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Stories here are reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
Wichita woman tries to hire hit men to kill estranged husband running a competing dating service
Topeka woman charged with murder and arson in death of ex-husband
Woman charged with arson in Wichita
Wellington woman convicted for attempted murder
Doctor charged with arson, murder of two of her three children, and poisoning her husband in Olathe
Newton wife sentenced in kill-husband plot
Girlfriend bites boyfriend's tongue off in Wichita
Woman accused of killing husband in Wichita
Hearing in Olathe ends for woman accused of murdering her husband 22-years ago
Boy shoots mom to save grandpa in Wichita
Wichita man in good condition after being stabbed by his sister
Colorado woman arrested in murder of ex-husband in Johnson City
Topeka woman arrested for domestic violence
Argument over “C-Thug” nickname ends with woman stabbing man in Wichita
May 15, 1988 — Amelia Mickey Brennan owned a dating service. Her estranged husband also owned a competing dating service. In May 1988, she attempted to hire two undercover vice detectives to kill her estranged husband/competitor. Ms. Brennan apparently told the two detectives to shoot him in the head three times, and gave them a gun, bullets, and $1000.
January 17, 1991 — A Topeka woman has been charged with first-degree murder and aggravated arson in the fire-related death of her live-in ex-husband, authorities said. Lena Bernice “Fergie” Ferguson, 41, remained in the Shawnee County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bond and was ordered to appear for a preliminary hearing today.
She was charged in Sunday's death of David Summers, 43, said Shawnee County Assistant District Attorney Dave Debenham. An autopsy found that heat and smoke inhalation killed Ms. Ferguson's former husband.
November 11, 1991 — A 56-year-old woman was charged this week in Sedgwick County District Court with one count of arson in connection with a fire at a residence at 633 N. Eisenhower. Fire investigators think Frances E. Vuoso set the October 21 st fire that damaged personal property owned by Leo Carl Stephens.
August 14, 1992 — Ms. Georgina Thompson, 37, was charged on March 18, 1992 with attempting to hire an acquaintance to kill her common law husband/lover, Mike Cypert, in exchange for his baseball card collection and money.
On April 3, 1992, she was arraigned on two additional charges of making terroristic threats after the first charge was made.
On August 13, 1992, Ms. Thompson was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison on the attempted murder charge. She was also sentenced to 1 to 5 years for the terroristic threats, and 1 year on an unrelated hot-check charge. However, the judge's decision allows all the sentences to be served concurrently.
Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
November 24, 1995 (AP) — An Olathe doctor who escaped a fire that destroyed her family's $400,000 home a month ago has been arrested and charged with arson and murder in the deaths of two of her children, who did not escape.
Dr. Debora Green, age 44, was arrested Wednesday at a Kansas City, Missouri, theater where she had taken her surviving daughter, a ballerina, to practice for her starring role in The Nutcracker. Dr. Green and her daughter, Kate Farrar, 10, escaped the October 24 fire at their suburban Prairie Village home.
On Monday, November 27 th Dr. Green waived extradition and was returned to Kansas to face arson and murder charges. She was transferred to the Johnson County Jail in suburban Olathe.
Dr. Debora Green is charged with aggravated arson and two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Tim Farrar, 13, and Kelly Farrar, 6. Green is also charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder of her husband and surviving daughter. She was held on $3 million bond.
Investigators quickly ruled arson in the fire that destroyed the family's six-bedroom, $400,000 home. Accelerants were poured in several areas of the house and fed the flames.
Dr. Green escaped the fire through her back bedroom door on the first floor. Kate survived by climbing through her second-floor bedroom window onto the garage roof and jumping.
Paramedics called to a hotel room to help Dr. Green after the fire testified that they heard her say “Oh, I killed my two babies.” Medics Mark Fuller and Marvin Landis said they were called to the hotel and found Debora Green lying on a bed. Her lawyer was also in the room. Fuller said he heard the lawyer say “You still have one beautiful baby left. You must be there for her.”
The investigation also included a closer look at a fire about 16 months earlier that damaged the family's previous home and the mysterious illness of the children's father, Dr. Michael Farrar, weeks before the October fire. Dr. Farrar was hospitalized again after the fire with apparent poisoning.
Farrar, who filed for divorce the day after the fire, was not at the Prairie Village house when the fire broke out.
Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison said he believes the fire was motivated by a domestic situation but refused further comment.
Friday, March 15, 1996, (AP) — A judge in Olathe rejected a defense request to separate murder and poisoning charges against a woman accused of setting a fire that killed two of her children.
Johnson County District Judge Peter Ruddick announced his decision Wednesday in the case of Dr. Debora Green of Prairie Village.
Dr. Green, age 44, is accused of starting a fire in October that killed Timothy Farrar, 13, and Kelly Farrar, 6. She is also accused of attempting to kill another child, Kate, 10, and of poisoning her estranged husband, Dr. Michael Farrar, 40, with castor beans before that. The third child, Kate Farrar, escaped the blaze that destroyed the family's Prairie Village home.
