The Real Housewives of Orange County,” “The O.C.” and “Laguna Beach,” among others). Even crime in Orange County has been sensationalized and glamorized, with themes veneered by opulence, secrecy and illusions of suburban perfection. To Eric Lichtblau, the Pulitzer Prize winner and former Los Angeles Times reporter, the real story is far-right terrorism — and its unspoken grip on the county’s story.
“One of the reasons I decided to focus on Orange County is that it’s not the norm — not what you think of as the Deep South. It’s Disneyland. It’s California,” Lichtblau says. “These are people who are trying to take back America from the shores of Orange County because it’s gotten too brown in their view.”
His newest investigative book, “American Reich,” focuses on the 2018 murder of gay Jewish teenager Blaze Bernstein as a lens to examine Orange County and how the hate-driven murder at the hands of a former classmate connects to a national web of white supremacy and terrorism.
I grew up a few miles away from Bernstein, attending a performing arts school similar to his — and Sam Woodward’s. I remember the early discovery of the murder where Woodward became a suspect, followed by the news that the case was being investigated as a hate crime. The murder followed the news cycle for years to come, but in its coverage, there was a lack of continuity in seeing how this event fit into a broader pattern and history ingrained in Orange County. There was a bar down the street from me where an Iranian American man was stabbed just for not being white. The seaside park of Marblehead, where friends and I visited for homecoming photos during sunset, was reported as a morning meet-up spot for neo-Nazis in skeleton masks training for “white unity” combat. These were just some of the myriad events Lichtblau explores as symptoms of something more unsettling than one-offs.
Samuel Lincoln Woodward, of Newport Beach, speaks with his attorney during his 2018 arraignment on murder charges in the death of Blaze Bernstein.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Lichtblau began the book in 2020, in the midst of COVID. He wanted to find a place emblematic of the national epidemic that he, like many others, was witnessing — some of the highest record of anti-Asian attacks, assaults on Black, Latino and LGBTQ+ communities, and rising extremist rhetoric and actions.
“Orange County kind of fit a lot of those boxes,” Lichtblau says. “The horrible tragedy with Blaze Bernstein being killed by one of his high school classmates — who had been radicalized — reflected a growing brazenness of the white supremacy movement we’ve seen as a whole in America in recent years.”
Bernstein’s death had been only two years prior. The Ivy League student had agreed to meet former classmate Woodward one evening during winter break. The two had never been close; Woodward had been a lone wolf during his brief time at the Orange County School of the Arts, before transferring due to the school’s liberalness. On two separate occasions over the years, Woodward had reached out to Bernstein under the pretense of grappling with his own sexuality. Bernstein had no idea he was being baited, or that his former classmate was part of a sprawling underground network of far-right extremists — connected to mass shooters, longtime Charles Manson followers, neo-Nazi camps, and online chains where members bonded over a shared fantasy of harming minorities and starting a white revolution.
“But how is this happening in 2025?”
These networks didn’t appear out of nowhere. They had long been planted in Orange County’s soil, leading back to the early 1900s when the county was home to sprawling orange groves.
Mexican laborers, who formed the backbone of the orange-grove economy (second to oil and generating wealth that even rivaled the Gold Rush), were met with violence when the unionized laborers wanted to strike for better conditions. The Orange County sheriff, also an orange grower, issued an order. “SHOOT TO KILL, SAYS SHERIFF,” the banner headline in the Santa Ana Register read. Chinese immigrants also faced violence. They had played a large role in building the county’s state of governance, but were blamed for a case of leprosy, and at the suggestion of a councilman, had their community of Chinatown torched while the white residents watched.
Gideon Bernstein and Jeanne Pepper Bernstein, center, parents of Blaze Bernstein, speak during a news conference after a 2018 sentencing for Samuel Woodward at Orange County Superior Court.
(Jeff Gritchen/Pool / Orange County Register)
Leading up to the new millennium brought an onslaught of white power rock coming out of the county’s music scene. Members with shaved heads and Nazi memorabilia would dance to rage-fueled declarations of white supremacy, clashing, if not worse, with non-white members of the community while listening to lyrics like, “When the last white moves out of O.C., the American flag will leave with me… We’ll die for a land that’s yours and mine” (from the band Youngland).
“It’s come and gone,” says Lichtblau, who noticed these currents shifting in the early 2000s — and over the years, when Reagandland broke in certain parts to become purple. Even with sights of blue amid red, Trump on the landscape brought a new wave — one that Lichtblau explains was fueled by “claiming their country back” and “capturing the moment that Trump released.”
It can be hard to fathom the reality: that the Orange County of white supremacy exists alongside an Orange County shaped both economically and culturally by its immigrant communities, where since 2004, the majority of its residents are people of color. Then again, to anyone who has spent considerable time there, you’ll notice the strange cognitive dissonance among its cultural landscape.
It’s a peculiar sight to see a MAGA stand selling nativist slogans on a Spanish-named street, or Confederate flags in the back of pickup trucks pulling into the parking lots of neighborhood taquerias or Vietnamese pho shops for a meal. Or some of the families who have lived in the county for generations still employing Latino workers, yet inside their living rooms Fox News will be playing alarmist rhetoric about “Latinos,” alongside Reagan-era memorabilia proudly displayed alongside framed Bible verses. This split reality — a multicultural community and one of the far-right — oddly fills the framework of a county born from a split with its neighbor, L.A., only to develop an aggressive identity against said neighbor’s perceived liberalness.
It’s this cultural rejection that led to “the orange curtain” or the “Orange County bubble,” which suggest these racially-charged ideologies stay contained or, exhaustingly, echo within the county’s sphere. On the contrary, Lichtblau has seen how these white suburban views spill outward. Look no further than the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, also the book’s release date.
While popular belief might assume these insurrectionists came from deeply conservative areas, it was actually the contrary, as Lichtblau explains. “It was from places like Orange County,” he says, “where the voting patterns were seeing the most shift.” Some might argue — adamantly or reluctantly — that Jan. 6 was merely a stop-the-steal protest gone wrong, a momentary lapse or mob mentality. But Lichtblau sees something much larger. “This was white pride on display. There was a lot of neo-Nazi stuff, including a lot of Orange County people stuff.”
As a society, it’s been collectively decided to expect the profile of the lone wolf killer, the outcast, wearing an identity strung from the illusions of a white man’s oppression — the type to rail against unemployment benefits but still cash the check. Someone like Sam Woodward, cut from the vestiges of the once venerable conservative Americana family, the type of God-fearing Christians who, as “American Reich” studies in the Woodward household, teach and bond over ideological hate, and even while entrenched in a murder case, continuously reach out to the victim’s family to the point where the judge has to intervene. The existence of these suburban families is known, as is the slippery hope one will never cross paths with them in this ever-spinning round of American roulette. But neither these individuals nor their hate crimes are random, as Lichtblau discusses, and the lone wolves aren’t as alone as assumed. These underground channels have long been ingrained in the American groundscape like landmines, now reactivated by a far-right digital landscape that connects these members and multiplies their ideologies on a national level. Lichtblau’s new investigation goes beyond the paradigm of Orange County to show a deeper cultural epidemic that’s been taking shape.
Beavin Pappas is an arts and culture writer. Raised in Orange County, he now splits his time between New York and Cairo, where he is at work on his debut book.
Zoe Welsh, a science teacher at Raleigh’s Ravenscroft School, was killed in her home Saturday.
The fence surrounding 819 Clay Street was shut Sunday afternoon, with a wooden board covering one of the home’s two front windows. Police had cleared from the area, and people were enjoying a sunny day across the road in Fred Fletcher Park.
A red SUV was parked in the driveway. It displayed a breast cancer awareness logo on its license plate and a bumper sticker from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
Early Saturday morning, Raleigh police had responded to a report of a burglary in progress at this house. The burglar began to attack the victim, school teacher Zoe Welsh, while Welsh was still speaking to the police, the police say.
