Helene death toll rises, millions still without power; Bear sightings unnerve California communities

California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have required new cars to beep at drivers if they exceed the speed limit in an effort to reduce traffic deaths.

California would have become the first to require such systems for all new cars, trucks and buses sold in the state starting in 2030. The bill would have mandated that vehicles beep at drivers when they exceed the speed limit by at least 10 mph.

The European Union has passed similar legislation to encourage drivers to slow down. California’s proposal would have provided exceptions for emergency vehicles, motorcycles and motorized scooters.

In explaining his veto, Newsom said federal law already dictates vehicle safety standards and adding California-specific requirements would create a patchwork of regulations.

The National Highway Traffic Safety “is also actively evaluating intelligent speed assistance systems, and imposing state-level mandates at this time risks disrupting these ongoing federal assessments,” the Democratic governor said.

Opponents, including automotive groups and the state Chamber of Commerce, said such regulations should be decided by the federal government, which earlier this year established new requirements for automatic emergency braking to curb traffic deaths. Republican lawmakers also said the proposal could make cars more expensive and distract drivers.

The legislation would have likely impacted all new car sales in the U.S., since the California market is so large that car manufacturers would likely just make all of their vehicles comply.

California often throws that weight around to influence national and even international policy. The state has set its own emission standards for cars for decades, rules that more than a dozen other states have also adopted. And when California announced it would eventually ban the sale of new gas-powered cars, major automakers soon followed with their own announcement to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles.

Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, who sponsored the bill, called the veto disappointing and a setback for street safety.

“California should have led on this crisis as Wisconsin did in passing the first seatbelt mandate in 1961,” Wiener said in a statement. “Instead, this veto resigns Californians to a completely unnecessary risk of fatality.”

The speeding alert technology, known as intelligent speed assistance, uses GPS to compare a vehicle’s pace with a dataset of posted limits. If the car is at least 10 mph over, the system emits a single, brief, visual and audio alert.

The proposal would have required the state to maintain a list of posted speed limits, and it’s likely that those would not include local roads or recent changes in speed limits, resulting in conflicts.

The technology has been used in the U.S. and Europe for years. Starting in July, the European Union will require all new cars to have the technology, although drivers would be able to turn it off. At least 18 manufacturers including Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan, have already offered some form of speed limiters on some models sold in America, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 10% of all car crashes reported to police in 2021 were related to speeding. This was especially a problem in California, where 35% of traffic fatalities were speeding-related — the second highest in the country, according to a legislative analysis of the proposal.

Last year the NTSB recommended federal regulators require all new cars to alert drivers when they speed. Their recommendation came after a crash in January 2022, when a man with a history of speeding violations ran a red light at more than 100 mph and struck a minivan, killing himself and eight other people.

Kootenai County Sheriff’s Deputy Miranda Thomas will never forget coming face to face with a distraught Dan Howard, a former state trooper, at his home in Northern Idaho on a cold winter’s morning in February 2021.

Deputy Miranda Thomas: He would scream and yell, but there were no tears in his eyes. At any point he would, um, act like he was gagging … But nothing would ever actually happen.

Thomas was one of the first responders to Dan Howard’s home, a place he shared with Kendy, his wife of 26 years.

DEPUTY (bodycam): Dan, I know this is hard but, when — when is the last time that you saw your wife alive?

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): (crying, unintelligible)

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DEPUTY THOMAS (bodycam): Dan, do you want medical to look at you at all? 

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): No.

DEPUTY THOMAS (bodycam): OK.

Dan Howard told police he discovered his wife in the bathtub. He said she had shot herself in the head. Kendy’s own pistol was at the bottom of the tub in murky water.

Kootenai County Sheriff’s Detective Jerry Northrup arrived before midnight.

Peter Van Sant: Were you dispatched … to a possible suicide?

Det. Jerry Northrup: Yes sir. … It was identified as a suicide.

EVIDENCE NOT ADDING UP FOR INVESTIGATORS

Northrup immediately began analyzing what was before him.

