Kootenai County Sheriff’s Deputy Miranda Thomas will always remember coming nose to nose 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 truly 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 Court docket
DEPUTY (bodycam): Dan, I do know that is arduous however, when — when is the final time that you simply 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 instructed 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: Had 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 lady to shoot herself within the tub, nude, is uncommon. It does not imply it will probably’t occur It simply signifies that it is uncommon.
Northrup, a criminal offense scene professional, says one thing was lacking from this loss of life scene — particularly contemplating Kendy had suffered a head wound.
Det. Jerry Northrup: There can be much more blood that was produced. And I simply did not 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 bathtub towels and mats.
Deputy Miranda Thomas: Having a … dryer operating at midnight, very odd, as a result of I do not do laundry at midnight. Positive, you could possibly however …
And regardless of the shock of discovering his spouse lifeless, Dan Howard appeared to have just lately showered, modified his garments, and utilized recent deodorant.
Deputy Miranda Thomas: You possibly can inform that he is received 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 word.
It is typically customary process to examine folks at a taking pictures 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 from side to side, backwards and forwards repeatedly, till we instructed him to cease and take away his arms.
Peter Van Sant: Forwards and backwards as if he is attempting to wipe one thing off?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Sure. That was the impression that we have been getting …
Peter Van Sant: What was the consequence?
Det. Jerry Northrup: It was adverse.
Peter Van Sant: It was adverse.
Regardless that detectives have been suspicious of all these little items of proof that did not appear so as to add up, they might not rule out the likelihood that Kendy Howard might have taken her personal life.
Kendy’s sudden passing shocked those that liked her.
Michelle Lampert: She liked life … I’ve by no means had a lot enjoyable with anyone … no care on this planet.
Michelle Lampert was one in all Kendy’s greatest buddies.
Michelle Lampert: She all the time 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 amazing 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 pleased to speak to anybody and make a buddy 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 so much, had sheep for 4H and … and, effectively, she had a goat, too, on the identical 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 speak in regards to the attraction?
Brooke Wilkins: She did assume 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, positioned 21 miles north of Coeur D’Alene. That they had 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 have been affectionate in the direction of one another and … they have been typically respectful to one another.
Kendy labored at an area medical heart. 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, based on buddies, 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 type 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 would be up there round him. However I did not assume it was something.
However Brooke Wilkins says it was the start of the top of their relationship. Kendy was pissed off and lonely.
Brooke Wilkins: She’s very vocal that she doesn’t love him; that there is 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 is when Kendy instructed Dan she was shifting out and needed a divorce. And he or she had began the method of shopping for a brand new home.
Michelle Lampert: And I believe she actually felt that it could 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 instructed him … I imply, she simply instructed him every part. And I believe [at] that time I did get scared. … She stated he was advantageous. He wasn’t advantageous.
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 instructed everybody that Kendy had taken her personal life.
Peter Van Sant: Had been you shopping for that?
Brian Wilkins: No. … I could not see her leaving her children and granddaughter.
When he realized 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 would not have a look at me within the eye and he stated, “no.”
Kendy’s buddy, Michelle Lampert, was additionally sure Kendy had not taken her personal life.
Michelle Lampert: Kendy was not depressed. … You do not take into consideration doing cosmetic surgery. You do not go work out. You do not go to spin class.
However Cari Maitland, Kendy’s neighbor, says Kendy had been deeply sad. Months earlier she says Kendy instructed her about issues in her marriage.
Cari Maitland: She’s simply crying and crying and crying. … And — and he or she’s like, “I do not even should be right here.”
Maitland does not assume 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 is a — an order to issues and a logical order … it didn’t make sense.
Kootenai County District Court docket
One factor that did not make sense that evening was the garments dryer operating when first responders entered the home. There have been nonetheless six minutes displaying on the show. So Northrup did some digging.
Det. Jerry Northrup: I went to the producer’s web site, pulled up the specifics in regards to the occasions for cycles … After which took that data and in contrast that towards the time at which the 911 name was positioned.
Peter Van Sant: And what do you study?
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 … relatively than his declare that he was checking on Kendy Howard and — and that he was inconsolable and upset … it simply — it did not add up.
And there have been different pink flags for Northrup.
Peter Van Sant: Did you discover any indicators of a wrestle, that there’d been some type of a bodily confrontation between these two?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Sure, we did. Up in the master suite, 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 pinnacle, that water shall be a lot darker red-colored, proper? From the blood?
Det. Jerry Northrup: Sure, sir. Based mostly on my expertise, that may 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 little 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 at some point … she does not 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 taking part in 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: Nearly scripted in a manner?
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Completely. Yeah, undoubtedly 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 believed for certain… ‘right 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 instructed 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 do not know.
However he did not examine for greater than an hour. That is 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 do not assume I’ve ever described a gunshot as a thud. … I definitely 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 workforce. I believe if anyone’s going to know what the sound of a gunshot is from inside a residence, it will be Dan Howard.