“The complainant was screaming, but I am silent now,” a Raleigh police dispatcher said at 6:34 a.m. Saturday, according to a call simulcast database. Six minutes later, an officer at the scene reported, “I have a female down. She’s got a severe hemorrhage to the left side of her head.”
Welsh was taken to a local hospital, where she died. Officers searched the neighborhood and arrested Ryan Camacho, 36, who was charged Saturday with murder and felony burglary.
Public records show Camacho has a criminal record dating back to 2005, including a 2019 conviction for discharging a firearm into an occupied Wake County property, for which he was incarcerated. More recently, he was convicted of seven misdemeanors in November 2024 in Durham County, with one of the charges being breaking and entering.
‘You could tell she really cared for her students’
With questions on this apparent homicide still unanswered, Welsh’s friends and former students on Sunday shared fond memories of a beloved educator.
“A lot of conversations with friends today, of just how genuinely nice she was,” said Lisa Ginger of Raleigh, who knew Welsh since they attended Daniels Middle School (now Oberlin Magnet Middle School).
Ginger recalled Zoe’s two siblings, including how her late older brother, Reed Mullin, was the drummer for the Grammy Award-nominated metal band Corrosion of Conformity. “Raleigh’s a big city now,” Ginger said in a phone call. “But when you grow up here, and you have ties to the area, you tend to cling to those from here.”
A mother of two in her late 50s, Welsh taught science at Leesville Road High School in the Wake County Public Schools System before taking a position at the private Ravenscroft School in North Raleigh.
“She wanted to make biology a fun and interesting topic for all students,” wrote Lauren Knight, who graduated from Ravenscroft in 2010, in a private Reddit message to The News & Observer. “I particularly remember and loved the photosynthesis song! She spent extra time helping me grasp concepts and you could tell she really cared for her students.”
Ravenscroft spokesperson Elizabeth McKinnon said the school will offer students, instructors and staff grief counseling and other support resources as classes resume Monday after winter break.
“The Ravenscroft community is devastated by the loss of our beloved colleague and friend Zoe Welsh,” the school wrote in a statement. “Zoe has been a cornerstone of our Upper School Science Department and the Ravenscroft community since 2006. She previously served as the science department chair.”
Brian Gordon is the Business & Technology reporter for The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun. He writes about jobs, startups and big tech developments unique to the North Carolina Triangle. Brian previously worked as a senior statewide reporter for the USA Today Network. Please contact him via email, phone, or Signal at 919-861-1238.
A stalker sends menacing messages to a young mother before she is murdered. The investigation reveals a sinister setup. “48 Hour” correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.
Todd Kendhammer says his wife Barbara died in a freak car accident. But authorities questioned his story from the beginning, and he was tried and convicted of intentional homicide.
Todd and Barbara Kendhammer
Barbara Kendhammer/Facebook
Kendhammer and his children have refused to accept the verdict and are seeking a new trial. Their fight for what they say is justice is the focus of “Mystery on County Road M,” reported by “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty. An encore of the broadcast is streaming on Paramount+.
Just after 8 a.m. on September 16, 2016, a distraught Todd Kendhammer called 911 to report a car accident on a rural road outside La Crosse, Wisconsin. “A pipe or something came through the windshield,” he told the operator.
On the morning of September 16, 2016, Todd Kendhammer told investigators that a pipe flew off a truck, smashed through the windshield of his car, and gravely injured his wife Barbara. She later died at a hospital.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
When authorities arrived, he told them a pipe flew off a truck driving in the opposite direction, came through the windshield and struck his wife. Barbara Kendhammer, 46, was rushed to the hospital but died the next day. The couple had just celebrated their 25th anniversary.
Their children, Jessica Servais and Jordan Kendhammer, say their parents were still very much in love. “Whatever my mom wanted, my dad gave it to her,” Servais told Moriarty. “They were just in a really good time in their lives ’cause they had their first grandchild, and they were well off.”
An autopsy revealed that Barbara died of blunt force injuries to the head and neck. She also had three lacerations to the back of her head. The medical examiner did not think Barbara’s injuries were consistent with the accident as described by Todd.
“She said that the injuries to Barb were very inconsistent with a pipe … that size and that weight coming through the windshield,” says Tim Gruenke, La Crosse County district attorney.
“48 Hours” Erin Moriarty, with La Crosse, Wisconsin DA Tim Gruenke, holds the pipe that Todd Kendhammer told investigators flew off a truck and pierced the windshield of the car he and his wife Barbara were riding in. But the story didn’t make sense to Gruenke.
CBS News
Surveillance video from a horse ranch down the road showed what appears to be the Kendhammer car pass by at approximately 7:57 a.m. on the day of the incident. But at around the same time, no truck that matched the description Todd gave police was ever seen heading in the opposite direction.
Todd Kendhammer told police that he and Barbara were driving to pick up a truck that needed a windshield replaced, belonging to a man named Justin Heim. Kendhammer did windshield replacement work as a side job.
“When the police looked into that, they found Justin Heim never had ordered a windshield from Todd, didn’t need a windshield. Todd didn’t even know where he lived,” says Gruenke. Kendhammer then told police he was going to see a friend of Heim’s.
Gruenke believes Todd Kendhammer killed Barbara and staged the scene to look like an accident. Kendhammer was arrested three months later and went on trial a year after that. “Every day I was in a constant state of anxiety and couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep,” says Jessica.
At trial, both sides argued about what caused Barbara’s injuries — a tragic accident, or a brutal fight. The windshield was as hotly disputed as the medical evidence. Dueling experts had different theories of what caused the glass fracture patterns.
Jessica and Jordan don’t believe prosecutors ever answered critical questions about what happened.
“They never really said how he killed her or what he did to stage everything,” says Jessica. Her brother added, “If he wanted to kill Ma, why the hell would he go through all the work and trouble to find a pipe, drive all the way out to the middle of a busy road—.” “He has like 28 guns in the basement,” Jessica interrupted. “More than that,” said Jordan.
The prosecution had to admit they didn’t know why Todd would kill Barbara. They found no evidence either one was having an affair, no history of domestic violence or financial trouble.
Todd Kendhammer made the unusual decision to testify in his own defense. He told the jury he was distraught during his interview with police, when he told those different stories of where they were going that morning. “I’m not in the right state of mind… I wasn’t thinking of where I was going or what I was doing. I was thinking of Barb,” he said on the stand.
Todd Kendhammer made the unusual decision to testify in his own defense.
WKBT
But he continued to struggle with his memory of the incident and told the jury about a third person he was going to see that morning. Gruenke asked him: “Did you change your story for trial because you knew police had figured out your lies?” “No,” he responded.
Todd Kendhammer’s children stood by him. “He doesn’t lie. So when he says he didn’t do it, we believe him,” Jessica said. But the jury didn’t believe him, and Kendhammer was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole in 30 years.
After the conviction, the Kendhammer family hired attorney Jerry Buting, of “Making a Murderer” fame, to handle the appeal, along with his wife and co-counsel Kathleen Stilling.
“This was an accident,” Buting told Moriarty. “The idea that out of the blue he would snap and kill his wife and then stage the accident, it just seems so implausible to me,” Stilling added.
In 2021, Todd Kendhammer was back in court before the same judge for an evidentiary hearing. It was a chance to argue that his original defense team had been ineffective, and that there was critical new evidence.The forensic pathologist who testified there disagreed with the original medical examiner and said Barbara’s injuries were caused by an accident.
“We aren’t going to stop until he can be home,” Jessica says.
Prosecutor Gruenke believes justice has already been served for Barbara Kendhammer. “Do you have any concerns at all that you might have convicted an innocent man?” Moriarty asked. “Not in this case, no,” Gruenke replied.
This story previously aired on Sept. 3, 2022. It was updated on Dec. 27, 2025.
Todd Kendhammer said his wife Barbara was killed in a freak accident when a pipe smashed into the windshield of their car in 2016. A Wisconsin jury didn’t believe him, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Their children believe he’s innocent. Now, his new legal team says there is evidence the jury never heard. Will a judge grant a new trial?