Det. Jerry Northrup: For a woman to shoot herself in the tub, nude, is unusual. It doesn’t mean it can’t happen It just means that it’s unusual. 

Northrup, a crime scene expert, says something was missing from this death scene — especially considering Kendy had suffered a head wound.

Det. Jerry Northrup: There would be a lot more blood that was produced. And I just didn’t see that on her face, on her body or in the tub.

Thomas also saw some curious things. 

Deputy Miranda Thomas: I went into the house and found a packed duffle bag. … Was someone planning on leaving the house?

In the laundry room, the dryer was running. It was full of clean bath towels and mats. 

Deputy Miranda Thomas: Having a … dryer running at midnight, very odd, because I don’t do laundry at midnight. Sure, you could but …

And despite the shock of finding his wife dead, Dan Howard appeared to have recently showered, changed his clothes, and applied fresh deodorant. 

Deputy Miranda Thomas: You can tell that he’s got deodorant lines on his T-shirt.

Peter Van Sant:  Did something seem un-suicide-like to you?

Det. Jerry Northrup:  Certainly. … There was no, other signs of like a suicide note.

It’s often standard procedure to check people at a shooting scene for GSR, gunshot residue. And as a former state trooper, Dan Howard would know that. Yet Northrup says Dan was uneasy about being tested. 

Det. Jerry Northrup: Mr. Howard stuck his hands into his coat pockets, and then he began twisting them to and fro, back and forth repeatedly, until we told him to stop and remove his hands.

Peter Van Sant: Back and forth as if he’s trying to wipe something off? 

Det. Jerry Northrup: Yes. That was the impression that we were getting …

Peter Van Sant: What was the result?

Det. Jerry Northrup: It was negative.

Peter Van Sant: It was negative.

Even though detectives were suspicious of all those little pieces of evidence that didn’t seem to add up, they could not rule out the possibility that Kendy Howard could have taken her own life.

Kendy’s sudden passing stunned those who loved her.

Michelle Lampert: She loved life … I have never had so much fun with somebody … no care in the world. 

Michelle Lampert was one of Kendy’s best friends.

Michelle Lampert: She always laughed. … my favorite is spin class … and then to the brewery …  nothing like spin class and brewery, but she felt like that was OK.

Brooke Wilkins: She was a great mom.

Brooke Wilkins is Kendy’s daughter from an earlier relationship. 

Peter Van Sant: Tell me about your mom. She just seems really special.

Brooke Wilkins: She was. She had a big personality. … She was happy to talk to anyone and make a friend and joke around.

Kendy was a small town girl from northern Idaho — sporty and outdoorsy, says her brother Brian Wilkins.

Brian Wilkins: She … rode her horse a lot, had sheep for 4H and … and, well, she had a goat, too, at the same time. 

Kendy was just 22 when she married former Marine-turned-Idaho state trooper Dan Howard. He was six years older.

Peter Van Sant: Did she talk about the attraction?

Brooke Wilkins: She did think he was very handsome. And I think the sense of security is a topic that was brought up quite a bit.

The couple settled on 10 acres in the town of Athol, just a speck on the map, located 21 miles north of Coeur D’Alene. They had a son together, Wyatt. Like his dad, Wyatt became a Marine. A neighbor, Cari Maitland, says Dan and Kendy’s marriage seemed strong.

Cari Maitland: They were affectionate towards each other and … they were generally respectful to each other.

Kendy worked at a local medical center. During 26 years of marriage, they made good money in real estate in this fast-growing state. By the time of Kendy’s death, the couple had more than $2 million in assets. And yet, money created friction between them.

Michelle Lampert: Her money was his money and his money was his money. … He never wanted to spend money.

And there was more friction in the marriage, according to friends, after Dan Howard — working as a trooper for the Idaho State Police — shot and killed a woman during a traffic stop. Dan was cleared of all wrongdoing, but the incident took its toll on Kendy.

Cari Maitland: I do believe … she did become depressed.

Years later, Dan Howard would leave the Idaho State Police.

Cari Maitland: And things kind of changed between them.

