Kootenai County Sheriff’s Deputy Miranda Thomas will always remember coming head to head with a distraught Dan Howard, a former state trooper, at his residence in Northern Idaho on a chilly winter’s morning in February 2021.
Deputy Miranda Thomas: He would scream and yell, however there have been no tears in his eyes. At any level he would, um, act like he was gagging … However nothing would ever really occur.
Thomas was one of many first responders to Dan Howard’s residence, a spot he shared with Kendy, his spouse of 26 years.
Kootenai County District Courtroom
DEPUTY (bodycam): Dan, I do know that is arduous however, when — when is the final time that you just noticed your spouse alive?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): (crying, unintelligible)
DEPUTY THOMAS (bodycam): Dan, would you like medical to have a look at you in any respect?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): No.
DEPUTY THOMAS (bodycam): OK.
Dan Howard informed police he found his spouse within the bathtub. He stated she had shot herself within the head. Kendy’s personal pistol was on the backside of the bathtub in murky water.
Kootenai County Sheriff’s Detective Jerry Northrup arrived earlier than midnight.
Peter Van Sant: Have been you dispatched … to a doable suicide?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Sure sir. … It was recognized as a suicide.
EVIDENCE NOT ADDING UP FOR INVESTIGATORS
Northrup instantly started analyzing what was earlier than him.
Det. Jerry Northrup: For a girl to shoot herself within the tub, nude, is uncommon. It doesn’t imply it will possibly’t occur It simply implies that it’s uncommon.
Northrup, against the law scene skilled, says one thing was lacking from this loss of life scene — particularly contemplating Kendy had suffered a head wound.
Det. Jerry Northrup: There could be much more blood that was produced. And I simply didn’t see that on her face, on her physique or within the tub.
Thomas additionally noticed some curious issues.
Deputy Miranda Thomas: I went into the home and located a packed duffle bag. … Was somebody planning on leaving the home?
Within the laundry room, the dryer was operating. It was full of unpolluted tub towels and mats.
Deputy Miranda Thomas: Having a … dryer operating at midnight, very odd, as a result of I don’t do laundry at midnight. Positive, you would however …
And regardless of the shock of discovering his spouse lifeless, Dan Howard appeared to have lately showered, modified his garments, and utilized recent deodorant.
Deputy Miranda Thomas: You possibly can inform that he’s bought deodorant strains on his T-shirt.
Peter Van Sant: Did one thing appear un-suicide-like to you?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Definitely. … There was no, different indicators of like a suicide be aware.
It’s usually customary process to examine individuals at a capturing scene for GSR, gunshot residue. And as a former state trooper, Dan Howard would know that. But Northrup says Dan was uneasy about being examined.
Det. Jerry Northrup: Mr. Howard caught his arms into his coat pockets, after which he started twisting them backward and forward, forwards and backwards repeatedly, till we informed him to cease and take away his arms.
Peter Van Sant: Forwards and backwards as if he’s attempting to wipe one thing off?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Sure. That was the impression that we had been getting …
Peter Van Sant: What was the consequence?
Det. Jerry Northrup: It was adverse.
Peter Van Sant: It was adverse.
Despite the fact that detectives had been suspicious of all these little items of proof that didn’t appear so as to add up, they may not rule out the likelihood that Kendy Howard might have taken her personal life.
Kendy’s sudden passing surprised those that cherished her.
Michelle Lampert: She cherished life … I’ve by no means had a lot enjoyable with any person … no care on this planet.
Michelle Lampert was one in all Kendy’s finest mates.
Michelle Lampert: She at all times laughed. … my favourite is spin class … after which to the brewery … nothing like spin class and brewery, however she felt like that was OK.
Brooke Wilkins: She was an ideal mother.
Brooke Wilkins is Kendy’s daughter from an earlier relationship.
Peter Van Sant: Inform me about your mother. She simply appears actually particular.
Brooke Wilkins: She was. She had an enormous character. … She was joyful to speak to anybody and make a good friend and joke round.
