LYNDON, Kan. (AP) An attorney who represented a murdered Missouri woman in a divorce case is a witness in the capital murder trial of her estranged husband in Kansas.
Prosecutors were preparing Tuesday to call Dan Pingelton, of Columbia, Mo., for their second day of evidence against James Kraig Kahler, 48.
Kahler is charged in Osage County District Court with killing his estranged wife, their two daughters, and his wife’s grandmother. They were shot in the grandmother’s home outside Burlingame, about 20 miles south of Topeka.
Pingelton represented Kahler’s estranged wife in the couple’s divorce case in Columbia, where Kahler had been water director but lost his job.
Defense attorneys contend Kahler was mentally ill at the time because his wife was having a lesbian affair and his marriage was breaking up.