Kendy’s brother Brian Wilkins helped Dan find work on the North Slope — the oil fields of Alaska. He’d work three weeks straight and then come home for three weeks.

Michelle Lampert: She was free for three weeks is when she really decided to experience life.

Brian Wilkins says the couple grew apart.

Brian Wilkins: There was arguing, bickering pretty much the whole time I’d be up there around him. But I didn’t think it was anything.

But Brooke Wilkins says it was the beginning of the end of their relationship. Kendy was frustrated and lonely.

Brooke Wilkins: She’s very vocal that she does not love him; that there’s no love in this marriage.

Lampert says Kendy had an affair, and even planned plastic surgery. 

Michelle Lampert: She was just super excited.  

And that’s when Kendy told Dan she was moving out and wanted a divorce. And she had started the process of buying a new house.

Michelle Lampert: And I think she really felt that it would be OK.

By the end of January 2021, just days before her death, Kendy met with a divorce lawyer. When Dan came home from work —

Michelle Lampert: She just told him … I mean, she just told him everything. And I think [at] that point I did get scared. … She said he was fine. He wasn’t fine.

QUESTIONING DAN HOWARD’S VERSION OF THE EVENTS

Michelle Lampert: It never made sense to me. It never made sense.

When first responders examined Kendy Howard’s body in her bathtub, she had a gunshot wound to the back of her mouth and her pistol was in the water.  Dan Howard told everyone that Kendy had taken her own life.

Peter Van Sant: Were you buying that?

Brian Wilkins: No. … I couldn’t see her leaving her kids and granddaughter.

When he learned his sister was dead, Brian Wilkins rushed over to her house. He walked right up to Dan Howard.

Brian Wilkins: There was no emotion. He wasn’t crying. … I asked him if he’d ever hurt my sister. … he wouldn’t look at me in the eye and he said, “no.”

Kendy’s friend, Michelle Lampert, was also certain Kendy had not taken her own life.

Michelle Lampert: Kendy was not depressed. … You don’t think about doing plastic surgery. You don’t go work out. You don’t go to spin class.

But Cari Maitland, Kendy’s neighbor, says Kendy had been deeply unhappy. Months earlier she says Kendy told her about problems in her marriage.

Cari Maitland: She’s just crying and crying and crying. … And — and she’s like, “I don’t even deserve to be here.”

Maitland doesn’t think there’s any mystery about what happened in that bathroom.

Cari Maitland: I do believe that Kendy committed suicide.

In the hours following Kendy’s death, Northrup said he had questions about Dan Howard’s version of events.

Det. Jerry Northrup: There’s a — an order to things and a logical order … it did not make sense.

One thing that didn’t make sense that night was the clothes dryer running when first responders entered the house. There were still six minutes showing on the display. So Northrup did some digging.

Det. Jerry Northrup: I went to the manufacturer’s site, pulled up the specifics about the times for cycles … And then took that information and compared that against the time at which the 911 call was placed.

Peter Van Sant: And what do you learn?

Det. Jerry Northrup: That it was started within a minute of the 911 call.

Det. Jerry Northrup: It suggested that he was doing actions like starting laundry … rather than his claim that he was checking on Kendy Howard and — and that he was inconsolable and upset … it just — it didn’t add up.

And there were other red flags for Northrup.

Peter Van Sant: Did you find any signs of a struggle, that there’d been some sort of a physical confrontation between these two?

Det. Jerry Northrup: Yes, we did. Up in the master bedroom, we noted on the floor that there were pieces of broken glass.

And there was that question of the amount of blood in the bathtub.

Peter Van Sant: With a wound to the head, that water will be much darker red-colored, right? From the blood?

Det. Jerry Northrup: Yes, sir. Based on my experience, that would be consistent. That the — the fact that there wasn’t — was inconsistent.

Peter Van Sant: Inconsistent, suggesting it might not be a suicide?

Det. Jerry Northrup: Correct. … Everything started directing us to the path that this was a staged crime scene.

Detective Sergeant Ken Lallatin, now retired, was the lead investigator.

Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Nothing about this case felt right from the beginning.

DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): Hi Dan … So what happened tonight?