Kendy was a small city lady from northern Idaho — sporty and outdoorsy, says her brother Brian Wilkins.
Brian Wilkins: She … rode her horse lots, had sheep for 4H and … and, properly, she had a goat, too, on the similar time.
Brian Wilkins
Kendy was simply 22 when she married former Marine-turned-Idaho state trooper Dan Howard. He was six years older.
Peter Van Sant: Did she discuss concerning the attraction?
Brooke Wilkins: She did suppose he was very good-looking. And I believe the sense of safety is a subject that was introduced up fairly a bit.
The couple settled on 10 acres within the city of Athol, only a speck on the map, situated 21 miles north of Coeur D’Alene. They’d a son collectively, Wyatt. Like his dad, Wyatt grew to become a Marine. A neighbor, Cari Maitland, says Dan and Kendy’s marriage appeared sturdy.
Cari Maitland: They had been affectionate in the direction of one another and … they had been typically respectful to one another.
Kendy labored at a neighborhood medical middle. Throughout 26 years of marriage, they made good cash in actual property on this fast-growing state. By the point of Kendy’s loss of life, the couple had greater than $2 million in belongings. And but, cash created friction between them.
Michelle Lampert: Her cash was his cash and his cash was his cash. … He by no means needed to spend cash.
And there was extra friction within the marriage, in response to mates, after Dan Howard — working as a trooper for the Idaho State Police — shot and killed a girl throughout a site visitors cease. Dan was cleared of all wrongdoing, however the incident took its toll on Kendy.
Cari Maitland: I do imagine … she did develop into depressed.
Years later, Dan Howard would go away the Idaho State Police.
Cari Maitland: And issues form of modified between them.
Kendy’s brother Brian Wilkins helped Dan discover work on the North Slope — the oil fields of Alaska. He’d work three weeks straight after which come residence for 3 weeks.
Michelle Lampert: She was free for 3 weeks is when she actually determined to expertise life.
Brian Wilkins says the couple grew aside.
Brian Wilkins: There was arguing, bickering just about the entire time I’d be up there round him. However I didn’t suppose it was something.
However Brooke Wilkins says it was the start of the top of their relationship. Kendy was annoyed and lonely.
Brooke Wilkins: She’s very vocal that she doesn’t love him; that there’s no love on this marriage.
Lampert says Kendy had an affair, and even deliberate cosmetic surgery.
Michelle Lampert: She was simply tremendous excited.
And that’s when Kendy informed Dan she was transferring out and needed a divorce. And she or he had began the method of shopping for a brand new home.
Michelle Lampert: And I believe she actually felt that it will be OK.
By the top of January 2021, simply days earlier than her loss of life, Kendy met with a divorce lawyer. When Dan got here residence from work —
Michelle Lampert: She simply informed him … I imply, she simply informed him every part. And I believe [at] that time I did get scared. … She stated he was high quality. He wasn’t high quality.
QUESTIONING DAN HOWARD’S VERSION OF THE EVENTS
Michelle Lampert: It by no means made sense to me. It by no means made sense.
When first responders examined Kendy Howard’s physique in her bathtub, she had a gunshot wound to the again of her mouth and her pistol was within the water. Dan Howard informed everybody that Kendy had taken her personal life.
Peter Van Sant: Have been you shopping for that?
Brian Wilkins: No. … I couldn’t see her leaving her children and granddaughter.
When he discovered his sister was lifeless, Brian Wilkins rushed over to her home. He walked proper as much as Dan Howard.
Brian Wilkins: There was no emotion. He wasn’t crying. … I requested him if he’d ever damage my sister. … he wouldn’t take a look at me within the eye and he stated, “no.”
Kendy’s good friend, Michelle Lampert, was additionally sure Kendy had not taken her personal life.
Michelle Lampert: Kendy was not depressed. … You don’t take into consideration doing cosmetic surgery. You don’t go work out. You don’t go to spin class.
