Officers with The Osage County Sheriff’s Department, Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Kansas Highway Patrol on Sunday investigate the scene of a shooting near Burlingame. A 12-hour manhunt ended Sunday with the arrest of a man suspected in a shooting that left three dead and one wounded in the house. James Kahler, 46, of Columbia, Mo., was arrested about 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, said Ashley Anstaett, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Attorney General’s Office.
Burlingame — A former city official from Missouri who lost his job after he was charged with assaulting his wife was accused Sunday of fatally shooting her and their teenage daughters in eastern Kansas.
The Kansas attorney general’s office said in a statement that James Kraig Kahler, 46, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of three counts of capital murder in the deaths of his 44-year-old wife, Karen, and their daughters, Emily, 18, and 16-year-old Lauren.
He also is accused of attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of his wife’s 89-year-old grandmother, Dorothy Wight, in whose Burlingame home the bodies were discovered on Saturday night.
Ashley Anstaett, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said Wight remained in critical condition Sunday.
Kahler is accused of aggravated burglary because authorities suspect he broke into Wight’s home to commit the crimes, the statement said.
Prosecutors will file charges against Kahler this morning. He was scheduled to appear in Osage County District Court at 11 a.m. today.
Anstaett said she didn’t know whether Kahler, who was arrested early Sunday after a 12-hour manhunt, had an attorney.
She confirmed that Kahler used to be the director of the Water & Light Department in Columbia, Mo., where he faced other charges. Online court records show Kahler was scheduled for trial in Columbia on Wednesday on a domestic assault charge that stemmed from an altercation with his wife in March.
Kahler’s attorney in that case, Rusty Antel, said the couple were divorcing and his client had moved from Columbia to the Topeka area. Court records show the Kahlers’ divorce trial was scheduled for Dec. 21.
Court records said the Kahlers had been sparring over their children, and that a hearing was scheduled for January.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reported Columbia City Manager Bill Watkins had asked Kahler to resign in September because of what Watkins called Kahler’s “difficult family issues.”
A neighbor of Karen Kahler said police were twice called to her home over the summer in response to reports that Kahler had slashed his wife’s car tires and ripped out utility cables. Karen Kahler had shared the Columbia home with their teenage daughters and their other child, aged 10.
In Kansas, Anstaett would not comment on whether the third child had been at Wight’s home in Burlingame, 21 miles southwest of Topeka, when the killings took place.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that police radio traffic indicated a 10-year-old child fled the house to call for help.
Comments
LJWorld.com doesn’t necessarily condone the comments here, nor does it review every post. Read our full policy. Also, read about banned accounts and harassing comments.
middlemgmt (anonymous) says…
How sad! a 10 year old has now lost her whole family. That's heartwrenching!
poolside (anonymous) says…
No lie plus the trauma of having watched some or all of the event and now he/she will be asked as a witness, etc. And because Dad went after Grandma too...well, I just hope there is another loving family member out there for this hurting heart. Dear Diary, 4th grade is when I became an adult..
bondmen (anonymous) says…
The late Karen Kahler and her daughters, Emily, 18, and 16-year-old Lauren all should have been armed with handguns and well practiced to take their jerk husband/father OUT! Why would they not take steps to protect themselves from and obviously violent, out of control man?
Soon the world will be populated with only idiots and madmen unless we individually take a decision to STOP them. Quit waiting on someone else to do the heavy lifting and get busy folks, time is short, especially in the case of the Kahler women.
Put a face on this murderous thug here:
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/sto...
geekin_topekan (anonymous) says…
We have got to get these guns under tighter control pronto.
It is obvious that the rational population does not need them and only the criminal minded seek them.Law abiding and murderous alike, the innocent are the ones who suffer.
Me? Unarmed, unafraid.Life is good.
mom_of_three (anonymous) says…
bondman, not everyone sees a gun as a fail safe, sure fire method of staying safe. Since we do not know how the murders occurred, who knows if it would have helped.
denak (anonymous) says…
Wow, that's classy bondman, blame the victims.
geekin_topekan (anonymous) says…
"should have been armed with handguns and well practiced to take their jerk husband/father OUT! "
++++
You mean like those four cops in Washington state? Who did they take out exactly? Taxpayer trained and armed and what happened?
wyattearp2 (anonymous) says…
It sounds like the suspect's mother needed to eat him just after giving birth to the sorry piece of sh** like they do in the animal world.
Irish (Leslie Swearingen) says…
There have been quite a few incidents this year where an entire family was killed by another family member.
Do families just torment each other until one of them snaps?
How often does this happen?