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): Marital problems … she wants a divorce one day … she doesn’t the next … So she brought home divorce papers, just preliminary ones.

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): We just grew apart, I guess.

Lallatin says he quickly became convinced Dan Howard was playing them.

Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: I had the sense that Dan had a story that he had planned to share with us that evening … it felt very contrived.

Peter Van Sant: Almost scripted in a way?

Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Absolutely. Yeah, definitely scripted.

One example, Lallatin says, was Dan Howard telling him that Kendy had once put a gun to her head.

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): She put the gun to her f****** head …  it freaked me the f*** out… and um I thought for sure… ‘here we go’ and she dropped the gun and f****** shot through the floor.

DETECTIVE (bodycam): Same gun?

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): Same gun.

Lallatin says Dan Howard told him, that after a heated argument that night over splitting their finances, Kendy went upstairs to take a bath. A short time later Dan heard what he described as a “thud.” 

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): It sounded like something hit the floor or something. I don’t know.

But he didn’t investigate for more than an hour. That’s when Dan Howard says he found her: dead in the tub.

Peter Van Sant: How many times have you ever described a gunshot as a thud?

Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: I don’t think I’ve ever described a gunshot as a thud. … I certainly would not expect someone who served in the Marine Corps, served … approximately 20 years in law enforcement, someone who was a firearms instructor, someone who had been on their SWAT team. I think if anybody’s going to know what the sound of a gunshot is from inside a residence, it’s going to be Dan Howard.

As the morning came, Dan Howard called his stepdaughter Brooke Wilkins, and told her the news  … it didn’t go well. Lallatin says he could hear Brooke shouting at Dan through the phone.

DAN HOWARD (bodycam, shouting back at his phone): What? What are you talking about? …

DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): Who was that Dan? …

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): It was my daughter, Brooke …

DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): Did she just accuse you of this?

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): No.

DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): That’s what it sounded like. … Why would she do that Dan? Why would she think you did this? … I haven’t heard someone that angry in a long time … I’ll be honest with you. I was not expecting anything like that … I was across the room and I could hear her. She’s angry …

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): Kids don’t want to believe their moms would do that.

Det. Sgt.  Ken Lallatin:  Not one time have I ever been to a suicide or even heard of one where one of the family members … call and accuse her stepdad of murdering her mom. … it was a very powerful moment. … and I literally was able to see Dan Howard almost physically shrink down.

Peter Van Sant: Like the walls are closing in?

Det. Sgt.  Ken Lallatin: Oh, a hundred percent.

WAS THE DEATH SCENE STAGED?

In the early morning of Feb. 3, 2021, Dan Howard’s behavior continued raising the suspicions of Kootenai County detectives. They had just overheard that phone call from his stepdaughter, Brooke Wilkins, accusing him of killing her mother.

Brooke Wilkins: I’m hysterical. I’m crying pretty hard.

Peter Van Sant: And you’re believing that no way she shot herself.

Brooke Wilkins: Right. … I tell him that …  I don’t know what happened, but … “I know you did this.”

Detective Sgt. Ken Lallatin confronted Dan about Brooke’s accusation:

DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): I gotta tell you, that phone call put chills down my spine. …

DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): You did it, didn’t you Dan?

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): No, I didn’t.

DET. SGT. KEN LALLATIN (bodycam): I didn’t think so, but now, after listening to that, I think you did, didn’t you?

DAN HOWARD (bodycam): How the hell, how the hell —  she doesn’t know. She wasn’t here.

Within minutes, Dan Howard stopped responding to questions. Detectives were now very suspicious, because, as an ex-cop, he had special skills.

Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Dan knows things that most normal people, ordinary people don’t know.

Peter Van Sant: Things like what?

Det. Sgt. Ken Lallatin: Things like killing someone and staging it to look like a suicide.

But there wasn’t enough physical evidence at the scene to arrest him. What’s more, later that day, an autopsy was done. The medical examiner concluded Kendy died from that gunshot. Brooke Wilkins was perplexed. She says her mother never took her gun out of the safe.