Because the morning got here, Dan Howard known as his stepdaughter Brooke Wilkins, and instructed her the information … it did not go effectively. Lallatin says he might hear Brooke shouting at Dan by means of the telephone.
DAN HOWARD (bodycam, shouting again at his telephone): 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 is what it seemed like. … Why would she do this Dan? Why would she assume you probably did this? … I have never heard somebody that indignant in a very long time … I will be trustworthy 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): Youngsters do not need to imagine their mothers would do 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 capable of see Dan Howard nearly bodily shrink down.
Peter Van Sant: Just like the partitions are closing in?
Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Oh, one hundred percent.
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. That they had simply overheard that telephone name from his stepdaughter, Brooke Wilkins, accusing him of killing her mom.
Brooke Wilkins: I am hysterical. I am crying fairly arduous.
Peter Van Sant: And also you’re believing that no manner she shot herself.
Brooke Wilkins: Proper. … I inform him that … I do not know what occurred, however … “I do know you probably did this.”
Detective Sgt. Ken Lallatin confronted Dan about Brooke’s accusation:
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): I gotta inform you, that telephone name put chills down my backbone. …
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): You probably did it, did not you Dan?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): No, I did not.
DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): I did not assume so, however now, after listening to that, I believe you probably did, did not you?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam): How the hell, how the hell — she does not know. She wasn’t right here.
Brian Wilkins
Inside minutes, Dan Howard stopped responding to questions. Detectives have 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 folks, strange folks do not 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 accomplished. The medical expert 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 would not have used a gun. … there’s one thing not making sense right here. And … I am so misplaced and confused as a result of … you realize, Dan’s not arrested.
What Brooke Wilkins did not 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 find out about Dan Howard?
Stan Mortensen: So we realized … that Dan Howard was not the individual that we thought he was … at residence and behind and closed doorways, he was a distinct individual.
Investigators centered in on an alarming incident Dan Howard was concerned in from 2013, when he was nonetheless a state trooper. Dan had discovered Kendy was having an affair with a neighbor — who additionally occurred to be Dan’s good buddy. Enraged, Dan confronted him at his workplace.
Det. Jerry Northrup: He … threatened to — I imagine his phrases have 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 buddy 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 he or she was by no means that manner 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 may spend cash. … I simply do not assume she was her full character when he was round.
However when Dan was about to go again to Alaska for work —
Michelle Lampert: She was a completely completely different individual … I believe she realized the extra she was free, the extra she liked life. And he or she did not need to be underneath his thumb.
They continued to develop aside. Then Kendy instructed 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 photos … You can see ’em. Clear as day within the photos. … She simply instructed me to not inform anyone.
Kendy by no means reported any type of abuse from Dan Howard to authorities.
Peter Van Sant: How lengthy had this bodily abuse been occurring? Do you could have a way?
Stan Mortensen: We — we actually do not know. It had been occurring no less than … six months earlier than she died.
Then, simply 4 nights earlier than Kendy Howard’s loss of life, deputies have been known as to the Howard residence. Kendy’s mom had requested for a welfare examine, after listening to a panicked Kendy on the telephone. A visibly nervous Kendy answered the door.
DEPUTY (bodycam): You thoughts if we speak to you guys actually fast?
DAN HOWARD (bodycam, sitting on sofa): Sounds advantageous 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 observe you?
That allow the deputy converse with Kendy away from Dan Howard.
Kootanai County District Court docket
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam) I requested for a divorce and he simply received residence. He isn’t taking it good.
DEPUTY (bodycam): OK.
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam) I am unable to say what he was going to do …
DEPUTY (bodycam): Did it ever develop into bodily?
KENDY HOWARD: I believe I had awoke in time so it would not.
DEPUTY (bodycam): OK. If you awoke, the place was he?
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): Standing over me …
DEPUTY (bodycam): Was he yelling? Was the argument like a —
KENDY HOWARD: No, that is the factor —
DEPUTY (bodycam): So he is all the time type of simply that calm?
KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): (unintel) It is 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 could not arrest Dan Howard as a result of Kendy by no means instructed deputies Dan had bodily harmed her. Deputy Prosecuting Lawyer Julia Schoffstall later realized that Kendy had instructed buddies 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 instructed 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 is the tragedy on this case to you? The most important 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 prepared 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 a protracted highway 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 can inform, he was mad.
The subsequent day, Kendy Howard was lifeless. To prosecutors, the circumstantial proof towards Dan Howard was including up. After reviewing Kendy’s post-mortem and pictures taken of Kendy’s physique, investigators found that, in truth, 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 idea 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 did not kill her?
Stan Mortensen: Precisely. We imagine that Kendy was already lifeless when she was shot.
HOW DID KENDY HOWARD DIE?
Julia Schoffstall: Dan all the time 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 medical expert’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 specialists to take a re-examination 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 pictures … all of the X-rays, the toxicology outcomes … I didn’t agree with the unique reason for 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 believed that was uncommon … trigger it was stepping into a barely downward route. Usually in gunshot-wound suicides, they go both straight again to the mouth or go barely upward.
Peter Van Sant: And might you show the trail of this bullet?
