Texas dad guns down wife, daughters, mother-in-law, over love triangle

a family's peaceful holiday gathering is suddenly crashed by a murderous maniac with an assault rifle and a frantic emergency operator hears the unspeakable horror unfolding at grandma's house [Music] remember saying to myself you know what the hell how many more could there possibly be this shocking tragedy would wipe out all but two members of what was regarded as the perfect all-american family by friends and neighbors in weatherford texas a quiet bedroom community of fort worth they were something else in their little town where craig kaler an accomplished engineer was the town's utility director it was a not only well-paying job but a well-respected position within the community craig and karen were also the proud parents of two beautiful teenage daughters emily and lauren and a toddler named sean emily was the firstborn and she was a smart kid a pleaser wanted to do good kind of like her mom creative and smart so was younger sister lauren but in a different way says their aunt lynn karen's younger sister she was kind of silly more of a creative outside the box kind of a thinker the pair had combined their talents to become the leaders of an all-girl band that made them local stars like their mom and dad emily played the drum set and sang and lauren played the bass and sang and with their beautiful home and all the other trappings of wealth and success the kaler family was living the dream but lynn says that although craig and karen appeared to be still in love after more than 20 years of marriage behind closed doors they had hit some bumps in the road relationship wise with between the two of them it was just not going well lynn says she had learned that craig had become obsessively controlling right down to limiting karen to an allowance and even setting the precise time they would have sex each night if she didn't do what he wanted bedtime at nine she would quote pay for it but lynn says karen continued to cater to craig's demands to keep peace in the family she found it just easier to go along with okay he expects this so i might as well just do it so i don't have to pay for it later that is until karen found someone who treated her a whole lot better another woman sonny reese a beautiful fellow fitness instructor karen had met and fallen for at the gym where they both worked my theory is karen was so beaten down for so long finally somebody took an interest in her in a positive way and treated her well karen and sonny are said to have become so inseparable that karen told craig about their affair and her husband reportedly not only approved of it but actually encouraged karen to continue seeing something i kind of had a thought in mind of the three of them having been involved in a threesome type of situation until craig found himself the odd man out it seems like it kind of backfired on him as it became obvious that karen and sunny were both interested in each other not in him and kind of started pushing him out of the picture then he became extremely jealous of that relationship so jealous allegedly that craig took a new even higher paying government job in columbia missouri and moved karen and their daughters into an even nicer home there just to get his wife away from his love rival sonny he basically thought that moving the family away getting them to another town that they go back to having the perfect life but within a year karen files for divorce takes her daughters and returns to girlfriend sonny he didn't know how to handle that and then it happens as karen and the kids are visiting her grandmother 89 year old dorothy white at her farm on thanksgiving weekend [Music] the grandmother calls her emergency alert service saying a gunman has just burst into her home firing at anything that moves the alarmed operator can hear gunfire in the background [Music] sheriff's deputy nathan perling is the first to arrive at the crime scene to find the grandmother in the kitchen still alive but bleeding to death from multiple gunshot wounds her forearm her abdomen the amount of blood that there wasn't anything that i could do for her at that moment deputy purling follows a trail of blood and shell casings into the dining room where he finds grandma white's granddaughter karen also riddled with bullets and apparently dead she was on the floor on her back she didn't look like she was breathing or had a pulse as he continues through the house deputy purling finds emily also apparently dead in the living room [Music] she had been shot once in the chest she either was hiding or fell behind the couch in the coffee table it's like the deputy has walked into a waking nightmare i remember saying to myself you know what the hell how many more could there possibly be and then something eerie gets his attention i heard this voice very faint very [Music] disturbing i guess is the word i would use pleading help me help me i don't want to die the deputy follows the voice up the stairs to find karen's youngest daughter 16 year old lauren shot in the back and bleeding to death from her bully woods her lower right side was turning purple as i was watching it so i could see the blood pooling up internally but lauren was still desperately clinging to life and still talking her last words recorded by deputy purlin hold up don't move i know don't move i don't want to die i'm going to take care of you okay make me alive cops had arrived at grandma wright's home to find a little farmhouse of unimaginable horse her 18 year old great-granddaughter was already dead and the teenager's mother 44 year old karen had also been killed in a horrifying thanksgiving holiday message but 89 year old grandmother dorothy was still alive as was emily's younger sister lauren who is 16. i don't want to die and with her dying breath lauren tells deputy sheriff nathan perling the identity of the man who shot the entire family she told me craig and i said who's craig and she said my dad the deputy could hardly believe his own earrings she was very clear and so at that moment i put out the put out the dispatch who we were looking for who had done this and then i just held her