Brooke Wilkins: Mom never touched a gun. She wouldn’t have used a gun. … there’s something not making sense here. And … I’m so lost and confused because … you know, Dan’s not arrested.

What Brooke Wilkins didn’t know was that the investigation was zeroing in on Dan Howard. Just hours after Kendy’s death, Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney Stan Mortensen was called in to consult with detectives. They pieced together a detailed timeline of the couple’s relationship.

Peter Van Sant: What did you learn about Dan Howard?

Stan Mortensen: So we learned … that Dan Howard was not the person that we thought he was … at home and behind and closed doors, he was a different person.

Investigators focused in on an alarming incident Dan Howard was involved in from 2013, when he was still a state trooper. Dan had found out Kendy was having an affair with a neighbor — who also happened to be Dan’s good friend. Enraged, Dan confronted him at his office.

Det. Jerry Northrup: He … threatened to — I believe his words were — splatter his brains all over the walls.

Peter Van Sant: Threatened to kill him?

Det. Jerry Northrup: Threatened to kill him.

Dan Howard was accused of repeatedly harassing the neighbor, and eventually pleaded guilty to two felonies and served almost four months in jail in connection with that incident. He was allowed to resign from the Idaho State Police. After that, Kendy’s friend Michelle Lampert says the couple’s relationship seemed to change.

Michelle Lampert: She was stuck to him like glue, just like glue, like hanging all over him. And she was never that way before. .. I think back, going, was she scared?

In the years that followed, Lampert says Dan was controlling and quick to anger — especially when it came to Kendy’s spending.

Michelle Lampert: Dan never wanted to go do anything cause that would spend money. … I just don’t think she was her full personality when he was around.

But when Dan was about to head back to Alaska for work —

Michelle Lampert: She was a totally different person … I think she realized the more she was free, the more she loved life. And she didn’t have to be under his thumb.

They continued to grow apart. Then Kendy told Lampert about an explosive argument, just seven months before her death.

Michelle Lampert: She had hidden credit cards and he found the bills and that started that argument … He … grabbed her and held her and there was bruises on her neck and her … She sent me pictures … You could see ’em. Clear as day in the pictures. … She just told me not to tell anybody.

Kendy never reported any kind of abuse from Dan Howard to authorities.

Peter Van Sant: How long had this physical abuse been going on? Do you have a sense?

Stan Mortensen: We — we really don’t know. It had been going on at least … six months before she died.

Then, just four nights before Kendy Howard’s death, deputies were called to the Howard home. Kendy’s mother had asked for a welfare check, after hearing a panicked Kendy on the phone. A visibly nervous Kendy answered the door.

DEPUTY (bodycam): You mind if we talk to you guys really quick?

DAN HOWARD (bodycam, sitting on couch): Sounds fine to me.

Hours earlier, Kendy had picked Dan up at the airport, coming home from the oil fields of Alaska. And apparently upset him by saying she wanted a divorce. Kendy tells a deputy she needs to get something from the bedroom.

KENDY HOWARD (bodycam, stuttering): And — so, I can go?

DEPUTY (bodycam): Yeah, do you mind if I follow you?

That let the deputy speak with Kendy away from Dan Howard.

KENDY HOWARD (bodycam) I asked for a divorce and he just got home. He’s not taking it good.

DEPUTY (bodycam): OK.

KENDY HOWARD (bodycam) I can’t say what he was going to do …

DEPUTY (bodycam): Did it ever become physical?

KENDY HOWARD: I think I had woke up in time so it wouldn’t.

DEPUTY (bodycam): OK. When you woke up, where was he?

KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): Standing over me …

DEPUTY (bodycam): Was he yelling? Was the argument like a —

KENDY HOWARD: No, that’s the thing —

DEPUTY (bodycam): So he’s always kind of just that calm?

KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): (unintel) It’s weird.

DEPUTY (bodycam): OK. Alright.

KENDY HOWARD (bodycam): I know what I seen. I know what he was going to do …

The deputy helped Kendy leave the house. But investigators would later say they couldn’t arrest Dan Howard because Kendy never told deputies Dan had physically harmed her. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Julia Schoffstall later learned that Kendy had told friends what had happened.

