Prosecutors say Wisconsin husband murdered his wife and staged the scene to look like a freak car accident

Todd Kendhammer says his spouse Barbara died in a freak automotive accident. However authorities questioned his story from the start, and he was tried and convicted of intentional murder.

Kendhammer and his youngsters have refused to just accept the decision and are searching for a brand new trial. Their combat for what they are saying is justice is the main target of “Thriller on County Highway M,” reported by “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty. An encore of the printed is streaming on Paramount+.

Simply after 8 a.m. on September 16, 2016, a distraught Todd Kendhammer referred to as 911 to report a automotive accident on a rural street outdoors La Crosse, Wisconsin. “A pipe or one thing got here by means of the windshield,” he instructed the operator.

When authorities arrived, he instructed them a pipe flew off a truck driving in the wrong way, got here by means of the windshield and struck his spouse. Barbara Kendhammer, 46, was rushed to the hospital however died the following day. The couple had simply celebrated their twenty fifth anniversary. 

Their youngsters, Jessica Servais and Jordan Kendhammer, say their dad and mom had been nonetheless very a lot in love. “No matter my mother needed, my dad gave it to her,” Servais instructed Moriarty. “They had been simply in a very good time of their lives ‘trigger that they had their first grandchild, and so they had been properly off.”

An post-mortem revealed that Barbara died of blunt power accidents to the top and neck. She additionally had three lacerations to the again of her head. The medical expert didn’t assume Barbara’s accidents had been in line with the accident as described by Todd.

“She stated that the accidents to Barb had been very inconsistent with a pipe … that measurement and that weight coming by means of the windshield,” says Tim Gruenke, La Crosse County district lawyer.

Surveillance video from a horse ranch down the street confirmed what seems to be the Kendhammer automotive cross by at roughly 7:57 a.m. on the day of the incident. However at across the similar time, no truck that matched the outline Todd gave police was ever seen heading in the wrong way.

Todd Kendhammer instructed police that he and Barbara had been driving to select up a truck that wanted a windshield changed, belonging to a person named Justin Heim. Kendhammer did windshield substitute work as a facet job.

“When the police seemed into that, they discovered Justin Heim by no means had ordered a windshield from Todd, did not want a windshield. Todd did not even know the place he lived,” says Gruenke. Kendhammer then instructed police he was going to see a good friend of Heim’s.

Gruenke believes Todd Kendhammer killed Barbara and staged the scene to seem like an accident. Kendhammer was arrested three months later and went on trial a yr after that. “On daily basis I used to be in a continuing state of hysteria and could not eat and could not sleep,” says Jessica.

At trial, either side argued about what induced Barbara’s accidents — a tragic accident, or a brutal combat. The windshield was as hotly disputed because the medical proof. Dueling consultants had completely different theories of what induced the glass fracture patterns.