However Cari Maitland, Kendy’s neighbor, says Kendy had been deeply sad. Months earlier she says Kendy informed her about issues in her marriage.
Cari Maitland: She’s simply crying and crying and crying. … And — and he or she’s like, “I don’t even deserve to be here.”
Maitland doesn’t suppose there’s any thriller about what occurred in that loo.
Cari Maitland: I do imagine that Kendy dedicated suicide.
Within the hours following Kendy’s loss of life, Northrup stated he had questions on Dan Howard’s model of occasions.
Det. Jerry Northrup: There’s a — an order to issues and a logical order … it didn’t make sense.
Kootenai County District Courtroom
One factor that didn’t make sense that evening was the garments dryer operating when first responders entered the home. There have been nonetheless six minutes exhibiting on the show. So Northrup did some digging.
Det. Jerry Northrup: I went to the producer’s web site, pulled up the specifics concerning the occasions for cycles … After which took that data and in contrast that in opposition to the time at which the 911 name was positioned.
Peter Van Sant: And what do you be taught?
Det. Jerry Northrup: That it was began inside a minute of the 911 name.
Det. Jerry Northrup: It urged that he was doing actions like beginning laundry … quite than his declare that he was checking on Kendy Howard and — and that he was inconsolable and upset … it simply — it didn’t add up.
And there have been different purple flags for Northrup.
Peter Van Sant: Did you discover any indicators of a battle, that there’d been some kind of a bodily confrontation between these two?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Sure, we did. Up in the main bedroom, we famous on the ground that there have been items of damaged glass.
Kootenai County Sheriff’s Workplace
And there was that query of the quantity of blood within the bathtub.
Peter Van Sant: With a wound to the top, that water might be a lot darker red-colored, proper? From the blood?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Sure, sir. Based mostly on my expertise, that will be constant. That the — the truth that there wasn’t — was inconsistent.
Peter Van Sant: Inconsistent, suggesting it may not be a suicide?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Appropriate. … Every thing began directing us to the trail that this was a staged crime scene.
Detective Sergeant Ken Lallatin, now retired, was the lead investigator.
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Nothing about this case felt proper from the start.
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): Hello Dan … So what occurred tonight?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): Marital issues … she needs a divorce sooner or later … she doesn’t the following … So she introduced residence divorce papers, simply preliminary ones.
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): We simply grew aside, I suppose.
Lallatin says he rapidly grew to become satisfied Dan Howard was enjoying them.
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: I had the sense that Dan had a narrative that he had deliberate to share with us that night … it felt very contrived.
Peter Van Sant: Virtually scripted in a means?
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Completely. Yeah, positively scripted.
One instance, Lallatin says, was Dan Howard telling him that Kendy had as soon as put a gun to her head.
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): She put the gun to her f****** head … it freaked me the f*** out… and um I assumed for positive… ‘here we go’ and he or she dropped the gun and f****** shot by means of the ground.
DETECTIVE (bodycam): Identical gun?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): Identical gun.
Lallatin says Dan Howard informed him, that after a heated argument that evening over splitting their funds, Kendy went upstairs to take a shower. A short while later Dan heard what he described as a “thud.”
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): It seemed like one thing hit the ground or one thing. I don’t know.
However he didn’t examine for greater than an hour. That’s when Dan Howard says he discovered her: lifeless within the tub.
Peter Van Sant: What number of occasions have you ever ever described a gunshot as a thud?
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: I don’t suppose I’ve ever described a gunshot as a thud. … I actually wouldn’t count on somebody who served within the Marine Corps, served … roughly 20 years in regulation enforcement, somebody who was a firearms teacher, somebody who had been on their SWAT staff. I believe if anyone’s going to know what the sound of a gunshot is from inside a residence, it’s going to be Dan Howard.
Because the morning got here, Dan Howard known as his stepdaughter Brooke Wilkins, and informed her the information … it didn’t go properly. Lallatin says he might hear Brooke shouting at Dan by means of the cellphone.