Judge Ruddick said it was clear that evidence in the murder and poisoning cases would overlap. And he said he found a compelling factual relationship between all counts.
Dr. Green's attorneys, Dennis Moore and Kevin Moriarty, had argued that trying all the charges together could confuse and mislead the jury, preventing Dr. Green from getting a fair trial.
Prosecutors argued against separate trials because of added expense and possible emotional harm to witnesses, including a child who survived the fire.
Ruddick said it seems unlikely that qualified jurors would have difficulty coming to a fair decision.
Dr. Green was being held in the Johnson County Jail in lieu of a $3 million bond. She was expected to be arraigned on the charges March 28, 1996.
August 28, 1997, Newton (AP) — A woman who tried to hire an undercover officer to kill her husband and her lover's wife was sentenced to nine years and two months in prison, despite her husband's pleas for her freedom.
A jury convicted Tommi Sommerfeld, 31, in June of conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder. She was sentenced Wednesday.
Prosecutors contended that Mrs. Sommerfeld and her lover, Jeff Dietz, conspired to kill their spouses because divorces would be too expensive and she strongly disliked her in-laws.
The pair tried to hire an undercover Reno County sheriff's deputy who posed as a hit man, prosecutors said. They were charged on Valentine's Day.
Jeff Dietz earlier pled guilty and is also serving a nine-year, two-month sentence.
Mrs. Sommerfeld's husband asked the judge not to send her to prison, saying he still loved her and believed in her innocence.
“I would very much just like to have my wife back home so that we can start rebuilding our lives together,” Derral Sommerfeld said in a letter to the judge.
Wednesday, December 3, 2003 (AP) — Young lovers can sometimes lose their heads, but a young man in Wichita lost part of his tongue, police said.
Police were called to a loud fight about 9 PM Monday, at a home on the east side of the state's largest city.
Officers gave this report: After the argument, the boyfriend tried to give the girlfriend a makeup kiss. Instead, she bit off a large part of his tongue. Police recovered the piece, and it was re-attached at a Wichita hospital.
The young woman faces charges of aggravated battery. Police said the boyfriend faces simple battery charges.
© 2004 Tim Potter, The Wichita Eagle
Abstracted under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
April 6, 2004 — Jay Kruger “loved his wife more than anybody I've ever known,” says his boss and neighbor, Jay Jones. Kruger, 47, would e-mail his wife, Carla, from work several times a day. They both loved to hunt, and that was part of their bond, Jones said.
But police say that late Sunday night Carla Kruger, age 48, fatally wounded her husband with a shotgun at their home in the 300 block of South Floyd, near Maple and Ridge Road. The home is in a neighborhood of manicured lawns and well-maintained 1950's ranch homes.
Kruger, operations manager for Celebrations Fun Equipment, was pronounced dead early Monday at Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus.
Authorities said Carla S. Kruger was being held in the shooting under a $250,000 bond at Sedgwick County Jail. Police will present the case to prosecutors this week.
Jay Kruger, whom police found on a bedroom floor, apparently had been shot once in the neck or chest with a shotgun, police Capt. Nelson Mosley said.
Mosley said he couldn't confirm whether Carla Kruger had any visible injuries after the shooting.
Police had responded a few nights earlier to a report of an argument between the couple but made no arrests, Mosley said. If police had seen any visible injuries or been able to obtain independent evidence, an arrest could have been made in such a case, Mosley said.
For several years, Jay Kruger had been operations manager for Celebrations, which rents entertainment equipment for large gatherings, said Jones, a co-owner of the company. The men also were neighbors. Jay Kruger had a demanding job, sometimes supervising up to 100 employees in delivering and setting up equipment. “He used quiet authority,” Jones said. Jones also said Kruger couldn't wait for deer season. “There were many times he worked an 80-hour week. There were times I had to flat tell him, 'You got to get out of here...go get your deer.' “
Carla Kruger sometimes worked part time for the same company, Jones said.
Kruger's death was the eighth homicide in Wichita this year.
© 2004 TheKansasCityChannel.com
Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
April 30, 2004 — A hearing about statements to police from a woman charged with murder, and now living in Ohio, wrapped up Friday.
Melinda Raisch is accused of killing her then-husband, David Harmon, 22 years ago.
The case hinges on whether Raisch's statements will be allowed in her trial. Raisch talked to police in 1982 and gave one story. Then, in 2001, she told another version of events when police interviewed her in Ohio.
Her lawyers argue that detectives should have called her original lawyer. But the prosecution said that Raisch could have asked for a lawyer.
“In fact, judge, this defendant never ever said she had a lawyer. In fact, she said quite the opposite in 2001,” prosecutor Paul Morrison said.
“It's like leading a lamb to slaughter, putting pressures on her. Could it be that the detective's promises are leading her that way?” said Robin Fowler, Raish's lawyer.