Julia Schoffstall: She wakes up in early morning hours to Dan standing over her … wearing dark clothes … black latex gloves … a pillow in his hand … the look in his eyes … it was a look that she had never seen before and that she wholeheartedly believed in that moment that he was going to kill her.

But later that day, Kendy, returned home.

Julia Schoffstall: She told friends and family that … he wasn’t stupid enough to try something again, that she felt like she had some level of safety …

Peter Van Sant: What’s the tragedy in this case to you? The biggest tragedy of all?

Julia Schoffstall: That she was so close to getting out.

In the text messages to Kendy, Dan Howard said it was all a misunderstanding and he was willing to work things out. But there were other signs he wasn’t OK. The day before Kendy’s death, her brother Brian Wilkins took a long road trip with Dan.

Brian Wilkins: He started asking me about who Kendy was having an affair with.

Brian Wilkins says Dan Howard figured out Kendy was seeing the real estate agent who was helping her buy that new house near her hometown.

Brian Wilkins: You could tell, he was mad.

The next day, Kendy Howard was dead. To prosecutors, the circumstantial evidence against Dan Howard was adding up. After reviewing Kendy’s autopsy and photos taken of Kendy’s body, investigators discovered that, in fact, Kendy had multiple bruises all over her body.

Stan Mortensen: Her body was riddled from head to toe with bruises and some lacerations.

And her jaw had been broken.

Stan Mortensen: I believe that Kendy was beat severely by Dan.

So what really happened that night? The theory that Kendy’s death scene could have been staged began to take on a new light.

Stan Mortensen: Kendy did not die from a gunshot wound …

Peter Van Sant: Wait, wait. Stop. She was shot, I understand, in the mouth … the bullet lodged in her vertebrae. And it didn’t kill her?

Stan Mortensen: Exactly. We believe that Kendy was already dead when she was shot.

HOW DID KENDY HOWARD DIE?

Julia Schoffstall: Dan always had a level of control over Kendy. And I think by February 2nd, he had realized that that control was gone.

Weeks into the investigation, prosecutors believed the circumstantial evidence showed Kendy Howard died at the hands of Dan Howard. But with the medical examiner’s ruling that Kendy had died from a gunshot wound, and no DNA evidence linking Dan Howard to Kendy’s gun, prosecutors faced challenges. So, they called in other experts to take a second look at the evidence, including forensic pathologist Dr. Jennifer Nara.

Dr. Jennifer Nara: I looked at the autopsy report, I reviewed all the photos … all the X-rays, the toxicology results … I did not agree with the original cause of death, that she died from a gunshot wound at the head.

Nara walked “48 Hours” through her analysis.  

Dr. Jennifer Nara: When … I looked at what the trajectory was, the path the bullet took inside Kendy’s mouth, I thought that was unusual … cause it was going in a slightly downward direction. Typically in gunshot-wound suicides, they go either straight back to the mouth or go slightly upward.

Peter Van Sant: And can you demonstrate the path of this bullet?

Dr. Jennifer Nara (demonstrating):  Yeah, I sure can. So, I have a skull model here … I’m gonna take this rod to show the direction that the bullet traveled through the mouth, through the tongue. … and it tore through the tongue … like a torpedo. … it just went through the center of the tongue.

Peter Van Sant: Would there have been a lot of blood?

Dr. Jennifer Nara: Absolutely. … it’s gonna bleed like crazy.

Peter Van Sant: Because the heart is beating at the time that the bullet went through that tongue.

Dr. Jennifer Nara: Exactly.

But, when Nara reviewed the photos of the crime scene, she says she didn’t see the amount of blood she would have expected to.

Dr. Jennifer Nara: There was not enough blood.

And there were those bruises on Kendy’s body and her broken jaw, which Nara says were sustained before Kendy had died.

Peter Van Sant: Injuries that — that suggested a physical struggle of some sort.