DAN HOWARD (bodycam, shouting again at his cellphone): What? What are you speaking about? …
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): Who was that Dan? …
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): It was my daughter, Brooke …
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): Did she simply accuse you of this?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): No.
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): That’s what it seemed like. … Why would she try this Dan? Why would she suppose you probably did this? … I haven’t heard somebody that indignant in a very long time … I’ll be sincere with you. I used to be not anticipating something like that … I used to be throughout the room and I might hear her. She’s indignant …
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): Children don’t wish to imagine their mothers would try this.
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Not one time have I ever been to a suicide and even heard of 1 the place one of many relations … name and accuse her stepdad of murdering her mother. … it was a really highly effective second. … and I actually was in a position to see Dan Howard nearly bodily shrink down.
Peter Van Sant: Just like the partitions are closing in?
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Oh, 100%.
WAS THE DEATH SCENE STAGED?
Within the early morning of Feb. 3, 2021, Dan Howard’s habits continued elevating the suspicions of Kootenai County detectives. They’d simply overheard that cellphone name from his stepdaughter, Brooke Wilkins, accusing him of killing her mom.
Brooke Wilkins: I’m hysterical. I’m crying fairly arduous.
Peter Van Sant: And also you’re believing that no means she shot herself.
Brooke Wilkins: Proper. … I inform him that … I don’t know what occurred, however … “I know you did this.”
Detective Sgt. Ken Lallatin confronted Dan about Brooke’s accusation:
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): I gotta let you know, that cellphone name put chills down my backbone. …
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): You probably did it, didn’t you Dan?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): No, I didn’t.
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): I didn’t suppose so, however now, after listening to that, I believe you probably did, didn’t you?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): How the hell, how the hell — she doesn’t know. She wasn’t right here.
Brian Wilkins
Inside minutes, Dan Howard stopped responding to questions. Detectives had been now very suspicious, as a result of, as an ex-cop, he had particular abilities.
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Dan is aware of issues that almost all regular individuals, peculiar individuals don’t know.
Peter Van Sant: Issues like what?
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Issues like killing somebody and staging it to appear like a suicide.
Kootenai County Sheriff’s Workplace
However there wasn’t sufficient bodily proof on the scene to arrest him. What’s extra, later that day, an post-mortem was achieved. The health worker concluded Kendy died from that gunshot. Brooke Wilkins was perplexed. She says her mom by no means took her gun out of the protected.
Brooke Wilkins: Mother by no means touched a gun. She wouldn’t have used a gun. … there’s one thing not making sense right here. And … I’m so misplaced and confused as a result of … you recognize, Dan’s not arrested.
What Brooke Wilkins didn’t know was that the investigation was zeroing in on Dan Howard. Simply hours after Kendy’s loss of life, Kootenai County Prosecuting Lawyer Stan Mortensen was known as in to seek the advice of with detectives. They pieced collectively an in depth timeline of the couple’s relationship.
Peter Van Sant: What did you study Dan Howard?
Stan Mortensen: So we discovered … that Dan Howard was not the person who we thought he was … at residence and behind and closed doorways, he was a special individual.
Investigators centered in on an alarming incident Dan Howard was concerned in from 2013, when he was nonetheless a state trooper. Dan had came upon Kendy was having an affair with a neighbor — who additionally occurred to be Dan’s good good friend. Enraged, Dan confronted him at his workplace.
Det. Jerry Northrup: He … threatened to — I imagine his phrases had been — splatter his brains everywhere in the partitions.
Peter Van Sant: Threatened to kill him?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Threatened to kill him.
Dan Howard was accused of repeatedly harassing the neighbor, and ultimately pleaded responsible to 2 felonies and served nearly 4 months in jail in reference to that incident. He was allowed to resign from the Idaho State Police. After that, Kendy’s good friend Michelle Lampert says the couple’s relationship appeared to vary.
Michelle Lampert: She was caught to him like glue, identical to glue, like hanging throughout him. And she or he was by no means that means earlier than. .. I believe again, going, was she scared?
