There has been continuing attention for the Carr brothers' case because of various rulings about the Kansas death penalty law and decisions by its high court on such cases. They were each sentenced to death for the capital murders, as well as to life in prison, with decades to serve before being eligible for parole. Reginald Carr was convicted of 50 counts and Jonathan Carr of 43. With the help of Holly's testimony at the trial, both brothers were convicted of nearly all 113 counts against them, including kidnapping, robbery, rape, four counts of capital murder, and one count of first-degree murder. The District Attorney said that based on evidence they believed their motive was robbery. Reginald was identified by both Schreiber and the dying Walenta.
Police captured both Carr brothers the next day. Before getting medical treatment, she reported the incident and descriptions of her attackers to the couple who took her in, before the police arrived.Īfter the killings, the Carrs returned to the house to ransack it for more valuables while there, they used a golf club to beat Holly's pet dog Nikki to death. She walked naked for more than a mile in freezing weather to seek first aid and shelter at a house. survived because her plastic barrette deflected the bullet to the side of her head. The Carrs then drove Befort's truck over their bodies and left them for dead. The brothers then repeatedly raped the two women, and forced the men to engage in sexual acts with the women and the women with each other.Īfter taking the victims in Befort's truck to ATMs to empty their bank accounts, they drove them to the closed Stryker Soccer Complex on the outskirts of Wichita where they shot all five execution-style in the back of their heads. After burgling the house, the Carrs forced their victims to strip naked and then bound them. Befort had intended to propose to Holly, and she found this out when the Carrs discovered an engagement ring hidden in a popcorn box. įirst the Carrs searched the house for valuables. Befort was a local high school teacher Heyka was a director of finance with a local financial services company Muller was a local preschool teacher Sander a former financial analyst who had been studying to become a priest Holly G. Inside the property, which the brothers had chosen at random, were Brad Heyka, Heather Muller, Aaron Sander, Jason Befort and his girlfriend, a young woman identified as "Holly G.". On December 14, the brothers broke into a house at 12727 E Birchwood Drive in Wichita. She died three days later in hospital from her wounds. Three days later, on December 11, the two brothers shot and mortally wounded 55-year-old cellist and librarian Ann Walenta as she tried to escape from them in her car. On December 8, 2000, having recently arrived in Wichita, the brothers robbed and wounded 23-year-old Andrew Schreiber, an assistant baseball coach. Both 22-year-old Reginald and 20-year-old Jonathan had lengthy criminal records. The Carr brothers are incarcerated on death row at El Dorado Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison NE of Wichita. After an appeal by the state's attorney general to the US Supreme Court, it overturned the decision of the Kansas Supreme Court in January 2016, and reinstated the death sentences.
On July 25, 2014, the Kansas Supreme Court again overturned the Carrs' death sentences on a legal technicality relating to their original trial judge not giving each brother a separate penalty proceeding. In 2004, the Kansas Supreme Court overturned the state's death penalty law but the Kansas Attorney General appealed to the US Supreme Court which upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty in Kansas.
The case has received significant attention because the killers' death sentences have been subject to various rulings related to the use of executions in Kansas. Their vicious crimes created panic in the Wichita area resulting in an increase in the sales of guns, locks, and home security systems. They were both sentenced to death in October 2002. The brothers were arrested and convicted of multiple counts of murder, kidnapping, robbery, and rape. Five people were shot and killed and a woman was severely wounded.
The Wichita Massacre, also known as the Wichita Horror, was a week-long series of random brutal crimes perpetrated by brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr in the city of Wichita, Kansas between December 8 and 15, 2000.