Dr. Jennifer Nara: Correct. … She’s got bruises throughout her body. She’s got bruising on both sides for her neck, which is consistent with her being possibly choked.

Peter Van Sant: What did you conclude?

Dr. Jennifer Nara: I believe that … Kendy Howard was already dead when she sustained that gunshot wound. … she was already strangled or choked to death. And when she was placed in the bathtub, she was already dead.

So, how then did Kendy die? Prosecutors say Dan Howard used a restraining technique he learned back in his days as a state trooper.

Julia Schoffstall: We believe that he utilized a technique known as a carotid restraint.

Peter Van Sant: Show me how it works.

Stan Mortenson (demonstrates): So, what you would do is, you’d place your arm around somebody’s neck and head, and their chin is gonna be in the crook of your elbow.

Prior to becoming an attorney, prosecutor Stan Mortenson had been a sheriff’s deputy, and, like Dan Howard, had been trained in administering the carotid restraint hold — rarely used, as it cuts off blood flow to the brain.

Stan Mortenson: If it’s applied too long, it can cause death. … And that right there was our theory on how Dan killed Kendy.

Peter Van Sant: It’s an interesting theory, but you do concede it is a theory, right? … no witness came forward to say that Dan told me he did this or … there’s no physical evidence that proves that he did this, right?

Stan Mortenson: Not the carotid restraint technique, correct. … but Dan knew how to use this technique and taught other people how to use it. So, we weren’t just grabbing this theory out of thin air. This was something that Dan actually knew.

It took two years for the prosecutors to build their case. Finally, in April 2023, Dan Howard was charged with murder. He was also charged with domestic battery from that incident seven months before Kendy’s death, when she took those photos of her bruises and sent them to her friend Michelle Lampert. He pleaded not guilty and posted bail. Dan Howard was ordered to wear an ankle monitor while he awaited trial.

In his opening statement, prosecutor Stan Mortenson said Dan and Kendy Howard had fought over finances that night, and it turned physical, with Dan bruising Kendy, breaking her jaw, then killing her with the carotid restraint hold. Then, he said, Dan Howard staged the scene by placing Kendy’s body in the bathtub and shooting her.

STAN MORTENSEN (in court): Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence will come in and will demonstrate that this was not a suicide. … Evidence will show that Kendy died of asphyxiation. … Evidence will show that Dan Howard is guilty of murder.

Dan Howard’s lawyer, Jason Johnson, countered the state’s claims by asserting that an emotionally troubled Kendy Howard has shot herself.

JASON JOHNSON (in court): She is struggling with whether she wants to leave Dan.

He pointed out that Dan Howard’s DNA was not even on Kendy’s gun.

JASON JOHNSON (in court): The gun had Kendy’s blood on it. … But Dan is excluded.

And he dismissed the State’s assertion there was a physical fight that night.

Jason Johnson: Kendy did not have any … DNA under her fingernails. … there were no defensive marks on Dan.

Johnson also said the investigators were all wrong about the lack of blood at the scene, pointing out that several hours had passed before some of the crime scene photographs of the bathtub had been taken and some of the water could have drained.

JASON JOHNSON (in court): How much blood went down that drain?

Johnson attacked the prosecution’s claim that Kendy Howard was dead from asphyxiation before she was shot by calling that medical examiner who performed Kendy’s original autopsy.

JASON JOHNSON (in court): Your cause of death is gunshot wound?

DR. JOHN HOWARD (in court): That’s my opinion.

More than a week into the proceedings, the trial recessed for a long weekend break. That night, prosecutors learned of a new, dramatic development that seemed to be right out of a television crime show. It seemed Dan Howard was making a run for it.

WAS DAN HOWARD MAKING A RUN FOR IT?

With his trial winding down, Dan Howard, who was out on bail with an ankle monitor, suddenly took off.

Peter Van Sant: This was the great escape. He was hoping to get away?

Stan Mortenson: He did it right after we finished with all of our evidence.

A deputy was tracking Dan Howard that night.

Stan Mortenson: You know, this is I-90, going 70 miles-an-hour. He abruptly took an exit and then got back on the highway … you know, looking in his rear-view mirror,  “is somebody following me?”

