One Drive From Murder

The story takes place near La Cross, Wisconsin - which is a town just off the Mississippi River in western Wisconsin, just a bit south of the middle of the state. Beautiful area where houses sit on acres of land with many rural county roads. Todd Kendhammer met Barbara when they were both just 16. They began dating in 1989 and in August 1991, they were married. They had a daughter, Jessica and then a son, Jordan. Their kids described their parents as the perfect example of a happy, healthy marriage. For Todd, he knew when he met Barb that she was the one and as Jessica would say, whatever my mom wanted, my dad would get her. Barbara worked in the cafeteria at the West Salem Middle School and Todd worked at Crown, Cork and Seal, a factory, making aluminum soda cans. On the side, Todd replaced people's broken windshields. They had a beautiful home, were not in debt, and lived comfortably. Todd was said to be always on the go, always with some new idea, and Barb was his willing sidekick. One day he came home and said they should buy a house and flip it – and they started regularly flipping houses together. In August of 2016 Jessica and Jordan threw their parents a surprise 25th anniversary party. Jessica had recently had a baby and Todd and Barb loved being grandparents. But just a month later, everything fell apart. It was the morning of Friday, September 16, 2016. Barb was scheduled to work at the middle school at 8am, the entire family was preparing for their annual Kendhammer Family camping trip after Barb got off work. Jordan was home from college and heard his parent leave the house together. If Todd had a day off he would typically drive Barb to and from work, and run errands or whatever in between. GPS from their cellphones show Todd and Barb stopping at a neighbor’s house from about 7:30 to 7:50am. It was ab 80-acre property, and the owners were out of state and the Kendhammers were taking care of it for them. When they left, they drove in the opposite direction of Barb’s school. At 8:05 a.m. Todd called 911 to report they had been in an accident and his wife was badly hurt. Todd said that as they were driving a pipe came thru the windshield of their car. He said Barb was hit in the head and throat and had blood coming out of her nose and mouth. Todd was beside himself. He kept asking how long until help arrived and what could he do to help her. She wasn’t breathing. They asked if he could get her out of the car and he said he already did. Medical personnel on the phone talked Todd thru giving Barb CPR. He kept asking how much longer until help arrived, he said she had blood coming out of her mouth and he didn’t know how long he could keep it up. But they encouraged him to keep going. He sounded frantic. He panicked saying they passed him. He kept going with the CPR until paramedics arrived, yelling to them to hurry up. He kept telling his wife “you’re gonna be ok Barb.” Todd’s sedan was ½ in a ditch on the side of the road, with the front end of the car facing the street. Officers on the scene pressed Todd to explain what happened. He said a pipe came off a truck as it passed them and went right thru their windshield, striking Barb. Todd was placed in a police car and questioned further. He told the police that at first he thought that it was a bird coming at the windshield and at the last second he realized it was a pipe. He kept asking for updates on Barb. Officers collected a 10-pound, 53-inch galvanized steel pipe from the scene, took pictures of Todd, then drove him to the hospital. Jessica and Jordan met their father at the hospital. He was a wreck; his t-shirt was soaked in blood. He kept asking for updates on his wife. Neurosurgeons gave the family updates over the next few hours but her prognosis was grim. By early evening they declared Barb Kendhammer braindead. She died the next morning at the age of 46. Her family made the decision to donate her organs. Officers at the scene were immediately suspicious of Todd at the scene of the accident. He couldn’t tell officers if the truck carrying the pipe was a pickup or a flatbed, or what color the cab was other than it was “a dark color”. He had scratches around his neck and his knuckles were bloody. Police tried to locate the truck or anyone near the scene that remembered seeing such a truck. A horse ranch down the road from where the accident took place had a surveillance camera that showed a car looking like Todd’s pass by at approximately 7:57 a.m., but there was no footage of a truck headed the opposite direction around that time. Four days after the accident, Medical Examiner Dr. Kathleen McCubbin conducted an autopsy on Barb. She concluded that Barb died of "blunt trauma injuries of the head and neck, with skull fractures, cricoid cartilage fractures, and ultimate brain death." The cricoid is a ring-shaped bony cartilage structure located in the lower neck. According to Dr. McCubbin, broken cricoid cartilage is consistent with strangulation. Barb also had 3 deep cuts and a fracture on the back of her head, scratches on her neck, a broken nose, a laceration on her forehead and bruising all over her body. Police had also interviewed a witness who said he drove by the Kendhammer’s car sticking out of a ditch around 8 a.m. The passenger door was open but he didn’t see any people around and he