Every year, where the Mississippi widens out on its steady journey south alongside the river town of La Crosse, Wisconsin, bald eagles gather.
Lofty symbols of freedom, they soar close to the remote country road where 46-year-old Barbara Kendhammer was fatally injured. The circumstances, so unusual, made headlines and sent her husband Todd to prison for life.
Kathleen Stilling: I just became fascinated by the story that I saw unfolding here.
Now, Todd Kendhammer’s appeals team says his murder conviction is the true injustice that occurred in this controversial case.
Erin Moriarty: Do you believe that Todd Kendhammer had anything to do with the death of his wife?
Kathleen Stilling: No.
Jerry Buting: This was an accident.
Erin Moriarty: You don’t believe there was a murder at all?
Jerry Buting: Not at all. This is not a murder case.
Lawyer Jerry Buting is best known for defending Steven Avery, on Netflix’s “Making a Murderer.” And now, along with attorney Kathleen Stilling, who also happens to be his wife, they’ve taken on Todd’s case, which they say should be measured by his marriage to Barbara.
Kathleen Stilling: Their relationship was really special. … that was one of the things that really drew me to this case. … The idea that out of the blue he would snap and kill his wife and then stage the accident, it just seems so implausible to me.
On the morning of September 16, 2016, Todd Kendhammer called 911 reporting he and his wife, Barbara, had been in a car accident on a rural road near La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Kendhammer family
They insist this isn’t a murder mystery. It’s an old-fashioned love story that ended in a tragic accident. During his trial, Todd told the court that he fell for Barbara, at first sight.
TODD KENDHAMMER [on the stand]: …just one of those things where you know immediately that’s the girl you want.
Both were just 16. Friends at first, they began dating in 1989. And in August 1991, they sealed the deal.
Soon Jessica and then Jordan came along. Witnesses, they say, to a romance.
Erin Moriarty: How would you describe your dad?
Jessica Servais: Well, mom always called him a wild hare (laughs).
Jordan Kendhammer: He was always, always, always on the go and always has some new crazy idea.
Jessica Servais: And she just was all about going with him for anything.
To the kids it was clear. Todd adored Barbara.
Jessica Servais: He’s just always like doting on her with stuff.
Erin Moriarty: Did your parents argue more than any other couple?
Jessica Servais: Definitely not.
Jordan Kendhammer: I would say not.
Jessica Servais: Whatever my mom wanted my dad gave it to her (laughs).
Barbara worked in the cafeteria at the West Salem Middle School. Todd worked at a factory making aluminum soda cans. On the side, he flipped houses with Barb.
Jessica Servais: That was like the biggest out-on-a-limb thing, he’s like “Let’s buy a house and flip it,” and we’re just like, “OK” (laughs).
For extra income Todd also worked with glass, replacing people’s smashed and broken windshields. They paid their bills and lived comfortably.
Jessica Servais: They were just in a really good time in their lives ’cause they had their first grandchild, and they were well off.
In 2016 Jessica and Jordan threw their parents a surprise 25th anniversary party.
Jessica Servais: And everything was perfect. It was good.
Erin Moriarty: Until it wasn’t.
Jessica Servais: Yeah.
It was a month later, September 16, 2016. The Kendhammer family was preparing for their annual camping trip. The plan was to leave later that day after Barb finished work.
Jordan Kendhammer: I woke up in the morning. … Ma and dad were still home. I heard mom in the kitchen.
It was early that morning. Jordan, home from college, says he heard the garage door open, and his parents’ car leave. No arguing. Nothing unusual, he says, just his dad, likely driving his mom to work at school.
Jordan Kendhammer: If he had off, he’d take her to work and he’d go about doing his errand things. And then when he got done, he’d pick her up.
A little after 7:45 a.m., the couple stopped at the home of a neighbor. They were looking after her house while she was away and stayed just a few minutes. And then, surprisingly, instead of heading to Barbara’s school, Todd headed north — away from it. Why he did would become a critical question.
Todd Kendhammer said Barbara was in the passenger seat when a metal pipe smashed through the front windshield of their car. Todd said he removed the pipe in order to take Barbara out of the car and administer CPR.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
At 8:05 a.m., a distraught Todd made that call to 911. He said there had been a horrible accident. And Barbara was badly hurt.
911 OPERATOR: 911 what is the address of the emergency?
TODD KENDHAMMER: … She’s hit in the head and in the throat. I think in the throat or something.
At the scene, Todd began to tell his version of what happened:
OFFICER: There was a pipe in the ground?
TODD KENDHAMMER: No, it came out of that tree, off a truck.
OFFICER: Off a truck?
TODD KENDHAMMER: A truck, or a trailer or something.
Barbara was rushed to the hospital.
TODD KENDHAMMER: Is she OK?
OFFICER: I can’t tell you that. I don’t know.
Placed by police into a squad car, Todd continued with his account:
TODD KENDHAMMER: [in police car] I thought it was a bird at first … And then at the last minute I seen it was a pipe.
Soon Jessica and Jordan met their father. He seemed devastated. His T-shirt soaked in blood.
Jessica Servais: He was pale and shaky and panicky and wanted to know how she was doing, like, all the time.
Erin Moriarty: Tell me what he told you about the accident.
Jordan Kendhammer: They were driving and … something came, and it hit mom.
Jessica Servais: I was like, how did a pipe hit her? … he said it came through the windshield, and I pulled it out of the windshield.
Erin Moriarty: How did you find out how seriously your mom was really injured?
Jessica Servais: The neurosurgeons kept coming in and giving us updates, but the way that they were talking her prognosis was pretty poor.
The start of a family holiday fast turned into an all-night bedside vigil. It wouldn’t last long.
Jessica Servais: I think it was like 4 or 5 or something … and they actually pronounced her, like, brain dead.
Erin Moriarty: How did your father deal with that news?
Jessica Servais: He was just very upset.
Todd and Barbara Kendhammer, left, with their children Jessica and Jordan. “I always said when I was younger, you know I want to be just like my parents,” said Jordan. “I want to be married young and have kids … just totally in love with my partner … just like them. “
Kendhammer family
As dawn broke over the Mississippi, Barbara Kendhammer — wife, mother, grandmother — took her last breath.
Jessica Servais: She was gone.
The family mourned. They had already made the tough decision to donate Barbara’s organs. But things would soon get even tougher. Police were already suspicious of Todd.
OFFICER (at the scene): Take pictures of Todd. His front, all the blood, his knuckles, everything.
At the scene of the incident, officers had noticed Todd’s bloodied knuckles. And he had what appeared to be scratch marks on his neck.
Prosecutor Tim Gruenke: The police kept finding one more step and one more step that would disprove his story.
THE CASE AGAINST TODD
Erin Moriarty: So how big is this pipe, Tim?
Tim Gruenke: 53 inches long. And it weighs about 10 pounds.
Erin Moriarty (lifts pipe): This thing is heavy.
“48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty, with La Crosse, Wisconsin DA Tim Gruenke, holds the pipe that Todd Kendhammer told investigators flew off a truck and pierced the windshield of the car he and his wife Barbara were riding in. But the story didn’t make sense to Gruenke, who believes Todd killed Barbara and staged the scene to look like an accident.
CBS News
Todd Kendhammer says the pipe flew off a truck, smashed into the windshield of the car he was driving and caused his wife Barbara’s death — a story that Prosecutor Tim Gruenke says is simply preposterous.
Tim Gruenke: Our theory is that he used that himself to put the hole in the windshield. It didn’t fly off of a truck going by.
Tim Gruenke: Todd said he was traveling north on Highway M.
Gruenke says that police became suspicious of Todd when pieces of his story just didn’t seem to add up, starting with that mysterious truck.
Tim Gruenke: He turned right onto Bergum Coulee Road.