About an hour later, Dan Howard made it to the Spokane International Airport.

Peter Van Sant: He’s right there at the airport terminal.

Stan Mortenson: He’s right there at the airport terminal. Dan was taken out of the car. He was put into handcuffs.

Dan Howard claimed he had gone there to help a friend return a rental car — not to make a run for it.

Stan Mortenson: And I think it’s possible that he was gonna cut the ankle monitor off, leave it in his car and then drive away in another rental car.

Instead, Dan Howard’s drive was a short one back to a jail cell in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. His bail was revoked. Days later, the prosecution made closing arguments.

JULIA SCHOFFSTALL (in court): Ladies and gentlemen, the state has shown you … this was not suicide ’cause a dead person cannot shoot themselves in the mouth.

The jury was not told about Dan Howard’s escape attempt. His defense attorney insisted that Kendy took her own life.

JASON JOHNSON (in court): The scene is consistent with suicide.

And that Dan Howard did not have the skills to “stage” a murder scene.

JASON JOHNSON (in court): There’s no evidence that he worked as a detective. No evidence that he had any sort of homicide training. Uh, no evidence of the knowledge of staging a scene.

After 10 days of trial, 62 witnesses and just over eight hours of deliberations, the jury reached a verdict: guilty of second-degree murder.

Brooke Wilkins: I cried. There was — I think I gasped that — there was crying and —

Peter Van Sant: And did you look at Dan?

Brooke Wilkins: I’m looking at him and as he turns there’s just — there’s no expression. There’s no look of remorse.

Dan Howard had shown no emotion. But two months later at his sentencing, he begged the judge for leniency.

DAN HOWARD (in court):  I love my wife, and I miss her. (cries) And … I am not that monster, I assure you, that, um, people have portrayed me to be. Kendy and I had, um, 28 years together. And, um, raised a family. Had mostly a good marriage and a good life. … I’m not that animal that they portray me to be. …  It is not my intention to anger the court or disrespect the process that, uh, I used to believe in … But, your Honor is about to sentence an innocent man to prison.

But the judge wasn’t moved.

JUDGE LAMONT BERECZ (in court): What we know beyond a reasonable doubt is that you strangled your wife. You murdered her. And then you staged her naked body in the bathtub, shot her through the mouth, and tried to pass this off as a suicide. … You killed a mother. You killed a grandmother. You killed a sister. … You snuffed that out because of your own pride, greed, and anger.”

“Pride, greed, and anger,” said the judge. But others kept coming back to the word “control.”

Julia Schoffstall: To me, this case was about a man who thought that he could control a woman. … And if he couldn’t get his way, he was going to force it.

Brooke Wilkins: I cried. … it’s such a relief. … that … people got to hear what actually happened.

Brooke Wilkins’ daughter Kenly was just 8 when her beloved grandmother was murdered. Now 12, she treasures these glass chickens that her grandma collected.

Peter Van Sant: Do you feel a connection to your grandmother when you — when you see these?

Kenly Wilkins: Yeah.

Brooke Wilkins: She had had a china hutch.

Kenly Wilkins: Yeah, a china hutch. It was just full of chickens. So I’d always just try and like, look at how many different colors there were.

Peter Van Sant: Pretty cool grandma. You loved her, didn’t you?

Kenly Wilkins: (Nods yes)

Peter Van Sant: What is the hardest thing for you?

Kenly Wilkins: Probably her smile.

Peter Van Sant: It’s tough, isn’t it?

Kenly Wilkins: Yeah. (cries)

Michelle Lampert: I want justice for Kendy. … what I hope they get from the story that you don’t have to live like this. … I wish I could have stopped it. I’m still shocked that we’re still talking about domestic violence … And that sometimes you can’t do anything. (cries)

Dan Howard was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

 

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Produced by Chuck Stevenson and Lauren Clark. Cindy Cesare, Danielle Austen and Sara Ely Hulse are the development producers. Megan Kelly Brown is the associate producer. Greg Kaplan and Michael Baluzy are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.