Bart and Krista Halderson.Photo: Dane County Sheriff’s Office
A 23-year-old Wisconsin man has been convicted in the kidnapping and killing of his parents.
On Thursday, a Dane County jury found Chandler Halderson guilty of eight felony charges for killing and dismembering his father, Bart Halderson, 50, and mother, Krista Halderson, 53, and lying to law enforcement about their whereabouts whenhe reported them missinglast July.
“I hope that it brings some satisfaction,” Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne told reporters after the verdicts were announced,per theWisconsinState Journal. “We know that we cannot bring Bart and Krista back, but this is the first step to hopefully some finality.”
In July 2021, Halderson called the Dane County Sheriff’s Office to report that his parents had vanished from their home on Oak Springs Circle on July 1, according to aprobable cause statementfiled with the court.
The next day, police found a human torso in Cottage Grove, where Chandler had allegedly been seen driving his vehicle in reverse “with the rear hatch open in a field near a wooded area,” the probable cause statement said.
Chandler Halderson.Dane County Jail
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Chandler was arrested on July 8. He previously pleaded not guilty on all counts. His defense attorneys rested their case Thursday without calling any witnesses to the stand, theState Journalreported Friday.
Court records show that Halderson was convicted of two counts each of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse, hiding a corpse and falsifying information about a missing person.
First-degree intentional homicide carries a mandatory life sentence, according to theState Journal.
Halderson has a sentencing hearing in March, where attorneys will argue whether he will ever be eligible for parole, the newspaper reports.
source: people.com