This is the description Todd Kendhammer gave police on the way to the hospital:
TODD KENDHAMMER: It was a older, like a bigger flatbed-looking truck … Like a pickup truck with a flatbed on it.
INVESTIGATOR: What color was the cab?
TODD KENDHAMMER: I don’t even remember. It was darker, I don’t — that’s all I know. Dark green or dark blue.
Erin Moriarty (at the scene, pointing at road): So, he’s going this way and he claims that the — that a truck carrying a pipe was going this way?
Tim Gruenke: Correct.
Erin Moriarty: Were you ever able to find a truck?
Tim Gruenke: No. Police spent some time looking for the truck and putting out word to the community to ask if anybody saw a truck that day.
Surveillance video from a horse ranch down the road does show what appears to be the Kendhammer car pass by at approximately 7:57 a.m. on the day of the incident. But at around the same time, no truck that matched the description Todd gave police was ever seen heading in the opposite direction.
And then four days after the incident, Medical Examiner Dr. Kathleen McCubbin conducted an autopsy on Barbara.
Tim Gruenke: She didn’t understand when she first heard a pipe had done it. She had called law enforcement to look at the pipe ’cause she didn’t understand how that could be.
Barbara had three lacerations on the back of her head.
Tim Gruenke: She said that the injuries to Barb were very inconsistent with a pipe of that size and that weight coming through the windshield.
She concluded that Barbara died of “blunt trauma injuries of the head and neck, with skull fractures … cricoid cartilage fractures … and ultimate brain death.” The cricoid is the ring-shaped bony cartilage structure located in the lower neck.
The medical examiner concluded that Barbara died of “blunt trauma injuries of the head and neck, with skull fractures … cricoid cartilage fractures … and ultimate brain death.” The cricoid is the ring-shaped bony cartilage structure located in the lower neck.
La Crosse County Court
Erin Moriarty: What do you believe caused the broken cricoid cartilage?
Tim Gruenke: It’s consistent with strangulation.
The medical examiner also noted that there were countless other injuries on Barbara that suggested there could have been an earlier struggle. She had scratches on her neck, a broken nose, a laceration on her forehead and bruising all over her body.
Tim Gruenke: She had some injuries to her fingers.
Photos taken of Todd Kendhammer after the incident show injuries on his hands and scratches on his neck and chest.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
Todd also had injuries to his hands.
Tim Gruenke: He said that came from striking the windshield when he saw something flying at him.
And he had what appeared to be scratches on his neck and chest as well.
Tim Gruenke: He said he got that ’cause he worked with glass. It turns out he doesn’t work with glass. He puts in windshields. But he doesn’t normally work with glass or broken glass. So those injuries seemed odd. … It seems consistent like someone who was in a fight. A really bad fight.
Police had also interviewed a construction worker who said he drove by the Kendhammer car around 8 a.m. but didn’t see any damage to the windshield or any people around.
Tim Gruenke: He saw the car in the ditch. … And thought maybe somebody had just driven off the road or tried to make a turn and got stuck.
Erin Moriarty: So, he didn’t see anybody. He didn’t see either Todd or Barbara?
Tim Gruenke: Correct.
Erin Moriarty: Could they have been hidden in the high grass?
Tim Gruenke: Well, that’s the only thought is that … he was maybe trying to hold her down and keep her from calling for help.
There were other red flags. On the day of the incident Barbara was scheduled to work at 8 a.m., but she never called to say that she’d be late. She also did not make her daily call her to her mom.
Tim Gruenke: As a woman who has never been later for work, who always calls her mom … when you look at, that’s an obvious change of the pattern.
And where were Todd and Barbara driving to that morning, going in the opposite direction from Barbara’s work?
This is what Todd Kendhammer told investigators on the drive to the hospital:
TODD KENDHAMMER: I’m gonna put a windshield in a truck for a guy.
INVESTIGATOR: So, is the windshield you were going to replace in somebody’s driveway or?
TODD KENDHAMMER: In his truck. I was gonna take it to my house.
Todd told police that, on the way to drive Barbara to work, he decided to drive over to pick up a truck that needed a windshield replaced. He said the truck, with keys inside, was in the driveway of a person he knew from work named Justin Heim.
INVESTIGATOR: Did you call the guy?
TODD KENDHAMMER: No, I didn’t call him. … I was just gonna swing over and if it was there grab it.
But when the investigators spoke with Justin Heim, he told a very different story.
Tim Gruenke: When the police looked into that, they found Justin Heim never had ordered a windshield from Todd, didn’t need a windshield. Todd didn’t even know where he lived.
So just one week after Barbara’s death and just two days before her funeral, investigators asked Todd to come down to the police station under the ruse that they had some leads on trucks that may have dropped the pipe that day.
TODD KENDHAMMER [in interrogation room, opening pill container]: Is it OK if I take that? I didn’t take my medicine this morning.
INVESTIGATOR: Yeah, that’s fine.
As investigators began to question Todd Kendhammer, he appeared confused and forgetful of details.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
As investigators began to question him, Todd told them he had not taken his anti-anxiety medication, and he appeared confused and forgetful of details.
TODD KENDHAMMER[distraught, holding his head in his hands]: And — I — I — I — just don’t — remember, I remember — and I don’t know how … I remember — I remember the worst part was when I looked — the pipe was — the pipe was there …”
Jessica Servais: He was trying to help. Like he thought they were trying to help him find the cause of the accident.
INVESTIGATOR: How did the pipe get through the windshield, let’s start there.
TODD KENDHAMMER: The pipe — I don’t — It came off a truck.
But they were closing in on what they believed were Todd’s lies.
INVESTIGATOR: There’s no explanations for it. You can’t — the injuries that were on Barb did not occur from that accident, from a pipe going through your windshield.
And then, when police pressed him about where he was actually going that day, Todd Kendhammer changed his story.
INVESTIGATOR: I talked to Justin.
Tim Gruenke: He … told a story that he wasn’t going to Justin Heim’s house. It was actually a friend of Justin’s.
Police would later find that friend who told them he also didn’t need a windshield and was not expecting Todd the day of the incident.
Erin Moriarty: Isn’t it possible he was in shock? Isn’t it possible that he just can’t remember anything from that time?
Tim Gruenke: Part of it. … I could see somebody not remembering a detail or two. Not remembering something traumatic. But the things that surround it you usually do remember. … So, things like remembering where you were going.
After 3-and-a-half hours of questioning Todd, investigators let him go home, but they kept building their case.
Tim Gruenke: Do I know exactly blow-by-blow how it happened? No, I don’t. But I know it didn’t happen from a pipe coming off a truck.
Three months after Barbara’s death, Todd Kendhammer was arrested.
Jessica Servais: We were basically just like, “Well how we get him back out?” Because he is not supposed to be in there …
Jessica hoped a jury would believe her father when Todd took the stand to tell his side of the story at his trial.
Tim Gruenke: I think he just looked like somebody who was trying to explain away his lies.
EXAMINING THE EVIDENCE
TIM GRUENKE (trial opening): What started out looking like a tragic car accident would soon become more complicated.
In December 2017 when Todd Kendhammer went to trial for his wife Barbara’s murder, almost everyone who attended was there to support him. Yet, his daughter Jessica feared the worst.
Jessica Servais: Every day I was in a constant state of anxiety and couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep.
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN | Medical examiner: The cause of Barbara Kendhammer’s death was blunt impact injuries of her head and neck.
The state’s star witness was Medical Examiner Dr. Kathleen McCubbin.
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN:I did not believe that these injuries are consistent with the end of a pipe striking the back of the head.
Todd’s trial lawyer Stephen Hurley didn’t call a forensic pathologist of his own to dispute the state’s case but tried to create reasonable doubt during cross-examination.
STEPHENHURLEY: If her head were moving at the time of the pipe coming through, the pipe had the potential, because it is some 5 feet long, to strike her head in more than one place, is that correct?
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN: That may be possible, yes.
