Kendy Howard: The Bathtub Murder // 583

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Teez. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody. Hope you had a lovely emphasis on the lovely weekend. Keith and I had a really fun Valentine's Day we did. Like a screening in our backyard of Hard Eyes, which is our favorite movie or one of our favorite horror movies of the century I'd say. Yeah and we had a bunch of candy, we had some pizzas. It was just a lovely Valentine's Day. So lovely. So I hope you guys had a good one. Thank you for tuning in. Big shout out to Nicole for recommending this case. All right guys, this is episode 583 of Going West. So let's get into it. In February of 2021, a 48 year old Idaho woman was found dead in her own bath tub of an apparent suicide. But as troubling details emerged, suspicion fell on someone close to the investigation and to her. Disturbingly, someone who had a deep familiarity with crime scenes and procedure. This is the murder of Kendi Howard. Kendi and Wilkins was born on April 30th, 1972 in Orofino, Idaho to parents Janie and Wendell. Wendell raised alongside a brother named Brian. They did spend time in the small town of Orofino in the northwest of Idaho before settling in Lewiston, which is right on the border of Idaho and Washington. But this didn't last very long because when Kendi was in elementary school, the family relocated back to Northwest Idaho and settled in Kamiai, which is only like a 30 minute drive from Orofino. These parents remember that she loved this spotlight from a young age and enjoyed taking dance classes and singing for anybody who would listen. But as she got older, she started running track and racing motor cycles like those were her biggest hobbies. Well, alongside riding horses, of course, actually for a while, she rode them competitively at state rodeos. Kendi is remembered as funny, bubbly, and full of life. After graduating from high school, she worked at a local pizza restaurant and then a cafe, which was particularly fun because she worked alongside her brother Brian and her mom Janie. Well, just after reaching adulthood, shortly after graduating from high school, Kendi became a young mother when she and her boyfriend Jim had a daughter they named Brooke. And although their relationship didn't last, Kendi was a present and loving mother to her baby. And she didn't have to do it alone for very long because in her early 20s, Kendi met a marine named Dan Howard and they became inseparable. They married when Kendi was 22 and Dan was 28 and he gladly stepped into the role of stepfather to Brooke and then he and Kendi also had their own child together, a son named Wyatt. After retiring from the Marines, Dan went on to become a state trooper and then the family purchased a sprawling property in Athol, Idaho, which is about 30 minutes north of beautiful Cordelein. Kendi worked in hospital administration and she and her husband Dan also invested in real estate as a couple. At the time of Kendi's death in 2021, they had been married for 26 years and both of them were very entrenched in their community. They maintained close relationships with their friends and neighbors, you know, they had a happy life or at least to seem like that on the outside, right? So Kendi was also a 4-H troop leader and really enjoyed fostering her many female friendships. For anybody who doesn't know what 4-H is, by the way, it is like a positive youth development program here in the US that has the goal of empowering young people to learn by doing. So she has a career, she has a husband, they have two kids, Kendi volunteers with a wonderful organization and then in 2012 her daughter Brooke had a daughter named Kenley who was the light of Kendi's life. You know, she got to become a grandmother. So in many ways, like I'm saying, things were very good. Also I wanted to mention that I think that 4-H also has to do with like agriculture and or at least it did when I was in high school, I grew up in a small town, a small farming town. So I think that is kind of part of it. So yeah, I mean, this definitely goes along with what Kendi was like. You know, she wrote horses, she was very into that kind of thing. Yeah, and that's a good point because she is enjoying, you know, being a part of something like 4-H because it has something directly to do with what she's interested in. So she's and she gets to work at the hospital, which loves community oriented. Yeah. Well, going back to the year before, Kenley was born. So this is not Kendi, but Kenley, her granddaughter. Kendi and Dan's marriage was not going so smoothly. Her friends remember that the couple suffered a major trial in their marriage when Dan shot and killed the woman after an altercation while he was on duty. So he was on active duty and he shot and killed this woman. So on February 7th, 2011, a Montana couple 40-year-old Christy Ann Little and her partner 24-year-old Mark Macapit initiated a car chase that turned deadly. Now, obviously, they had a little bit of a age difference between them, but Mark had a pretty lengthy criminal history dating back to a grand theft auto charge in 2002. Okay, so when he was like 12 or 13? Yeah, he was a teenager at this point. Then in 2007, he was met with yet another felony charge, this time for theft, though he was offered a deferred sentence if he managed to stay out of trouble. But when he was then charged with domestic violence, this was waived, of course, he did not stay out of trouble. The year after