Within the years that adopted, Lampert says Dan was controlling and fast to anger — particularly when it got here to Kendy’s spending.
Michelle Lampert: Dan by no means needed to go do something trigger that will spend cash. … I simply don’t suppose she was her full character when he was round.
However when Dan was about to move again to Alaska for work —
Michelle Lampert: She was a completely totally different individual … I believe she realized the extra she was free, the extra she cherished life. And she or he didn’t should be below his thumb.
They continued to develop aside. Then Kendy informed Lampert about an explosive argument, simply seven months earlier than her loss of life.
Michelle Lampert: She had hidden bank cards and he discovered the payments and that began that argument … He … grabbed her and held her and there was bruises on her neck and her … She despatched me footage … You possibly can see ’em. Clear as day within the footage. … She simply informed me to not inform anyone.
Kendy by no means reported any form of abuse from Dan Howard to authorities.
Peter Van Sant: How lengthy had this bodily abuse been occurring? Do you’ve a way?
Stan Mortensen: We — we actually don’t know. It had been occurring at the least … six months earlier than she died.
Then, simply 4 nights earlier than Kendy Howard’s loss of life, deputies had been known as to the Howard residence. Kendy’s mom had requested for a welfare examine, after listening to a panicked Kendy on the cellphone. A visibly nervous Kendy answered the door.
DEPUTY (bodycam): You thoughts if we discuss to you guys actually fast?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam, sitting on sofa): Sounds high quality to me.
Hours earlier, Kendy had picked Dan up on the airport, coming residence from the oil fields of Alaska. And apparently upset him by saying she needed a divorce. Kendy tells a deputy she must get one thing from the bed room.
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam, stuttering): And — so, I can go?
DEPUTY (bodycam): Yeah, do you thoughts if I comply with you?
That permit the deputy converse with Kendy away from Dan Howard.
Kootanai County District Courtroom
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam) I requested for a divorce and he simply bought residence. He’s not taking it good.
DEPUTY (bodycam): OK.
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam) I can’t say what he was going to do …
DEPUTY (bodycam): Did it ever develop into bodily?
KENDY HOWARD: I believe I had wakened in time so it wouldn’t.
DEPUTY (bodycam): OK. While you wakened, the place was he?
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): Standing over me …
DEPUTY (bodycam): Was he yelling? Was the argument like a —
KENDY HOWARD: No, that’s the factor —
DEPUTY (bodycam): So he’s at all times form of simply that calm?
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): (unintel) It’s bizarre.
DEPUTY (bodycam): OK. Alright.
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): I do know what I seen. I do know what he was going to do …
The deputy helped Kendy go away the home. However investigators would later say they couldn’t arrest Dan Howard as a result of Kendy by no means informed deputies Dan had bodily harmed her. Deputy Prosecuting Lawyer Julia Schoffstall later discovered that Kendy had informed mates what had occurred.
Julia Schoffstall: She wakes up in early morning hours to Dan standing over her … carrying darkish garments … black latex gloves … a pillow in his hand … the look in his eyes … it was a glance that she had by no means seen earlier than and that she wholeheartedly believed in that second that he was going to kill her.
However later that day, Kendy, returned residence.
Julia Schoffstall: She informed family and friends that … he wasn’t silly sufficient to strive one thing once more, that she felt like she had some degree of security …
Peter Van Sant: What’s the tragedy on this case to you? The largest tragedy of all?
Julia Schoffstall: That she was so near getting out.
Within the textual content messages to Kendy, Dan Howard stated it was all a misunderstanding and he was keen to work issues out. However there have been different indicators he wasn’t OK. The day earlier than Kendy’s loss of life, her brother Brian Wilkins took an extended street journey with Dan.
Brian Wilkins: He began asking me about who Kendy was having an affair with.
Brian Wilkins says Dan Howard found out Kendy was seeing the true property agent who was serving to her purchase that new home close to her hometown.
Brian Wilkins: You possibly can inform, he was mad.