didn't see any damage to the windshield. But at the scene, the car’s windshield had 2 large spiderweb like breaks in it, one in front of the driver’s side and 1 in front of the passenger side with a hole the side of the pipe. Todd told police that, before driving Barbara to work, he was going to pick up a truck that needed a windshield replaced – his side job. He said the truck was waiting for him with keys inside in the driveway of a person he knew from work named Justin Heim. Now there are a few things here that didn’t add up. First, Barb was known to be very dependable. It wouldn’t be like her not to call the school and say she was going to be late. It was almost 8am when they started driving in the direction away from the school. Barb also called her mother every single morning. But she had not called her that morning before the accident. Then when police followed up with Justin Heim, the person from work whose windshield Todd was going to fix… Justin told police that he didn’t have a windshield that needed fixing and didn’t think Todd even knew where he lived. A week after Barb’s death, investigators asked Todd to come to the station, that they had a few leads on the truck that dropped the pipe. In the interrogation room, Todd seemed very anxious and agitated. His leg constantly bouncing up and down. He took out a prescription bottle, said he hadn’t taken his medicine that morning and asked if he could take it now. He said it was anti-anxiety medication. As police continued to question Todd about the accident, he seemed confused and couldn’t remember details. One investigator finally said, “There's no explanations for it. You can't — the injuries that were on Barb did not occur from that accident, from a pipe going through your windshield.” He also told Todd that he talked to Justin Heim. That’s when Todd said, it wasn’t Justin’s house he was going to, it was a friend of Justin’s. Police weren’t buying Todd’s story and lack of details on what happened. After 3 hours of interrogations, Todd went home. Police followed up with Justin Heim’s friend, who also told police that he didn't need a windshield and was not expecting Todd the day of the accident. 3 months later, Todd was arrested. In December 2017 Todd Kendhammer went to trial for the murder of his wife, Barbara. His kids, Jessica and Jordan stood behind their father and were hopeful a jury would believe him. The Prosecutor, District Attorney Tim Gruenke, could not give the jury a motive for the murder. The Kendhammers seemingly had the perfect marriage. The was no infidelity, no money issues, no big insurance payout. But the evidence would prove that Barbara’s death was no freak accident. The state's star witness was Medical Examiner Dr. Kathleen McCubbin. She testified that Barb’s injuries could not have happened the way Todd described. The jury heard how Todd told police at the scene that they were traveling north when a 10-pound, 53-inch galvanized steel pipe fell from an oncoming flatbed truck, bounced off the pavement and passed through the passenger side of the windshield, Barb. But then later he said the pipe did not strike the pavement before breaking through the windshield. After the pipe went thru the windshield, Todd drove about 100 yards north while trying to remove pipe from his wife, then turned east onto another road and drove another 100 yards before the car rolled backward into a grassy embankment. Once stopped, Todd said he removed the pipe from the windshield and threw it behind the car, pulled Barb from the car and tried CPR for 3 to 5 minutes before calling 911 at 8:06 a.m. A crime lab report concluded that the bloodstains found in the passenger seat and on the inside of the windshield indicated Barbara was inside the car when “force was applied,” and that the patterns are “consistent with a beating.” Blood drip and flow patterns concluded that Barbara was bleeding for a “period of time” in the passenger seat and that her body was at one point over the center console and passenger-side floor. A State Crime Laboratory analyst determined the pipe hit the passenger side of the windshield at least once before it broke through. There was no blood found on the pipe. Emergency responders did not find glass shards on Barbara, and the glass particles spread across the passenger seat indicated the seat was empty when the pipe penetrated the windshield, and it was likely the passenger door was open at the time the windshield was smashed, because there were no glass pieces in the door pocket. The jury was shown pictures of Todd’s bloody knuckles, as well as scratches on his neck and chest. He had explained that he had punched the windshield at as defense response when he saw the pipe coming toward them and that the scratches came from working with the broken glass windshields he replaced. Todd’s defense attorney, Stephen Hurley didn't call a forensic pathologist of his own to dispute the state's case but he did try to create reasonable doubt during cross-examination of Medical Examiner McCubbin. Barb had a large, barrel shaped steel travel mug that was found on the passenger side footwell. He asked the M. E. if her mug could have slammed into her face if she ducked to avoid the pipe and caused some of the injuries. Dr. Kathleen Mccubbin said, Yes, it was a possibility. But the defense did not question Dr. McCubbin’s