until medics arrived and rushed lauren to a hospital where the heroic teen would be declared dead soon after arrival she was amazing i can't imagine the level of pain that she was in emotionally and physically grandma wright would also identify craig keeler as the gunman before dying several days later and as heartbreaking as it is craig and karen's little boy sean just 10 years old would point the finger at his father he watched his dad come in the back door and shoot his mom before fleeing to the safety of a neighbor's home we all believe that yes absolutely the sun was intentionally spared and investigators would learn why after capturing craig the morning after the message when someone spotted the fugitive father abandoning his truck and running down a quiet road in the woods i believe there's somebody back here and 46 year old craig keeler would surrender peacefully to a sheriff's deputy who responded to the 9-1-1 call he pulled up to him and rolled his window down and the individual said i'm the man you're looking for this doesn't look really very good as i'm sure can well understand i messed up i messed up kaler refuses to talk to detectives at the station about the day of his family's massacre but he speaks openly about the events leading up to it obviously it's the same connection admitting that he was hurt and angry when his wife karen left him for another woman a fellow fitness instructor sonny reese and then filed for divorce i was having a hard time with the whole situation keller says he was agreeable to karen having a relationship with sonny in the beginning i said you know i'm just so happy i you know there's something you wanted to try just i just don't want to lose you in the process just be careful right i was trying to be trying to be nice and better so what happened i mean it just it just became just a relationship that took over kaler says karen's affair with sonny continued even after he moved the family from texas to missouri in the hope of breaking them up and winning back his wife she fly down there something flat here and kaler says he was furious when he learned karen was allegedly taking the kids with her when she visited sonny kids told me that they stayed in a hotel room sonny was there obviously he says he also felt humiliated when karen and sonny came out by flaunting their relationship at a new year's eve party attended by some of his friends they were sitting together and rubbing each other's leg and i mean just just making a spectacle and then it just got out of control and sunny had apparently enraged keeler when she sent him this text reading in part she's only staying with you because she believes that right now it's that's for the kids she doesn't love you craig and he tells detectives karen only rubbed salt in the wounds she had him arrested on domestic violence charges for hugging her against her wishes while they were still married yeah that's when she moved out andy says that arrest along with the divorce and the toll it took on his work performance had cost him his job with the city and he was arrested right outside the city council meeting it was horribly embarrassing to him that you were making quite a bit of money there too says he lost even more money when karen allegedly cleaned out their fifty thousand dollar joint bank account and he was ordered to pay more than three thousand dollars a month in child support unbelievable so he lost his wife his children his job and was living back home with his parents at that point kaler tells detectives he even lost the affection of his daughters they sided with mom karen after she filed for divorce were they angry i don't know if they were angry were you angry at them i wasn't angry frustrated sometimes he was upset with them for condoning the mother's relationship that he didn't approve of and investigators suspect that's why kayla murdered the two teenagers as well as her mother karen and grandmother dorothy when his rage fondly exploded in that massacre it's our belief that he went there with all intention of killing karen and her in the two daughters prosecutor brandon jones also believes kaler spared the life of his son sean because he remained close to his father and at 10 was too young to understand what was going on between his parents he shot mom deliberately and then intentionally moved on past the sun and allowed the sun to run out we believe that his son was his buddy he liked his son and ironically as the only survivor of the massacre young sean would be the star witness for the prosecution and his father's murder trial sean obviously identified his dad as being the one who walked in and shot his mom for a boy to get up there the weight of the world on his shoulders and testify extremely tough for him i think he was proud that sean was up there testifying that he was had the ability to do that and craig khaler who had pleaded not guilty by reason of mental illness would be convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death there was never remorse never sadness there's almost a sense of accomplishment he was proud of what he did there was certainly no tears shed by craig keator in court fully convinced in his own twisted mind says prosecutor jones that he righteously delivered his son from the clutches of his mother and her lover sonny reese he's written letters to me from death row and to other people he feels that he did it for his son that's i think how he can live with himself is that he did this to free sean which doesn't make any sense to family members left mourning the loss of four loved ones at the murderous hands of craig kaler i'm not saying he's insane but not a person who's got all their brain faculties wouldn't kill somebody period after sentencing craig kaler added one final insult while walking out of court yelling to his mother and father quote take care of sean so he's not raised by a bunch of freaks after going into the foster system sean would eventually live with craig's parents he's now graduated high school and works in kansas

Channel: True Crime Daily

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Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Thu May 20 2021