that, he was caught selling drugs and writing a bad check. So after multiple suspended sentences, probation, and months in a detention program, he was moved into a halfway house in Helena, Montana on October 1st, 2010. But he actually fled the state the same day. And then he went on the run with Christy, the woman that he referred to as his wife. When they were pulled over by 45-year-old Dan for a routine traffic stop, Mark was panicking at this point because police had run his license plates and came to realize that he was a fugitive. Mark and Christy had also been smoking marijuana in their vehicle, which Dan picked up on immediately. And also, I gotta say, by the way, smoking weed in Idaho is still illegal. Is it still? Yes, you cannot do that. So, Dan called for backup and instructed Mark to get out of the car. But instead, Mark panicked and he fled, hitting speeds of over 100 miles per hour or 160 kilometers per hour. They also had guns in this car, which created a bigger issue, not only because it was dangerous, but because they were both felons who were barred from owning guns. Well, after colliding with Dan's trooper vehicle, Mark reversed in an attempt to escape. And according to Dan, he assumed that this had been done intentionally, though Mark says that he believed that Dan was going to move out of the way. Dan then opened fire, sinking a total of six shots into Mark's car. Now one of these shots actually struck and killed Christy, and another hit Mark's headrest and another grazed his head. After this, Mark continued to flee until realizing that Christy had been shot, at which point he pulled over and then he finally asked for help. In his statement to police, Mark stated that he quote, expected the trooper to get out of his way and that he intended to continue to flee from the encounter, that's in the same quote. Now, in a subsequent letter to the press, Mark implored Dan saying quote, Why did you shoot us in the heads while we were driving away from you? That's not protocol. But Dan maintained that it was a public safety issue that killing Christy had been an accident and that he genuinely believed that he had been an imminent danger due to the way that Mark was driving. And this is kind of an interesting thing because you can sort of see it from both angles. Mark is a fugitive, they do have guns in their car and they're both felons, but at the same time, what did Dan expect was going to happen by just firing shots into this car? Yeah, especially at their heads. Yeah. Well still, naturally Dan was suspended from the force pending an investigation because they have to make sure that what happened really happened for the reasons that Dan is claiming they happened because of right and that it was all part of protocol. But soon enough, Christy's death was determined to have been a justifiable use of force according to the Kootenny County Sheriff's Department. The police reporting knowledge quote, that one of those shots struck and killed Miss Little is regrettable and a tragedy for her family. However, in light of the risk, the vehicle posed to trooper Howard and other officers responding to the scene, the shooting was justified. So although he was not legally found to be at fault, the loss weighed heavily on both Kendi and Dan, but it seemed especially Kendi. You know, the whole situation really bothered her. Dan was eventually let go from the force as we will get into later and took a job working in oil fields in Alaska, which took him away from the family for three weeks at a time. So with Dan working a three weeks on, three weeks off schedule, this gave Kendi plenty of time to enjoy herself without being under Dan's thumb. She actually came to look forward to the time that he spent away from the house. During his most recent homecoming in January of 2021, Kendi picked him up from the airport but she had bad news with her. After picking him up, she admitted that she was ready to move forward with a divorce. At this point, Kendi was 48 years old and Dan was about 55. And this decision of divorce was very one sided. I mean, Dan was shocked. He was totally devastated by this and actually hoped to change her mind, which obviously never works like you can't convince people to love you guys. But while he was away, it Kendi admitted that she had already begun the process of purchasing a home for herself. So she had very much made up her mind. Yeah, I think it's, you know, it says a lot the fact that she was kind of almost jumping for joy when he was away in Alaska. She's like, oh my God, I can finally breathe. Dan is away from the home, you know? Yeah, I mean, we're going to get into a lot of that why later on. But yeah, she, it was great for her. She had all this time to say, hey, you know, this is, I think I prefer this. But she's being very mature with how she's approaching it. She picks him up. They're having an honest conversation. It's not like they had a huge fight and it was volatile. And then we were getting into force like it wasn't like that. Yeah, I mean, Kendi had just simply explained her intentions and desires, but no divorce had been officially filed yet. She definitely had not changed her mind, but they were kind of still figuring out the next steps. Now in the meantime, on Monday, February 1st, 2021, Dan and Kendi's brother Brian drove to Lucille Idaho, which is four hour south of Athol in order to help Dan's dad with something at his house. And on the drive there, Dan confided in Brian that he believed Kendi was seeing another