|
|
 |
Thad
Alton /Topeka Capital Journal
Osage County
Attorney Brandon Jones, left, shows a picture of Dorothy Wight,
Burlingame, during opening statements Monday in Lyndon. Wight
and three relatives were shot in her home in 2009.
Catherine Faimon & Peggy Mooney
LYNDON—Key witnesses for the prosecution in the capital
murder trial of James Kraig Kahler spent Monday in court,
one recounting how he witnessed his father shoot his mother,
and another explaining how he tried to comfort a dying 16-year-old.
Sean Kahler, 12, testified Monday in Osage County District
Court during his father’s capital murder trial, that
as he stood at the kitchen sink of his great grandmother’s
Burlingame home, alongside his mother, his father came in
“with an AK-47 or something similar,” and shot
his mom in the leg. Before running to a neighbor’s home
to call for help, Sean escaped unharmed but heard several
more gunshots inside the house.
The boy’s appearance in court marked the first time
Kraig Kahler had seen his son in person, since the night of
Nov. 28, 2009, the night Kahler allegedly fatally shot his
estranged wife, Karen Kahler, 44, his daughters, Emily, 18,
and Lauren, 16, and Karen’s grandmother, Dorothy Wight,
89.
As Sean’s testimony wrapped up with questioning from
Kahler’s defense attorney Tom Haney, Topeka, Sean was
asked if he still loved his father “after all this.”
“Not really,” he said, with a noticeable break
in his voice.
He now lives with his mother’s sister, Lynn Denton,
and her husband, Tim, and their sons in Derby.
For the complete story, subscribe to the print or online
edition of The Osage County Herald-Chronicle at www.och-c.com/subscribe.html.
|
|
|
|