Barbara Kendhammer’s large travel mug was found on the floor of the passenger seat at the scene. Todd Kendhammer’s defense attorney asked Dr. McCubbin if the mug could have slammed into her face if she ducked to avoid the pipe and caused some of the injuries. Dr. McCubbin’s response was, “… it could be, it’s a possibility.”
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
Attorney Hurley asked McCubbin if Barbara’s large water mug could have slammed into her face if she ducked to avoid the pipe and caused some of the injuries.
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN:Yes, it could be. It’s a possibility.
But when Hurley questioned Dr. McCubbin, he didn’t focus on one of the critical injuries that Barbara suffered – the cricoid fracture – which the prosecution insisted could only have been caused by Todd.
Tim Gruenke: And it could have happened in a multitude of ways, but I believe during the fight, her cricoid fracture happens.
MARK MESHULAM (showing photo of the windshield):This is the view of the inside of the car looking out.
The windshield of the car was as hotly disputed as the medical evidence. The defense’s expert, Mark Meshulam, with over 30 years of experience working with glass, believes the evidence supports Todd’s story.
MARK MESHULAM: By observing the crack branching …
The fracture patterns on the windshield, he said, show three different events.
MARK MESHULAM: The first one was a hand impact, when Mr. Kendhammer’s fist went into the glass.
The source of the windshield fractures was a highly disputed topic during Todd Kendhammer’s trial.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
The second event was the puncture when the pipe broke through the windshield. And the third, harder to detect, was caused, he said, when Todd removed the pipe from the windshield.
NICK STAHLKE: The lines that are highlighted here would indicate those impact points.
But the state’s forensic expert Nick Stahlke said the impacts didn’t occur in the order that Meshalum said they did. District Attorney Gruenke argues this is more evidence showing that Todd Kendhammer intentionally damaged the windshield, and it was not from a pipe falling off a truck.
Tim Gruenke: It couldn’t have done what he said it did. … The crime lab found that the windshield had two strikes on the outside which is impossible. However the pipe comes, it’s not going to hit, back up again and hit again.
Todd Kendhammer’s children Jordan and Jessica stand by him. “He doesn’t lie. So when he says he didn’t do it, we believe him,” Jessica said.
CBS News
Jordan Kendhammer: If he wanted to kill ma, why the hell would he go through all the work and trouble to find a pipe, drive all the way out to the middle of a busy road —
Jessica Servais: He has like 28 guns in the basement …
Jordan Kendhammer: More than that.
Jessica and Jordan don’t believe prosecutors ever answered critical questions about what happened.
Jessica Servais: They never really said how he killed her or what he did to stage everything. If what they’re saying is he staged it and killed her at the same time, the time frame doesn’t fit up either. You don’t have enough time to do all that stuff.
Because that construction worker drove by at 8 a.m. that morning, Todd had just 5 minutes to stage the crime before he called 911 at 8:05 a.m.
Erin Moriarty: So, in that short period of time he had the presence of mind to go get the pipe out of the trunk, go around, break it twice … and call 911 and administer CPR.
Tim Gruenke: Yes. … He can do a lot of damage in 2 or 3 minutes. So, it’s more time than people think.
JUDGE TODD BJERKE: Mr. Hurley, you’ll be calling your next witness?
STEPHEN HURLEY: Yes, I call Todd Kendhammer.
With so much at stake, the defense decided to gamble by putting Todd Kendhammer himself on the stand.
STEPHEN HURLEY: Did you ever strike Barbara Kendhammer?
TODD KENDHAMMER: No.
Todd tried to explain to the jurors why, during the police interrogation, he told investigators conflicting stories about where he was going that morning.
Todd Kendhammer made the unusual decision to testify in his own defense. He told the jury he was distraught during his interview with police, when he told those different stories of where they were going that morning.
WKBT
TODD KENDHAMMER:When I watch that video it’s me in the picture, but it’s not me talking. I’m not in the right state of mind talking in that. I wasn’t thinking of where I was going or what I was doing. I was thinking of Barb.
Todd seemed to be doing well …
JUDGE TODD BJERKE: Mr. Gruenke, you may begin your cross-examination.
… until he had trouble remembering details about that day:
TODD KENDHAMMER: I don’t recall if I said that or not.
TODD KENDHAMMER: I don’t remember that.
TODD KENDHAMMER: I can’t recall for sure.
But his most damaging testimony may have been when he changed his story yet again. He told the jury about a third person he was supposedly going to see on the day of the incident: Jared Loging.
TIM GRUENKE: And today you say you were trying to find the house of Mr. Loging?
TODD KENDHAMMER: Correct.
Tim Gruenke: So that’s another kinda odd statement to make — that that’s why you were going that way. And why you couldn’t have told police that the first time or the second time or in the year before trial.
And just like the others Todd said he was going to visit that morning, Loging said he had never arranged for Todd to replace a windshield.
TIM GRUENKE:Did you change your story for trial because you knew police had figured out your lies?
TODD KENDHAMMER: No.
Todd Kendhammer was found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide on December 15, 2017. He was sentenced to life in prison and is eligible for parole after 30 years.
JUDGE TODD BJERKE:We the jury find the defendant Todd A. Kendhammer guilty …
The jury was out just 9 hours before they reached their verdict. Three months later, everyone was back in the courtroom. The conviction had an automatic life sentence, but it was up to the judge to decide if Todd Kendhammer would be eligible for parole.
GERIANNE BUCHNER WETTSTEIN [on the stand]: I am here today. I do not stand alone.
Jessica and Jordan were stunned when Gerianne Buchner Wettstein, their mom’s cousin, spoke out against Todd andread a letter signed by several other cousins.
Jessica Servais: I just remember thinking, like, “wow!”
GERIANNE BUCHNER WETTSTEIN: Barbara found the courage that day to fight back. Therefore, we stand here today, united with that same courage asking you to sentence her killer to the maximum penalty possible.
But Jessica says Gerianne had been estranged from their mother.
Jessica Servais: She basically painted this scene that … she just feels so bad about my mom and her big blue eyes, even though her eyes are green. … My mom hates her.
“48 Hours” reached out to Gerianne and she denies Jessica’s claims that she was estranged from Barbara. But her testimony wasn’t the only surprise that day. Gruenke had some harsh words for the Kendhammer family, who had to sell Todd and Barbara’s home and Jessica’s house to pay Todd’s legal bills.
TIM GRUENKE [at sentencing]: Pardon my language, but to be perfectly frank they need to get their head out of their ass. They need to start looking at this in reality …
Jessica Servais: I don’t think you should be able to talk that way in a courtroom. If you can think that to yourself, that’s fine because I also think you’re an ass, but I’m not going to say it out loud.
Jordan Kendhammer: At least word it different.
Erin Moriarty: Don’t you think you may have added to their pain at that sentencing by saying that?
Tim Gruenke: I think I have to open their eyes in some way. … I think they are giving him false hope. And I think he’s dragging them down with him by using all their money to continue in his lies.
The judge ruled Todd Kendhammer would be eligible for parole after 30 years. But Todd’s case is far from over.
NEW EVIDENCE PRESENTED
Todd Kendhammer’s verdict was guilty. But Jessica and Jordan are determined to clear his name.
Jessica Servais: Because he didn’t do it. … And he doesn’t lie. So, when he says he didn’t do it, we believe him.
That belief is why Barbara and Todd’s children brought on Jerry Buting and Kathleen Stilling, who understand that undoing a murder conviction is an immense challenge.
Jerry Buting: It’s very difficult to reverse a judgement that’s become final.
Kathleen Stilling: it’s kind of like trying to turn an aircraft carrier. It’s slow … and difficult to do.
Still, they overcame a big first hurdle: getting back in court.
Todd Kendhammer was granted an evidentiary hearing. It was a chance to argue that his original defense team had been ineffective, and that there was critical, new evidence.
Jessica Servais: We were grateful that the judge was taking the time to see what we had come up with.
In August 2021, defense attorneys Jerry Buting and Kathleen Stilling brought in experts during Todd Kendhammer’s evidentiary hearing.