man, or you know, possibly having an affair. And that's when Brian broke down and actually confirmed that she was, which in part is why she kind of wanted a divorce. So she was already moving on past Dan. Well enraged by this, Dan was up pacing all night according to Brian, who was staying in the bedroom next door to his. The next day, which was February 2nd, 2021, Dan drove them home and apparently seemed pretty agitated, driving erratically the entire way home. While Dan and Brian drove home, Kendi went to work as usual and actually received some pretty good news. The house that she was trying to buy had passed inspection. Afterwards she got her nails done and headed home for the day, stopping to pick up dinner on her way. And this would be the last time that Kendi would be seen alive in public. At 10.43pm on the evening of February 2nd, 2021, Dan called 911 and through guttural sobs told the operator, quote, my wife, she shot herself after he'd arrived home to find her in the bathroom. When first responders arrived, they found Kendi deceased in the bathtub with a handgun in the murky water beneath her. She had been shot in the mouth, but the bullet lodged in her vertebrae. Now regarding who this gun belonged to, it was Dan's. Remember at this point, he was no longer an officer, so this would have been his personal firearm. Also since he was a state trooper, he worked for the Idaho State Police and the Kootenie County Sheriff's Office were the ones reporting to the scene of Kendi's death, so there wasn't a conflict of interest going on here, so these weren't his old buddies or anything. So that night, while being questioned about what had happened before Kendi's death, Dan claimed that he and Kendi had gotten into a fight over the division of their assets if they were to finally separate them. Given that, like I said, they hadn't gone through with the divorce quite yet. It was just something that Kendi made clear that she was intending on filing for, and she was intending on doing that pretty soon. So without reaching a conclusion in their disagreement, Kendi and Dan called off their fight temporarily and Kendi headed upstairs to take a bath. Dan says that he then heard a noise upstairs, but claims that he waited about two hours to head upstairs to investigate it. Let us note how different a noise is from a freaking gunshot. Yeah, and also just the fact that if you found it alarming that you heard some noise, why are you going to wait two hours to go upstairs to investigate it? You wouldn't. That's just why it's not a thing. Yeah, it's just stupid. Well, when he finally did go upstairs, Dan claimed that he found Kendi deceased in the bathtub, having shot herself in the mouth. However, for what initially seemed like a case of suicide, the scene left many questions unanswered, and a lot of details really didn't make sense here. First of all, Kendi was found naked, which is a rarity for suicides. Her person phone had been left on the counter in the bathroom, the clothes that she's believed to have been wearing on the day she died were scattered around the bedroom, and there were wet towels in the hamper, as if someone had cleaned up the scene before the discovery of her body. At the scene, there even proved to be a struggle outside of the bathroom, as broken glass was found on the floor of their bedroom. And even more curious was the duffel bag found at the scene that was fully packed with Kendi's things. Also, the dryer was running, even though it was the middle of the night, as though someone had washed a load of laundry and thrown it into the dryer before police arrived. Actually, based on the timing of the dryer cycle, it was clear that a load had been started almost down to the minute that the 911 call was placed. It was also noted that Dan appeared to be freshly showered, which aligned with the fresh clothes thing. The first deputies who arrived on the scene remembered that Dan appeared distraught. He was sobbing, was wailing, and even gagging as if he was going to throw up. But, that he didn't seem to actually shed a single tear. Like it seemed like he was acting. Oh yeah, those were crocodile tears. Big ol' fat ones. Big ol' fat tears. So detectives requested to swab his hands for gunshot residue, because right off the bat, they're like, this is your acting a little strange. So Dan was actually very quick to put his hands in his pockets and even seemed to be making an effort to wipe them off on the inside of his pockets before offering them up to law enforcement. I mean, obviously that doesn't look suspicious. It's called a band. Anything you're doing right now, like it's screaming that you're responsible. Well here's where things got tricky. The gun, of course, was tested for DNA, but was not found to contain remnants of dance. It was, however, confirmed to have Kendi's DNA, as well as the DNA of another man, though the identity of this man could not be determined. And ultimately, though they tested Dan's hands, the results for gunshot residue were negative. Now Dan alleged that Kendi had been threatening to kill herself for months prior to actually taking her own life, and that she had even taken his gun and put it to her temple in front of him. Which is obviously bullshit because we know that she was trying to buy a fucking house. Yes. So she had plants. She was fully ready to move on from Dan. Yeah, she wanted a divorce. So it's like she's the one who wants to actually have a life. But of course Dan is going to play this off like, oh