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Dr. Jennifer Nara (demonstrating): Yeah, I certain can. So, I’ve a cranium mannequin right here … I am gonna take this rod to indicate the route 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 number of blood?
Dr. Jennifer Nara: Completely. … it is 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 pictures of the crime scene, she says she did not 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 have been sustained earlier than Kendy had died.
Peter Van Sant: Accidents that — that urged a bodily wrestle of some kind.
Dr. Jennifer Nara: Appropriate. … She’s received bruises all through her physique. She’s received bruising on each side for her neck, which is constant along with her being presumably 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 realized again in his days as a state trooper.
Julia Schoffstall: We imagine that he utilized a way referred to 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 anyone’s neck and head, and their chin is gonna be within the criminal of your elbow.
Previous to turning into an legal professional, 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 stream to the mind.
Stan Mortenson: If it is utilized too lengthy, it will probably trigger loss of life. … And that proper there was our principle on how Dan killed Kendy.
Peter Van Sant: It is an attention-grabbing principle, however you do concede it’s a principle, proper? … no witness got here ahead to say that Dan instructed me he did this or … there is no bodily proof that proves that he did this, proper?
Stan Mortenson: Not the carotid restraint method, appropriate. … however Dan knew use this system and taught different folks use it. So, we weren’t simply grabbing this principle out of skinny air. This was one thing that Dan truly 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 pictures of her bruises and despatched them to her buddy 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 inserting Kendy’s physique within the bathtub and taking pictures her.
STAN MORTENSEN (in court docket): Women 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 combating 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 underneath her fingernails. … there have been no defensive marks on Dan.
Johnson additionally stated the investigators have been all fallacious in regards to the lack of blood on the scene, mentioning that a number of hours had handed earlier than among the crime scene pictures of the tub had been taken and among 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 medical expert who carried out Kendy’s unique post-mortem.
JASON JOHNSON (in court docket): Your reason for loss of life is gunshot wound?
DR. JOHN HOWARD (in court docket): That is my opinion.
Greater than every week into the proceedings, the trial recessed for a protracted weekend break. That evening, prosecutors realized of a brand new, dramatic improvement 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?
Along with his trial winding down, Dan Howard, who was out on bail with an ankle monitor, immediately 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 understand, that is I-90, going 70 miles-an-hour. He abruptly took an exit after which received again on the freeway … you realize, wanting in his rear-view mirror, “is anyone following me?”
About an hour later, Dan Howard made it to the Spokane Worldwide Airport.
Peter Van Sant: He is proper there on the airport terminal.
Stan Mortenson: He is proper there on the airport terminal. Dan was taken out of the automotive. He was put into handcuffs.
Dan Howard claimed he had gone there to assist a buddy return a rental automotive — to not make a run for it.
Stan Mortenson: And I believe it is doable that he was gonna lower the ankle monitor off, go away it in his automotive after which drive away in one other rental automotive.
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): Women 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 instructed about Dan Howard’s escape try. His protection legal professional insisted that Kendy took her personal life.
JASON JOHNSON (in court docket): The scene is according to suicide.
And that Dan Howard didn’t have the abilities to “stage” a homicide scene.
JASON JOHNSON (in court docket): There is not any proof that he labored as a detective. No proof that he had any type 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 have a look at Dan?
Brooke Wilkins: I am him and as he turns there’s simply — there is no expression. There is not any 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, folks have portrayed me to be. Kendy and I had, um, 28 years collectively. And, um, raised a household. Had largely marriage and life. … I am 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 simply strangled your spouse. You murdered her. And you then staged her bare physique within the bathtub, shot her by means of the mouth, and tried to move this off as a suicide. … You killed a mom. You killed a grandmother. You killed a sister. … You snuffed that out due to your personal satisfaction, greed, and anger.”
“Pleasure, greed, and anger,” stated the choose. However others stored coming again to the phrase “management.”
Julia Schoffstall: To me, this case was a few man who thought that he might management a girl. … And if he could not get his manner, he was going to power it.
Brooke Wilkins: I cried. … it is such a reduction. … that … folks received to listen to what truly 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 while you — while you see these?
Kenly Wilkins: Yeah.
Brooke Wilkins: She had had a china hutch.
Kenly Wilkins: Yeah, a china hutch. It was simply filled with chickens. So I would all the time simply attempt to like, have a look at what number of completely different colours there have been.
Peter Van Sant: Fairly cool grandma. You liked her, did not you?
Kenly Wilkins: (Nods sure)
Brian Wilkins
Peter Van Sant: What’s the hardest factor for you?
Kenly Wilkins: In all probability her smile.
Peter Van Sant: It is powerful, is not it?
Kenly Wilkins: Yeah. (cries)
Michelle Lampert: I need justice for Kendy. … what I hope they get from the story that you do not have to dwell like this. … I want I might have stopped it. I am nonetheless shocked that we’re nonetheless speaking about home violence … And that generally you possibly can’t do something. (cries)
Dan Howard was sentenced to life in jail with out the potential of parole.
When you or somebody you realize 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.