Zoom recording of evidentiary hearing
And four years after his conviction for the intentional homicide of his wife Barbara, inmate Kendhammer was back in front of Judge Todd Bjerke.
It opened the courthouse doors a crack, to the possibility of a new trial.
Erin Moriarty: Is this the most hopeful you have felt … that your dad may have a chance to walk out of prison?
Jessica Servais: Yeah.
The burden is now on the defense. Jerry Buting starts by calling a forensic pathologist, something Todd’s first defense team had elected not to do.
Jerry Butting: They chose to go a different route. And I think that was serious mistake that really damaged Todd’s ability to defend himself.
But now Dr. Shaku Teas, who has performed some 6,000 autopsies, would examine Barbara Kendhammer’s medical records and autopsy photos.
JERRY BUTING: Did you observe anything on her body that was consistent with Barbara Kendhammer having been beaten with fists?
DR. SHAKU TEAS: No.
JERRY BUTING: Or that she was a woman who had been in a fight?
DR. SHAKU TEAS: No.
Doctor Teas contradicted the findings of the medical examiner who had performed the autopsy and testified at trial, Dr. McCubbin.
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN: Yes, some of her injuries certainly could be consistent with an assault or beating as well, yes.
PROSECUTOR SUSAN DONSKEY: Consistent with strangulation?
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN: It could be, yes.
But for Dr. Teas, the stark photos and silent sketches tell a different story.
DR. SHAKU TEAS: I don’t see any injuries on Barbara that I would say are suggestive or consistent with strangulation.
And Dr. Teas suggests that the injury to Barbara’s cricoid could be due to that large travel mug.
JERRY BUTING: So, if she had that in her lap when she’s moving forward, could that have caused the cricoid fracture
DR. SHAKU TEAS: It could be the mug.
As for the injuries to the back of her head …
Erin Moriarty: If the pipe is coming in … how would she get severe injuries in the back of her head?
Jerry Buting: Because she ducked, and the pipe came through like that (ducks his head and upper body) and grazed the back of her head.
DR. SHAKU TEAS: Barbara Kendhammer died as a result of … an automobile accident.
And Teas believes some injuries seen in the autopsy came from the final act of Barbara Kendhammer’s generosity: the harvesting of her donated organs.
But DA Gruenke doesn’t buy the theories of Dr. Teas.
Tim Gruenke: I don’t put a lot of faith in her testimony.
But when it comes to Todd Kendhammer’s guilt or innocence, Buting and Stilling say there is more than just physical evidence to consider.
DR. GEOFFREY LOFTUS [testifying via Zoom]: Something very traumatic and attention-grabbing had occurred, which would likely obliterate any short-term memory that Mr. Kendhammer would have had.
The defense hired another expert, this time in human memory. Dr. Geoffrey Loftus testified that Todd Kendhammer’s various stories could be a result of stress from a terrible accident.
KATHLEEN STILLING: Would you say that this was a situation that was ripe for an inaccurate memory?
DR. GEOFFREY LOFTUS: Yes.
Todd Kendhammer told investigators this pipe flew off a truck and struck his car’s windshield, resulting in Barbara’s death. However, investigators disagreed with Todd’s story, believing Todd murdered Barbara and smashed the pipe through the windshield himself to make her murder look like an accident.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
Still the most controversial aspect of this story is about that pipe that Todd claims crashed through his windshield and killed Barbara.
As part of their initial investigation, local authorities had attempted to reconstruct Todd’s story of the deadly incident on County Road M.
They tested, and taped, dropping a similar pipe off the back of a truck to see if it could, in fact, bounce. The idea: to determine if a pipe might have bounced high enough to hit the windshield of Todd’s oncoming car.
But Kendhammer’s lawyers thought the pipe test was inconclusive. They never shared the investigators’ video with judge or jury. And neither did the state.
Tim Gruenke: I didn’t think we needed it. The defense didn’t want it. We just agreed not to use it.
It was only at the new evidentiary hearing that the pipe test was finally presented in court.
Jerry Buting: The first time the judge ever even heard about those experiments was in our motion.
Butting and Stilling shared the pipe test video with “48 Hours.”
Erin Moriarty: What you’re showing me is that the state’s own experts did an experiment that if in fact the pipe bounced like this it could’ve done exactly what Todd said it did.
Jerry Buting: That’s right.
During the initial investigation, local authorities attempted to reconstruct Todd Kendhammer’s story by dropping a similar pipe off the back of a truck. The videos of their test show the pipe bouncing off the ground once out of the four times it was dropped. However, the videos were not presented in court until Todd’s evidentiary hearing.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
Jerry Buting: Now that one hits on its end and look how it bounces.
Erin Moriarty: And come up really high.
Jerry Buting: It comes up high.
Erin Moriarty: In your mind these videos show that it could have happened.
Jerry Buting: That’s the point. Yes.
Which contradicts state investigators who, from the beginning, had suggested that a pipe slamming through Todd’s windshield was next to impossible.
INVESTIGATOR [during interrogation]: What are the odds that that would happen to a guy that changes out windshields? I mean, what do you suppose those odds are? One in a trillion if at all?
Buting and Stilling introduced evidence from across America to prove it’s more common than you think.
Jerry Buting (referencing video evidence): This one is in — near Bakersfield, California, a pipe that looks remarkably similar that went right through this person’s vehicle. Here’s another one. … This one’s Houston, OK.
Erin Moriarty: And it goes right through and hits —
Jerry Buting: Would’ve killed —
Erin Moriarty: A passenger.
And it turns out you don’t have to be an expert to find a piece of pipe along a country road.
Jessica Servais: There was another pipe on the road up the ways … that someone found.
Erin Moriarty: There was a pipe, and when was that pipe found?
Jordan Kendhammer: Shortly after.
Erin Moriarty: And it was very similar to the one that went through the windshield?
Jordan Kendhammer: Same diameter, same material.
Erin Moriarty: What do you think happened?
Jordan Kendhammer: I believe the pipe came through and hit mom.
That belief in their father would not waver. Still how could the experts at trial see a case so differently? We decided to ask another forensic pathologist to take a fresh look at the evidence.
Lindsay Thomas: The more I looked at it, the more I understood why it’s so complicated.
A COMPLICATED CASE
Dr. Lindsey Thomas is a forensic pathologist who has performed about 5,000 autopsies.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: If it didn’t happen the way Todd says it happened, then how did it happen?
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: This is the kind of case where it isn’t that clear cut.
“48 Hours” asked her to review the medical evidence in this case – including Dr. McCubbin’s autopsy report.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: The original autopsy was very well done and the conclusions that they reached were very reasonable.
Still, Dr. Thomas says she wouldn’t have reached some of the same conclusions.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: And that’s what makes this case so challenging.
The most troubling injury for her is that cricoid fracture on Barbara’s neck. She agrees with Dr. Teas, the forensic pathologist who testified for the defense in the evidentiary hearing and does not believe that Barbara was strangled.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: I’ve never seen a fractured cricoid in strangulation. … I wouldn’t say it absolutely can’t happen, but certainly I haven’t seen it, I haven’t read about it, I haven’t heard about it … it seems more consistent with the kind of thing that would happen — in a weird car crash.
And she believes the injuries to the back of Barbara’s head were too severe to have been caused by Todd’s fists. But she says Barbara could have been hit with a heavy object like her mug.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: Yeah, it would have to be a substantial coffee cup. But I understand there was a pretty substantial coffee cup in the car.
Ultimately, Dr. Thomas can’t say for sure how Barbara sustained her injuries.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: Based on just the medical evidence alone, it wouldn’t be one where … you could definitely say, “Oh, this is clearly a homicide or clearly an accident.”
Erin Moriarty: The idea that a man is sitting in prison, does that concern you?
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: Well, it always does when you have a case like this that isn’t clear cut. … You just worry a little that the evidence was given too much weight one way or the other, or the jury wasn’t given all of the relevant materials.