yeah, because of this divorce thing, she was so depressed and she really wanted to take her own life. And then of course he can play the hero. Exactly. He told police that he pleaded with her not to go through with it and then she dropped the gun on the floor and it shot a hole through the floor like he's got all these stories. But of course the evidence isn't really contradicting any of those stories. So it seemed like what he was saying at least at this point could be true. Though how another man's DNA would be on the gun really confused investigators. And as we know, Kendi was seeing another man, but detectives didn't know this yet. But as Kendi's family and children were notified of her death, shock waves rippled through the community. And not very many people were able to believe that she would be capable of taking her own life. Her brother Brian claims that he rushed to his sister's house and asked Dan directly if he had hurt Kendi and that Dan seemed confused and wasn't even able to look him in the eye. When Dan called he and Kendi's daughter broke to inform her of her mother's death, that night at the scene, she immediately jumped on the defense and yelled at him, asking him what he had done to her. And like he had done with Kendi's brother, Dan just brushed his stepdaughter off. But even after the phone call assuring her that he hadn't had anything to do with Kendi's death, Brooke claims that she remained convinced that the truth would come to life and it would implicate her stepfather. Now this phone conversation that Dan and Brooke had was overheard by detectives, so they asked Dan if Brooke had accused him of killing Kendi himself, which he declined. But this soed even more doubt in the minds of investigators who wondered why Brooke would instantly be suspicious of murder when it came to her stepfather. Within just hours of Kendi's strange and very sudden death, Dan found himself fielding accusations from homicide detectives. Kendi's relative Ken Lollatin later admitted quote, that phone call put chills down my spine. Ken then asked him directly quote, you did it, didn't you Dan? To which Dan quickly responded quote, no I didn't. Ken admitted that even he hadn't truly suspected Dan until the phone call in which Brooke seemed so sure that Dan was responsible, like that call basically changed everything. Dan scrambled for an explanation saying quote, she doesn't know she wasn't here, but without concrete evidence implicating him detectives were forced to wait out their suspicions. The first autopsy was concluded the day after Kendi died on February 3rd 2021 and quickly concluded that she had died from a gunshot wound of course. But her family and friends had their doubts. As after Kendi's death, the facade of the loving small town couple that had been carefully curated by Dan began to crack. And despite stepping into the role of grieving widower, Dan's behavior in the aftermath of Kendi's death was exceedingly suspicious. On April 30th 2021 what would have been Kendi's 49th birthday? Even held a yard sale on his late wife's birthday in which he began getting rid of as many of her things as he could. I mean that's kind of crazy, there's no momentos, there's nothing that you want to keep because your wife just fucking died. Well he actually got rid of a lot of like prize possessions of her so she collected glass chickens, that was her thing. She had been doing it for years and had previously promised them to her granddaughter. And he's just trying to sell them off. Brooke remembered quote, it was one of the last things he could do without physically hurting me. So distraught at this development, Brooke stopped by the house in hopes of buying some of her mom's belongings. But Dan banished her from the property threatening to have her arrested. And remember this is a person that's been in Dan's life for a very very long time, a person that Dan considers his daughter and he's saying get off of my property. Yeah it's insane behavior and he's probably acting out knowing that she suspects him and knowing that she told investigators as much. Yeah now Brooke is Dan's enemy. But it wasn't just Brooke who had these feelings, it turned out that many of Kendi's other loved ones, especially her parents and Brooke, already held suspicions about Dan being dangerous and potentially having been involved in her death. According to her parents, Janie and Wendell, Kendi had fled to her parents house just three days before she died because he had scared her. Now we're kind of pulling the curtain back a little bit finally now. So by Kendi's account that night, the way that she told her parents was that she had woken up in the middle of the night to find Dan standing over her in the dark, dressed in all black. I mean that's absolutely horrifying. Yeah, so she was so disturbed that she actually called the police. When they arrived, Dan nonchalantly left them in the house and thankfully one deputy followed Kendi into the bedroom asking her what had happened while Dan was out of earshots. She explained that she believed that if she hadn't woken up, Dan would have hurt her, and that she could tell that he was plotting something nefarious as he stood over watching her sleep, wearing gloves and holding a pillow. So this motherfucker was going to smother her. I mean this is three days before her death. Like did he just think the police and her parents were going to forget about you doing something this freaking creepy right before? Yeah, and it's really stupid of Dan as well