The following day, Kendy Howard was lifeless. To prosecutors, the circumstantial proof in opposition to Dan Howard was including up. After reviewing Kendy’s post-mortem and photographs taken of Kendy’s physique, investigators found that, actually, Kendy had a number of bruises throughout her physique.
Stan Mortensen: Her physique was riddled from head to toe with bruises and a few lacerations.
And her jaw had been damaged.
Stan Mortensen: I imagine that Kendy was beat severely by Dan.
So what actually occurred that evening? The speculation that Kendy’s loss of life scene might have been staged started to tackle a brand new gentle.
Stan Mortensen: Kendy didn’t die from a gunshot wound …
Peter Van Sant: Wait, wait. Cease. She was shot, I perceive, within the mouth … the bullet lodged in her vertebrae. And it didn’t kill her?
Stan Mortensen: Precisely. We imagine that Kendy was already lifeless when she was shot.
HOW DID KENDY HOWARD DIE?
Julia Schoffstall: Dan at all times had a degree of management over Kendy. And I believe by February 2nd, he had realized that that management was gone.
Brian Wilkins
Weeks into the investigation, prosecutors believed the circumstantial proof confirmed Kendy Howard died by the hands of Dan Howard. However with the health worker’s ruling that Kendy had died from a gunshot wound, and no DNA proof linking Dan Howard to Kendy’s gun, prosecutors confronted challenges. So, they known as in different consultants to take a re-assessment on the proof, together with forensic pathologist Dr. Jennifer Nara.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: I appeared on the post-mortem report, I reviewed all of the photographs … all of the X-rays, the toxicology outcomes … I didn’t agree with the unique reason behind loss of life, that she died from a gunshot wound on the head.
Nara walked “48 Hours” by means of her evaluation.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: When … I checked out what the trajectory was, the trail the bullet took inside Kendy’s mouth, I assumed that was uncommon … trigger it was getting in a barely downward path. Usually in gunshot-wound suicides, they go both straight again to the mouth or go barely upward.
Peter Van Sant: And may you show the trail of this bullet?
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Dr. Jennifer Nara (demonstrating): Yeah, I positive can. So, I’ve a cranium mannequin right here … I’m gonna take this rod to point out the path that the bullet traveled by means of the mouth, by means of the tongue. … and it tore by means of the tongue … like a torpedo. … it simply went by means of the middle of the tongue.
Peter Van Sant: Would there have been a whole lot of blood?
Dr. Jennifer Nara: Completely. … it’s gonna bleed like loopy.
Peter Van Sant: As a result of the center is thrashing on the time that the bullet went by means of that tongue.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: Precisely.
However, when Nara reviewed the photographs of the crime scene, she says she didn’t see the quantity of blood she would have anticipated to.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: There was not sufficient blood.
And there have been these bruises on Kendy’s physique and her damaged jaw, which Nara says had been sustained earlier than Kendy had died.
Peter Van Sant: Accidents that — that urged a bodily battle of some kind.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: Appropriate. … She’s bought bruises all through her physique. She’s bought bruising on either side for her neck, which is constant along with her being probably choked.
Peter Van Sant: What did you conclude?
Dr. Jennifer Nara: I imagine that … Kendy Howard was already lifeless when she sustained that gunshot wound. … she was already strangled or choked to loss of life. And when she was positioned within the bathtub, she was already lifeless.
So, how then did Kendy die? Prosecutors say Dan Howard used a restraining method he discovered again in his days as a state trooper.
Julia Schoffstall: We imagine that he utilized a way often known as a carotid restraint.
Peter Van Sant: Present me the way it works.
Stan Mortenson (demonstrates): So, what you’d do is, you’d place your arm round any person’s neck and head, and their chin is gonna be within the criminal of your elbow.
Previous to changing into an lawyer, prosecutor Stan Mortenson had been a sheriff’s deputy, and, like Dan Howard, had been skilled in administering the carotid restraint maintain — not often used, because it cuts off blood move to the mind.