opinion of the cricoid fracture which the prosecution insisted could only have been caused by Todd. The defense did call a glass expert with over 30 years of experience named Mark Meshulam, who testified that he believed the evidence supported Todd's story. But the state's forensic expert Nick Stahlke testified that the impacts to the windshield didn't occur in the way Todd said they did. So the D.A. argued that it was proof that Todd killed Barb by strangling her in the car, then pulled her out onto the grass, and while the passenger side door was open, manually punctured the windshield with the pipe, and that took 2 tries to get it to go through. Then he removed the pipe and threw it behind the car before calling 911. Todd Kendhammer took the stand to testify in his own defense. And on cross examination the DA successfully made him look untruthful. Video of his interrogation at the police station was shown and he admitted that he wasn’t himself during the interview. He still had foggy details of what happened. AND he gave a third explanation as to why they were driving north, away from Barb’s school when she was expected to start at 8am. Todd testified he was on his way to the home of Jared Loging to fix HIS windshield. (which by the way police looked into later and Jared Loging also told police that he wasn’t expecting Todd that day, nor did he need a windshield fixed). It took the jury only 9 hours to reach a guilty verdict. Todd’s conviction had an automatic life sentence, but it was up to the judge to decide if he would be eligible for parole. 3 months later at sentencing Jessica and Jordan were shocked when their mom’s cousin read a statement against their dad. Gerianne Buchner Wettstein read a letter signed by several other cousins. “I am here today. I do not stand alone. Barbara found the courage that day to fight back. Therefore, we stand here today, united with that same courage asking you to sentence her killer to the maximum penalty possible. In the 48 hours episode, Jessica said that Gerianne had been estranged her mom for years. “She basically painted this scene that … she just feels so bad about my mom and her big blue eyes, even though her eyes are green. … My mom hates her.” Then at sentencing Prosecutor Tim Gruenke said to Jessica and Jordan QUOTE: Pardon my language, but to be perfectly frank they need to get their head out of their ass. They need to start looking at this in reality” Because they had sold both Todd and Barbara's home and Jessica's house to pay Todd's legal bills. On the 48 hours episode, Jessica said: I don't think you should be able to talk that way in a courtroom. If you can think that to yourself, that's fine because I also think you're an ass, but I'm not going to say it out loud. So the judge ruled Todd would be eligible for parole after 30 years. That was in 2017. The Kendhammer kids believe their dad completely. In the 48 hours episode Jordan says: “If he wanted to kill ma, why the hell would he go through all the work and trouble to find a pipe, drive all the way out to the middle of a busy road — And Jessica adds: He has like 28 guns in the basement … And then Jordan: More than that. So they’ve hired husband and wife Jerry Buting and Kathleen Stilling to represent their dad. (Jerry Buting is known for defending Steven Avery, on the Netflix show "Making a Murderer." His original lawyer, not the one trying to overturn his conviction) In 2021, Todd was granted an evidentiary hearing on the basis that there is critical new evidence and that his original defense team had been ineffective. Todd’s lawyers had forensic pathologist, Dr. Shaku Teas, testify as to her opinion on Barb’s medical records and autopsy photos. She contracts everything from the M. E. at the trial, saying Barb did not appear to have been in a fight, all her injuries were caused either in the accident OR from having her organs harvested when they were donated! The injuries to the back of her skull could have been caused by her ducking and the pipe cut the back of her head as it grazed it and the cricoid could have been caused by the travel mug as she ducked. And they had Dr. Geoffrey Loftus, an expert in human memory, testified that Todd odd behavior and mulitple stories could be the result of stress from the trauma of the accident. The new evidence that granted them the hearing was video of the initial investigation, where police had tried to reconstruct Todd's story the pipe flying off a truck. They tried 4 times to drop a similar pipe off the back of a truck to see if it would not only hit the ground and bounce, but bounce high enough to get high enough to hit the windshield of the Kendhammer’s car. They tried 4 times, only once did the pipe bounce but it did bounce high enough to be the right height. But at the original trial both the prosecution and the defense lawyers thought the pipe test was inconclusive and both sides chose not to show it to the jury. And I don’t know if it was included in the evidentiary hearing, but there was another pipe found on the road up a ways that someone found shortly after the incident, Same diameter, same material as the pipe in the incident. In May 2022, a judge denied Todd’s request for a new trial. They plan to appeal. Sources: 48 Hours episode “Mystery on County Road M” CBS news .com Wild about trial .com And a little Wikipedia