because it's like you got caught and then you didn't even wait long enough for people to kind of forget about that incident. Like it was literally three days before. Like you're so stupid. I mean so fair, but even if this happened three years later, they would have looked bad. This is on the record now. Hell yeah, you know how police shit worked. Yeah, they would have said remember that one time when I caught you being a fucking weirdo standing over me with that pillow. Yeah, it's unforgettable and unforgettable. Well the deputy even waited as Kendi packed a bag and then escorted her out of the house and she went to her parents. She was so afraid that she stayed the night of her parents house, surely really wanting that divorce more than ever, but Dan, as smooth talking as he was, convinced Kendi that it was a misunderstanding and that she was overreacting of course he's gaslighting her and that he wasn't going to hurt her. Yeah, Dan seems like the type of person that really just… He cannot accept the fact that Kendi wants to be done with him, she wants to move on with her life. And you know… You never can. Obviously that's a hard thing for anybody. You've been together for 26 years, that's going to be hard, but you have to respect those decisions, you know, and Dan just can't. Yeah, people like Dan cannot, unfortunately, and then this happens. Well, as we know, Kendi wanted a divorce for months leading up to her death, but it seemed to be so much more than her meeting a new man and naturally floating away from Dan over time. Because according to her son Wyatt, Dan, not Kendi, once fired his gun inside the home during a fight with Kendi. Her friends were called that Kendi had recently expressed her desire to give herself a glow up, which is so sweet. You know, she wants to move on and put a new version of herself forward. Yeah, she wants to feel good. Yeah, she referred to it as a mommy makeover, because she was so ready to move on that like we mentioned, she had already been involved in a casual affair around the time of her death. But also, she had one previously, or at least one, that Dan had found out about. And Dan had confronted her about it and caused a huge issue because the affair was with someone that they were both friends with. You know, obviously, if before she is expressing her interest in a divorce, he is more than allowed to be upset that she's having an affair, especially with somebody that he knows. This is not okay. Yeah, I mean, obviously that's not good. But this goes in like a wild direction, the way that he handled this was not well. Because Dan confronted this friend, friend, a man named Matthew, who happened to be the Howard's neighbor as well. And he confronted him multiple times, even threatening to kill him. Yeah, Dan is a fragile guy. Yeah, Matthew then accused Dan of stealing mail from him, following him, and pouring syrup in his car to prevent it from starting. You know, Dan's like this evil, methodical little bastard. He really is. Yeah, he's like, I'm going to get back at this guy. And kind of the strangest ways possible. Yeah. And then once he even turned up on announced at Matthew's workplace and yanked a piece of metal off his desk, then used it to smash Matthew's computer. So we went like a little social network on him. And then at one point, things between them became so contentious that Dan brought his gun over to Matthew's house and brandished it in a threat, even fired a warning shot. So he's like, I'm saying, he's taken this to a different level. Yeah. You know what? It feels like probably his time being a state trooper. He probably got a pretty big ego about like, well, I'm an authority like you can't do this to me. So him showing up and firing a warning shot like, bro, you are unhinged. You need to chill. Yeah, this is not how you handle it. You're an adult man. Well then, Dan allegedly told him that he understood why men are inclined to murder their wives. And also taunted him by saying that he was only alive because he, like, Dan allowed him to live shut up. The Howard's friend and neighbor, Matthew, was so rattled by this that he reported the situation, thankfully. And this, guys, finally was the reason that Dan was fired from the police force. And oh yeah, even spent four months in jail. So now it's finally kind of click in why Kendi was so over Dan. Oh yeah. I mean, she had already been ready to move on before this horrific behavior, but even more so after. Yeah, and then he got that job in Alaska and was gone for weeks at a time. Yeah, and she was starting to see the light finally and just like the rest of her life on the other side of this marriage. Yup. But even with Dan and jail and reported before his move to Alaska, of course, or not his move, his move of jobs to Alaska, Matthew was so disturbed by what it transpired that he moved to Washington just to remove himself from the situation entirely. I mean, honestly, with Dan being around, probably the smartest move you could make. Oh yeah. Just get out of the area. So I just said this whole thing is why Dan had been fired, but there was actually more to it because this first situation, insanely, you know, all of this stalking and aggressive behavior towards Matthew only resulted in a suspension at first. In December of 2013, so this is after he shot and killed that woman, the Idaho State Police suspended Dan for a second time. You know, the first time was for the killing of Christie. Second time is for stalking and, you know, threatening