Erin Moriarty: Had you ever served on a murder trial before as a jury member?
Tim Brennan: No. Not ever.
Tim Brennan, the jury foreman, says he found Dr. McCubbin’s testimony very convincing. We shared with him some of the new information from the evidentiary hearing, including Dr. Teas’ conclusions.
Erin Moriarty: If you had heard a medical examiner disagree with Dr. McCubbin … would that have made a difference?
Tim Brennan: Without hearing the full extent … of that — it’s hard to say.
Still, he stands by the jury verdict.
Tim Brennan: When Todd Kendhammer … gave his testimony … He just came across as a person with a lot of falsehoods.
Erin Moriarty: When you say falsehoods, did you feel he was lying?
Tim Brennan: Definitely.
Tim Brennan: I’m very confident that we got it right.
As the Kendhammer family awaits the judge’s ruling, Todd is serving his life sentence more than two hours away from his kids.
Erin Moriarty: What do you miss the most about your mom and having your dad around?
Jessica Servais: I used to be annoyed … that he would call me all the time, and like always come over, but I kind of miss it now (crying). … I just miss having them around all the time.
And Jessica’s daughter Carlin is growing up without her grandparents.
Jessica Servais: Their dream was always to do stuff with their grandkids … so it’s just hard not to have him with her.
Now, Jessica and Jordan and all those who believe in Todd Kendhammer continue to wait, hoping he gets another shot at what they believe is justice.
Erin Moriarty: Do you think your dad will be coming home?
Jessica Servais: Yes. … We aren’t going to stop until he can be home.
Todd and Barbara Kendhammer
Barbara Kendhammer/Facebook
Prosecutor Gruenke believes justice has already been served for Barbara Kendhammer.
Erin Moriarty: Do you have any concerns at all that you might have convicted an innocent man?
Tim Gruenke: Not in this case, no.
Todd Kendhammer’s requests for a new trial have been denied.
Produced by Chris Young Ritzen, James Stolz, and Dena Goldstein. The development producers are Charlotte Fuller and Julie Kramer. The editors are Gary Winter, Doreen Schechter, Joan Adelman and Marcus Balsam. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
Ashlee Buzzard is accused of shooting her nine-year-old daughter Melodee in the head and abandoning her child’s body in rural Utah
In the last image that shows little Melodee Buzzard alive, the nine-year-old stood at her mother’s shoulder, a gray hoodie pulled tight over a black wig as she shared a tense smile with an agent at a car rental facility. It was October 7, 2025, and her mother Ashlee, was about to take her daughter on a deadly road trip in a rented white Chevrolet Malibu.
During the trip, investigators say, Ashlee swapped out her wig and switched her license plate as she traversed through Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, and Nebraska. Two days into the trip, Melodee and her mom were spotted near the Utah-Colorado border. On Oct. 9, investigators now say, Ashlee pulled over on a scrubby road in the unincorporated community of Caineville, Utah, a place set against the backdrop of a stunning red rock vista, and shot her daughter in the head.
Then Ashlee continued her multi-state road trip back to California without her daughter, likely returning to the Lompoc home, thinking she had gotten away with what investigators now call a calculated, cold-blooded murder.
Ashley Buzzard took her daughter, prosecutors say, on a deadly road trip just days before she was reported missingCredit: FBI
Only, by then, Melodee’s teachers were buzzing. The curly-haired child who had spent much of her life being home-schooled hadn’t been to an independent study that had been mandated that summer, and no one could reach her mother. So on Oct. 14, officials with the Lompoc Unified School District reported her disappearance to the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office, launching a tireless investigation into the missing child’s last days by detectives who “encountered deliberate efforts to prevent them from locating Melodee and uncovering the truth.” Stonewalling by the missing girl’s own mother.
Within hours of the school’s report, detectives executed a search warrant at Ashlee’s home on Oct. 15 and found evidence of the car rental. Detectives retraced the road trip with painstaking detail, learning that Ashlee Buzzard had taken a route home to California through Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Nevada – without her daughter. On that day, Santa Barbara Sheriff Bill Brown said, Ashlee was more than uncooperative. Instead, she was combative and “provided no verifiable explanation for Melodee’s whereabouts.”
But, they continued searching, releasing images of Ashlee Buzzard and Melodee at the car rental facility and a detailed timeline of their travels.
Credit: Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office
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Brown said he and his detectives “hoped against hope that she would be found alive.”
Then, on Dec. 6, the call his detectives had been dreading came from colleagues in Utah. The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office had responded to a report of a decomposed body discovered off the roadway near the 3300 block of East State Route 24 in a remote area of Wayne County.
A child’s remains had been found by tourists who stumbled upon the heartless crime while taking a photo of a sunset. The victim had suffered “gunshot wounds to the head.”
On Dec. 22 – three days before Christmas – the remains were confirmed by an FBI lab to be Melodee’s. Sadly, the dead child’s DNA was a match to the familial profile of the woman who is now charged with killing her.
On Friday, Ashlee Buzzard pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder with additional charges of lying in wait and the intentional discharge of a firearm. At her arraignment, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office announced it would not seek the death penalty but would argue for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The 40-year-old accused killer’s public defender, Adrian Galvan, successfully argued for a gag order in the case.
Melodee was born into tragedy. Her father, Rubiell “Pinoy” Meza, was killed in a 2016 motorcycle accident when his daughter was just six months old. His family was in the courtroom on Friday to face the woman who is accused of snuffing out Melodee’s young life, wearing pink ribbons in her memory.
In 2021, when Ashlee was hospitalized in a mental health facility, social services contacted Meza’s mother, Lily Denes, to take in Melodee, which she did. But when Ashlee was released, she cut off contact with Denes, sparking a custody battle for Melodee that was still active when she was murdered, the slain girl’s grandmother says.
“Everybody’s asking themselves, ‘Why did she do this?’… How can you do that to a baby?” Denes asked after Ashlee’s arrest. While everyone still held out hope, she prayed directly to Melodee. “I know your dad is watching you from heaven.”
So are Brown’s investigators. “This investigation does not end here,” Brown said. “We remain committed to working closely with prosecutors to ensure justice is pursued with integrity, care, and compassion. Melodee deserved a far better life, and she will never be forgotten.”
After a six-day trial, a Denver jury found Ernest Cunningham guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Kelsey Roberts, 23, according to the Denver District Attorney’s Office.
Another resident in Roberts’ building called the police shortly after 4:30 p.m. on June 29, 2024, when he heard a gunshot and what sounded like someone running away toward the building’s stairwell, according to Cunningham’s arrest affidavit.
When he looked out into the hallway, the resident spotted a spent bullet casing on the floor, police said in the affidavit.
Another resident saw Cunningham leaving the building from his balcony and took a video of Cunningham’s car as it left the parking lot, police said. Police traced the car back to Cunningham using that video, which showed its license plate, and surveillance video from the apartment complex.
Roberts’ husband told police that he works with Cunningham and that Cunningham “knew where they lived and had issues with him,” police wrote in the affidavit.
The husband said he did not like Cunningham because the man used drugs at work. After Cunningham was fired, he began calling Roberts’ husband and threatening him. Cunningham had visited the apartment before, but did not live in the building, according to the affidavit.
Denver police officers arrived at the southeast Denver apartment building in the 800 block of South Dexter Street less than five minutes after the first 911 call was made.
When they arrived, Denver officers saw blood splatters on Roberts’ door and said it appeared someone had forced their way into the apartment, according to the affidavit. Roberts’ body was found just inside the apartment.
She died from her injuries on scene, police wrote in the affidavit.
Denver and Aurora police officers found Cunningham’s car near a northern Aurora hotel in the 16400 block E. 40th Circle later that evening. Cunningham was arrested inside.
The man faces up to 48 years in prison, according to the office. Cunningham will appear in court for a sentencing hearing on Feb. 27, court records show.