Stan Mortenson: If it’s utilized too lengthy, it will possibly trigger loss of life. … And that proper there was our principle on how Dan killed Kendy.
Peter Van Sant: It’s an attention-grabbing principle, however you do concede it’s a principle, proper? … no witness got here ahead to say that Dan informed me he did this or … there’s no bodily proof that proves that he did this, proper?
Stan Mortenson: Not the carotid restraint method, appropriate. … however Dan knew the best way to use this system and taught different individuals the best way to use it. So, we weren’t simply grabbing this principle out of skinny air. This was one thing that Dan really knew.
Kootenai County Sheriff’s Workplace
It took two years for the prosecutors to construct their case. Lastly, in April 2023, Dan Howard was charged with homicide. He was additionally charged with home battery from that incident seven months earlier than Kendy’s loss of life, when she took these photographs of her bruises and despatched them to her good friend Michelle Lampert. He pleaded not responsible and posted bail. Dan Howard was ordered to put on an ankle monitor whereas he awaited trial.
In his opening assertion, prosecutor Stan Mortenson stated Dan and Kendy Howard had fought over funds that evening, and it turned bodily, with Dan bruising Kendy, breaking her jaw, then killing her with the carotid restraint maintain. Then, he stated, Dan Howard staged the scene by putting Kendy’s physique within the bathtub and capturing her.
STAN MORTENSEN (in court docket): Girls and gents, the proof will are available in and can show that this was not a suicide. … Proof will present that Kendy died of asphyxiation. … Proof will present that Dan Howard is responsible of homicide.
Dan Howard’s lawyer, Jason Johnson, countered the state’s claims by asserting that an emotionally troubled Kendy Howard has shot herself.
JASON JOHNSON (in court docket): She is battling whether or not she needs to go away Dan.
He identified that Dan Howard’s DNA was not even on Kendy’s gun.
JASON JOHNSON (in court docket): The gun had Kendy’s blood on it. … However Dan is excluded.
And he dismissed the State’s assertion there was a bodily combat that evening.
Jason Johnson: Kendy didn’t have any … DNA below her fingernails. … there have been no defensive marks on Dan.
Johnson additionally stated the investigators had been all fallacious concerning the lack of blood on the scene, mentioning that a number of hours had handed earlier than a number of the crime scene pictures of the bath had been taken and a number of the water might have drained.
JASON JOHNSON (in court docket): How a lot blood went down that drain?
Johnson attacked the prosecution’s declare that Kendy Howard was lifeless from asphyxiation earlier than she was shot by calling that health worker who carried out Kendy’s authentic post-mortem.
JASON JOHNSON (in court docket): Your reason behind loss of life is gunshot wound?
DR. JOHN HOWARD (in court docket): That’s my opinion.
Greater than every week into the proceedings, the trial recessed for an extended weekend break. That evening, prosecutors discovered of a brand new, dramatic growth that gave the impression to be proper out of a tv crime present. It appeared Dan Howard was making a run for it.
WAS DAN HOWARD MAKING A RUN FOR IT?
Together with his trial winding down, Dan Howard, who was out on bail with an ankle monitor, all of the sudden took off.
Peter Van Sant: This was the good escape. He hoped to get away?
Stan Mortenson: He did it proper after we completed with all of our proof.
A deputy was monitoring Dan Howard that evening.
Stan Mortenson: You already know, that is I-90, going 70 miles-an-hour. He abruptly took an exit after which bought again on the freeway … you recognize, trying in his rear-view mirror, “is somebody following me?”
About an hour later, Dan Howard made it to the Spokane Worldwide Airport.
Peter Van Sant: He’s proper there on the airport terminal.
Stan Mortenson: He’s proper there on the airport terminal. Dan was taken out of the automobile. He was put into handcuffs.
Dan Howard claimed he had gone there to assist a good friend return a rental automobile — to not make a run for it.
Stan Mortenson: And I believe it’s doable that he was gonna lower the ankle monitor off, go away it in his automobile after which drive away in one other rental automobile.
As an alternative, Dan Howard’s drive was a brief one again to a jail cell in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. His bail was revoked. Days later, the prosecution made closing arguments.
JULIA SCHOFFSTALL (in court docket): Girls and gents, the state has proven you … this was not suicide ’trigger a lifeless individual can not shoot themselves within the mouth.
The jury was not informed about Dan Howard’s escape try. His protection lawyer insisted that Kendy took her personal life.
JASON JOHNSON (in court docket): The scene is in keeping with suicide.
And that Dan Howard didn’t have the abilities to “stage” a homicide scene.
JASON JOHNSON (in court docket): There’s no proof that he labored as a detective. No proof that he had any kind of murder coaching. Uh, no proof of the data of staging a scene.
After 10 days of trial, 62 witnesses and simply over eight hours of deliberations, the jury reached a verdict: responsible of second-degree homicide.
Brooke Wilkins: I cried. There was — I believe I gasped that — there was crying and —
Peter Van Sant: And did you take a look at Dan?
Brooke Wilkins: I’m taking a look at him and as he turns there’s simply — there’s no expression. There’s no look of regret.
Dan Howard had proven no emotion. However two months later at his sentencing, he begged the choose for leniency.
Pool
DAN HOWARD (in court docket): I really like my spouse, and I miss her. (cries) And … I’m not that monster, I guarantee you, that, um, individuals have portrayed me to be. Kendy and I had, um, 28 years collectively. And, um, raised a household. Had principally marriage and life. … I’m not that animal that they painting me to be. … It’s not my intention to anger the court docket or disrespect the method that, uh, I used to imagine in … However, your Honor is about to condemn an harmless man to jail.
However the choose wasn’t moved.
JUDGE LAMONT BERECZ (in court docket): What we all know past an affordable doubt is that you just strangled your spouse. You murdered her. And then you definitely staged her bare physique within the bathtub, shot her by means of the mouth, and tried to go this off as a suicide. … You killed a mom. You killed a grandmother. You killed a sister. … You snuffed that out due to your individual satisfaction, greed, and anger.”
“Pride, greed, and anger,” stated the choose. However others stored coming again to the phrase “control.”
Julia Schoffstall: To me, this case was a couple of man who thought that he might management a girl. … And if he couldn’t get his means, he was going to power it.
Brooke Wilkins: I cried. … it’s such a reduction. … that … individuals bought to listen to what really occurred.
Brooke Wilkins’ daughter Kenly was simply 8 when her beloved grandmother was murdered. Now 12, she treasures these glass chickens that her grandma collected.
Peter Van Sant: Do you are feeling a connection to your grandmother whenever you — whenever you see these?
Kenly Wilkins: Yeah.
Brooke Wilkins: She had had a china hutch.
Kenly Wilkins: Yeah, a china hutch. It was simply stuffed with chickens. So I’d at all times simply try to like, take a look at what number of totally different colours there have been.
Peter Van Sant: Fairly cool grandma. You really liked her, didn’t you?
Kenly Wilkins: (Nods sure)
Brian Wilkins
Peter Van Sant: What’s the hardest factor for you?
Kenly Wilkins: Most likely her smile.
Peter Van Sant: It’s powerful, isn’t it?
Kenly Wilkins: Yeah. (cries)
Michelle Lampert: I would like justice for Kendy. … what I hope they get from the story that you just don’t should stay like this. … I want I might have stopped it. I’m nonetheless shocked that we’re nonetheless speaking about home violence … And that typically you’ll be able to’t do something. (cries)
Dan Howard was sentenced to life in jail with out the potential of parole.
For those who or somebody you recognize is a sufferer of home violence, contact the Nationwide Home Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
Produced by Chuck Stevenson and Lauren Clark. Cindy Cesare, Danielle Austen and Sara Ely Hulse are the event producers. Megan Kelly Brown is the affiliate producer. Greg Kaplan and Michael Baluzy are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the chief story editor. Judy Tygard is the chief producer.