harassing. Yeah. But then he was suspended a third time. The charges stacked against him included forgery, title theft, both grand and petty theft, and possession of an untagged deer, which violates local game codes. So basically, Dan just thinks he can do whatever he wants. I mean, his crimes are like literally all over the map. Like he's doing everything. Yeah, he just does crimes of every magnitude. And following the criminal charges that were pressed by Matthew, Dan was also forced to pay restitution and was given a three year suspended sentence. So ultimately again, Dan spent four months in jail and also had to complete 600 hours of community service. So with all of that, finally, he was fired and he got that job in Alaska. Now around this time is when Kendi began telling her friends and even her daughter that she was no longer in love with Dan. I can see why. Yeah, exactly. And that she felt disenchanted by their marriage and that she longed for her freedom in a fresh start. When enough time had passed, Kendi felt emboldened enough to announce to Dan that she wanted to divorce and that she would be moving out, which again happened in January of 2021. And she had begun to look for a new house back in her hometown of Kamiai. When asked at the scene of her discovery about the state of their relationship, Dan said candidly that they had quote, Marital problems. She wants to divorce one day, she doesn't the next. So she brought home divorce papers, just preliminary ones. We just grew a part, I guess. So Dan has already told detectives that they had a fight. They know what happened three days before she died and now he's saying that she wanted to divorce and brought home paper. So this really isn't looking good for your motive, buddy. One of the most damning evidence was the second autopsy. Because when an additional autopsy was ordered in June of 2021, the trajectory of the bullet that supposedly killed her was, of course, called into question. Not only that, but eerily. There had not been nearly enough blood in the water as there would have been if her heart had been beating at the time that she had been shot. So they're looking at this blood and they're saying, well, you know, if she was shot when he said that she was, there would be just a lot more blood in that water, but there wasn't. So it was determined that Kendi was already dead when she was placed in that bathtub. Bruises and lacerations were scattered all over her body and her jaw had even been broken. She had sustained a second degree burn to her forearm as well, indicating that perhaps an altercation broke out in the kitchen before she died. There were also cuts to the bottoms of her feet, tipping off investigators that she may have walked on broken glass on the floor upstairs during a struggle, which we did mention that in the bedroom, there was broken glass. There were bloody marks on her arms that appeared to have flowed upward, which would have been impossible if she had gotten into the tub and then shot herself. So none of this was really lining up at this point. So instead, prosecutors believed that she had been dragged by her arms upstairs after she was already killed and then placed in that bathtub. And why the first medical examiner had ignored all these indications of foul play was a mystery and is still a mystery. Yeah, like how do you miss a broken jaw, you know? While according to prosecutor Art Verhaarin, quote, she fought for her life. Investigators believed that she was dead by the time she was placed in the bathtub and shot as he'd hinted to, and they came to the belief that she was strangled with Dan's elbow, using a technique called carotid restraint of which Dan would have been familiar following his years in law enforcement. When investigators dug deeper, Kendi and Dan had accrued over $2 million in property between the two of them, which Dan didn't share with his wife. Though they were comfortable, Dan was very frugal, whereas Kendi wanted to be able to enjoy their lives. One of her friends, Michelle, recalls the pair once getting into a physical confrontation about their spending and their finances. Wearing Dan physically assaulted her, this is over money, like the conversation of money. Physically assaults her, leaving behind bruises that Kendi actually took pictures of. Now Art, again the prosecutor, maintained his belief that when Kendi was murdered, quote, she suffered for a while. That suffering came from the beating. When he was sure that Kendi was deceased, Dan stripped her of her clothes and staged her body in the bathtub, going as far as to place her purse and phone nearby and even pulling her hair back. He then put a gun to her mouth and shot her, and then called the police to report that she had taken her own life. But of course, not until after he finished staging the scene and showering and cleaning his clothes. And this hypothesis was thanks to that second autopsy, as well as the ballistic experts finding after studying the trajectory of the bullet that she could not have shot herself. And though it would take two years for prosecutors to build their case against him, 57 year old Dan was finally arrested for Kendi's murder on April 21st of 2023. He was also charged with domestic battery from the incident seven months prior to Kendi's death, the time when he had left her with bruises. Because again, thankfully, she had carefully photographed and documented these bruises and then sent them to her friend Michelle, who then shared them with law enforcement. But