In Washington, D.C., a gun cannot be legally owned unless it is registered, and it cannot be registered if it qualifies as an “assault weapon” under D.C. law. That policy, the U.S. Justice Department argues in a lawsuit it filed this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, violates the Second Amendment by arbitrarily banning guns that are commonly used for lawful purposes.
The lawsuit, which seems to be the first case pursued by a new Second Amendment Section within the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, “underscores our ironclad commitment to protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Monday. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who runs the Civil Rights Division, said she is determined to “defend American citizens from unconstitutional restrictions [on] commonly used firearms.”
The statutory basis for the lawsuit, which names the District of Columbia, the Metropolitan Police Department, and D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith as defendants, is 34 USC 12601, which prohibits any law enforcement “pattern or practice” that “deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” That statute authorizes the attorney general to address such abuses by filing civil actions seeking “appropriate equitable and declaratory relief.”
In this case, Dhillon alleges a pattern or practice that deprives D.C. residents of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. That right, the Supreme Court said in the landmark Second Amendment case District of Columbia v. Heller, encompasses ownership of firearms “in common use” for “lawful purposes like self-defense.” Since handguns are “the quintessential self-defense weapon,” the Court said, they clearly fall into that category, which made D.C.’s ban on them unconstitutional.
The Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which overturned New York’s restrictions on carrying handguns in public for self-defense, reiterated that point. “Whatever the likelihood that handguns were considered ‘dangerous and unusual’ during the colonial period, they are indisputably in ‘common use’ for self-defense today,” the majority said. Colonial laws that “prohibited the carrying of handguns,” the Court concluded, “provide no justification for laws restricting the public carry of weapons that are unquestionably in common use today.”
The guns banned by D.C.’s “assault weapon” law likewise are “unquestionably in common use today.” The law covers a long list of firearm models, including AR-15 rifles, along with guns that meet specified criteria. Any semi-automatic rifle that accepts detachable magazines, for example, is considered an “assault weapon” if it has a pistol grip, a thumbhole stock, a folding or adjustable stock, or a flash suppressor.
Since 1990, more than 30 million “modern sporting rifles” have been sold in the United States, and as many as 24 million Americans have owned AR-15s or similar rifles for lawful purposes such as self-defense, hunting, and recreational target shooting. “The AR–15 is the most popular rifle in the country,” the Supreme Court noted in a recent decision.
Under Bruen, a restriction on conduct covered by the “plain text” of the Second Amendment is constitutional only if the government can show it is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Yet as Dhillon notes, there is no “historically analogous” precedent for a “broad ban” on firearms “commonly used” by “law-abiding citizens” for “lawful purposes” such as “self-defense inside the home”—the right recognized in Heller.
Dhillon notes that D.C.’s “assault weapon” ban, like other laws of this sort, “is based on little more than cosmetics, appearance, or the ability to attach accessories.” More to the point, it “fails to take into account whether the prohibited weapon is ‘in common use today’” or whether “law-abiding citizens may use these weapons for lawful purposes protected by the Second Amendment.”
Although the Justice Department’s nine-page complaint is skimpy, federal judges have elaborated on these points. Like the law at issue in Heller, U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan noted last year, New Jersey’s AR-15 ban amounts to “the total prohibition [of] a commonly used firearm for self-defense…within the home.” And under Heller, “a categorical ban on a class of weapons commonly used for self-defense is unlawful.”
Sheridan highlighted testimony showing that “AR-15s are well-adapted for self-defense.” When it upheld Maryland’s AR-15 ban a week later, by contrast, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit declared that such rifles are “ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense.”
That conclusion, Judge Julius Richardson noted in a dissent joined by four of his colleagues, ignored the self-defense advantages of AR-15s, including better accuracy, greater recoil absorption, and more stopping power than handguns. While handguns also have certain advantages, Richardson said, the appeals court had no business second-guessing gun owners’ weighing of these rifles’ pros and cons, thereby “replac[ing] Americans’ opinions of their utility with its own.”
Where Richardson saw self-defense advantages, the majority saw features that make AR-15s especially deadly in mass shootings. These clashing perspectives illustrate the folly of trying to draw a legal distinction between guns that are suitable for legitimate purposes and guns that supposedly are good for nothing but killing innocent people.
Also last year, a federal judge in Illinois issued a permanent injunction against that state’s “assault weapon” ban, deeming it “an unconstitutional affront to the Second Amendment.” In his 168-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Stephen P. McGlynn explained why that law did not pass the Bruen test, which requires the government to cite historical analogs that are “relevantly similar” in motivation and scope.
Considering the purported historical analogs on which Illinois relied, McGlynn noted that “only 4% (9 out of 225) of the cited statutes entirely restricted the sale and/or possession of entire classes of weapons.” The government “relies predominantly and overwhelmingly on concealed carry statutes, statutes restricting the discharge of firearms, and statutes proscribing brandishing or causing terror,” he wrote.
Those laws, like the Illinois ban, were aimed at “preventing death or injury from firearms,” McGlynn conceded. But they were not similar in scope. He concluded that the state “clearly cannot demonstrate” that its law “follows any historical tradition of sweeping prohibitions on the sale, transfer, and possession of vast swaths of firearms.”
The District of Columbia will face similar challenges in defending its “assault weapon” ban under Bruen. And assuming the Supreme Court eventually agrees to hear this case or a similar one, at least four justices seem inclined to be skeptical of the constitutional justification for such laws. In addition to Brett Kavanaugh, who as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dissented from a 2011 decision upholding the D.C. ban, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch have indicated their receptiveness to the arguments sketched by Dillon.
Last June, when the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the 4th Circuit decision upholding Maryland’s “assault weapon” ban, Kavanaugh emphasized the importance of addressing those arguments. “Given that millions of Americans own AR–15s and that a significant majority of the States allow possession of those rifles, petitioners have a strong argument that AR–15s are in ‘common use’ by law-abiding citizens and therefore are protected by the Second Amendment under Heller,” he wrote, highlighting the difficulty of “distinguish[ing] the AR–15s at issue here from the handguns at issue in Heller.”
While “AR–15s are semi-automatic,” Kavanaugh noted, “so too are most handguns.” Both kinds of weapons are used “for a variety of lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home,” he added. “For their part, criminals use both AR–15s and handguns, as well as a variety of other lawful weapons and products, in unlawful ways that threaten public safety. But handguns can be more easily carried and concealed than rifles, and handguns—not rifles—are used in the vast majority of murders and other violent crimes that individuals commit with guns in America.”
The denial of review in the Maryland case “does not mean that the Court agrees” with the 4th Circuit’s decision “or that the issue is not worthy of review,” Kavanaugh emphasized. “The AR–15 issue was recently decided by the First Circuit and is currently being considered by several other Courts of Appeals. Opinions from other Courts of Appeals should assist this Court’s ultimate decisionmaking on the AR–15 issue. Additional petitions for certiorari will likely be before this Court shortly and, in my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.”
An allegedly intoxicated driver who hit and killed high school tennis star Braun Levi in Manhattan Beach was charged with murder Tuesday, authorities said.
Jenia Resha Belt, 33, of Los Angeles also faces charges of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and driving with a suspended license, said Pamela Johnson, a spokesperson for the L.A. County district attorney’s office.
Around 12:46 a.m. on May 4, Belt struck Braun, who was walking near Sepulveda Boulevard and 2nd Street, authorities said.
Belt, who was arrested at the scene, had a blood alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit and was driving on a suspended license from a prior DUI arrest, according to court records. Four passengers inside the car fled the area after the collision.
Belt was released in June and then apprehended again months later.
Braun’s parents, who lost their home in the Palisades fire and relocated to the South Bay, filed a $200-million wrongful death lawsuit against Belt in November.
Their son was a standout at Loyola High School and had been slated to play tennis at the University of Virginia. The Levis started the Live Like Braun Foundation in his memory.
Belt is in custody on $2 million bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday, Johnson said.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman and Jennifer Levi, Braun’s mother, plan to discuss the charges at a news conference Monday.
Times staff writer Clara Harter contributed to this report.