© 2005 by Ron Sylvester and Stan Finger, Wichita Eagle, Kansas.com
December 29, 2005 — Elizabeth A. White died Tuesday, December 27 th , of a shot to the heart, fired by her 14-year-old son from a pellet gun his grandfather had given him for Christmas.
The boy pulled the trigger while defending his grandfather, Wichita police said Wednesday. They ruled Ms. White's death a justifiable homicide.
Ms. White, 40, had a history of drug problems and had spent more time in prison than out over the past 16 years.
After a day of sorting out the incident, police released the details of their investigation:
Ms. White had been living in Salina but was in Wichita over the weekend after her family invited her for Christmas to the house where her parents raised her children.
Tuesday afternoon, White returned to the house in the 4000 block of East Brooks, across from the middle school bearing the same name.
Armed with scissors, she repeatedly threatened to kill her 73-year-old father. He tried to fend her off with a cane, while his 68-year-old wife grabbed a kitchen knife.
The argument spilled out into the front yard, where the father tripped over a planter and fell. As Ms. White moved toward her father with the scissors, the teenage boy stepped onto the front porch with the air rifle his grandfather had given him as a present Sunday.
The boy fired once from about 20 feet away, shooting his mother through the heart.
Ms. White then threw the scissors at her son but they flew on to the roof of the house. She then got in her car and drove to Bluff, where she turned south.
Police suspect Elizabeth White's chest wound caused her to lose control of the car as she approached 27 th Street. The car hit two poles, went through a fence, then hit an SUV that had been sitting on the street. Ms. White's car jumped the curb and landed in a yard, with the engine on fire.
Emergency services had been notified of a domestic dispute at the house around 2:30 PM and then of the accident a few blocks east of Hillside minutes later.
Sedgwick County Emergency Medical Services arrived at the scene first, with police close behind. A patrol officer broke the window out of the driver's side of the car, and a paramedic pulled White out of the car. Another paramedic extinguished the fire under the hood.
White was unconscious when she was pulled from the car and died at 4:30 PM after emergency surgery at a Wichita hospital.
State correctional and court records show that White began running into trouble with the law over drugs in 1989. She was in prison four years later following a string of drug offenses, along with convictions for prostitution, writing bad checks and making threats.
White got out of prison for the last time a little more than a year ago but absconded from her parole in July. Her sentence expired in August.
Reach Ron Sylvester at 268-6514 or rsylvester@wichitaeagle.com.
Wichita Eagle, Kansas. com
December 30, 2005 — A 49-year-old Wichita man was in good condition Thursday after being stabbed three times at his home, police said.
The man was stabbed shortly after 10 AM in the 500 block of West 18th Street, Sgt. Jeff Davis said. He said police are looking for the man's sister, who is suspected of throwing three Molotov cocktails at the man's house and then stabbing him. Davis said the cocktails didn't cause any damage.
June 24, 2006 (AP) — A Colorado woman is being held on $2 million bail in Great Falls, Montana, accused of the May 2005 murder of her ex-husband in Johnson City.
Shannon Floyd, 27, of Burlington, Colorado, was arrested Thursday night as she left her sister's house in Belt, Montana, to go for a walk. The Kansas State Bureau of Investigations told Cascade County sheriff's deputies where they believed she was staying.
Ms. Floyd was charged Friday with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the May 2005 death of her ex-husband, Michael Golub of Johnson City, Kansas.
Floyd's current husband, Chad Floyd, 27, was arrested Thursday in Burlington, Colorado, the Kansas attorney general's office said. He is also charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the case.
Golub was last seen on May 20, 2005, before leaving work to go visit his 5-year-old son at Shannon Floyd's house, said Jan Lunsford, public information officer with the Kansas attorney general's office. His body hasn't been found, Lunsford said.
Officials would not say what evidence implicated the Floyds in Golub's death.
July 15, 2008 — Police were at the scene of a domestic disturbance in the 3100 block of S.E. Colorado for more than four hours overnight before taking in two people.
The call originally came about 11:30 PM Monday as a dog attack, but police determined that the victim suffered stab wounds, not bites.
One of the two, a woman, is being held on suspicion of domestic violence for the stabbing or attempted stabbing of the other, Topeka police Capt. Ron Brown said this morning. The victim, a man, wasn't seriously hurt.
Brown said both were taken in because there were misdemeanor warrants on both, but only the woman in under suspicion of aggravated domestic violence.
June 18, 2008 — An argument over a nickname reportedly led Wichita police to a residence where they say a 44-year-old woman stabbed a 19-year-old with a butcher knife Friday.
Sgt. Lem Moore said in a police briefing this afternoon that nine people were gathering in the 3000 block of Old Lawrence Road, when two young men began arguing who should be able to use the nickname “C-Thug.”
The woman, who was a resident of the house, intervened and stabbed the 19-year-old in the back, Moore said.
The man was treated for minor injuries at Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus. The woman was arrested.
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| Chapter 10 — Domestic Violence Against Men In The United States |
| Next — Stories Of Abused Men In Kentucky |
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