following his arrest as he waited for his trial to commence, he was released on bail with an ankle monitor. So guess what? In the midst of his trial as the court recessed for the weekend, Dan made a run for it. He drove to the Spokane International Airport just over the Washington border, but because he was being tracked via his ankle monitor, Kootenny County Sheriff's Office authorities were waiting for him when he arrived, so you're not getting away, Dan. Dan then tried to smooth-talk his way out of being detained, claiming that he was just dropping off a rental car for a friend, and he wasn't trying to flee, but this was quickly disproven. Come off of it, Dan. Yeah, seriously. Thus, his bail was then revoked. Now, let's finally circle back to the male DNA that was found on the gun. Because, the defense cited this as one of the key reasons that Dan could not have been involved. His defense attorney Jason Johnson told the court, quote, the gun had Kendi's blood on it. On one of the grips, it had her DNA on it, and another male's DNA. Dan was excluded from the gun. You will hear that from one of the defense experts that, when he examined the evidence and the scene, that it is consistent, the body position, the mechanisms, the gun placement, is consistent with suicide. Well, unfortunately, the prosecution didn't have much to argue for this particular point, because they couldn't get a DNA match. They don't know whose DNA this wasn't how it got there. Yeah, so they really can't use that as their weapon. And we assume they would have cross-checked it with possible partners of Kendi's if the sample was substantial enough. But we don't actually know what happened with this, so instead to rebut their claims, the prosecution focused on the suicide angle and brought in strangulation expert Dr. Bill Smock, who maintained that Kendi could have been strangled without there being significant damage done to her neck. Because the defense had noted the lack of Pateequiye, which are like the small pinprick marks that occur beneath the skin when capillaries pop. But Dr. Smock argued that Pateequiye isn't always present when strangulation has occurred, and that using carotid restrained, which is what they thought he used, like it would just take 11 pounds of pressure to kill somebody, saying, quote, that's nothing. That's how easy it is to block blood flow to the brain and never, leave a mark. Ultimately, the evidence against Dan was too damning and he was found guilty of the murder of his wife, Kendi Howard. At his sentencing, he offered a very lukewarm statement to the judge, while looking at the ceiling and blinking through what was supposed to look like tears. In a front to the memory in those grieving her, Dan told the court, quote, I love my wife and I miss her, and I'm not that monster I assure you that people are portraying me to be. Kendi and I had 28 years together and raised a family and had mostly a good marriage in a good life. I'm not that animal that they portray me to be. It is not my intention to anger the court or disrespect the process that I used to believe in, but your honor is about to sentence an innocent man to prison. Thankfully, the judge presiding over Dan's case, Lamont Barrett, took a no-nonsense approach to his excuses and addressed him in court, saying, quote, It's clear to me that you are a remorseless killer and I don't say that lightly. You killed somebody who brought a lot of life and light to those around her. You snuffed that out because of your own pride and greed. You are not beyond redemption, but in this case, it will have to happen within the walls of a prison. On May 23rd, 2024, Dan was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole to the utter relief of Kendi's family and loved ones. He was also sentenced to 10 years for domestic battery to be served concurrently with his lifelong prison sentence. In a heartbreaking victim-impact statement, Kendi's daughter Brooke told her stepfather in court, quote, You'll never understand the damage you have caused to us all. You're not the victim. You deserve to be here today. You deserve to never again live a free life. She won't see me get married. She won't see my daughter grow up. She didn't see me finally get it together. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and thankfully, that monster Dan is exactly where he needs to be in prison. It's just crazy how he was, it took three like wild suspensions for him to finally be fired. Like that just really disturbs me. That somebody like that can be a state trooper. Like you can, I mean, I understand that the the department and the state police determined that him killing Christie was justified. But the fact that after that, you unjustifiably stalked and threatened a man with a gun and you get suspended and you're brought back and you're just allowed to be a cop. It's crazy. Yeah, and then you went on to kill your wife. I mean, it really just does show a pattern of Dan's life. It shows who Dan really was at his core. And that was a, a, a, a, a, a, a piece of shit, but a very fragile criminal. Yes, exactly. So thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode. Again, a big shout out to Nicole for recommending it. And make sure you're following us on socials to check out photos for this case and others we've been doing some social video clips of Heath and I in the studio if you want to see us in action. And we'll see you on Friday. All right, guys. So for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger.