Naman Shrestha
The sudden demise of Kendy Howard in February 2021 left the entire community rocked to its core. Although her husband, Dan Howard, seemed distraught on the outside, the police would soon discover that he was harboring a dark secret behind his grief-stricken facade. As it turned out, his story of Kendy’s suicide was just a coverup for his own crime. The entire case is extensively covered in CBS’ ’48 Hours: The Bathtub Murder of Kendy Howard,’ which also features the investigation that revealed Dan to be the killer and the intense trial that followed.
Dan Howard Staged the Crime Scene as a Suicide and Called 911
Born around the mid-1960s, Daniel “Dan” Charles Howard was a 28-year-old Marine-turned-Idaho state trooper when he tied the knot with 22-year-old Kendy Ann Wilkins (later Howard) in 1994. Residents of the town of Athol, the couple shared a son named Wyatt. On the outside, they appeared to be in a fulfilling marriage, but after more than two decades of togetherness, cracks began to appear. Things reportedly got worse when he shot and killed a woman during a traffic stop in 2011. Although he was cleared of the charges, it led to him resigning from the Idaho State Police in 2014.
With the help of Kendy’s brother, Dan got a job in the Alaskan oil fields. By 2021, the marriage had worsened to the point that she talked about moving out and divorcing him. In late January 2021, Dan allegedly stood over his wife wearing dark clothes and latex gloves with a pillow in hand in the middle of the night, seemingly to kill her. Although police came to her rescue that night and got her out of trouble, it was a whole different story a few days later, on the night of February 2. Around 10:43 pm, Dan dialed 911 and claimed that Kendy had taken her life in the bathtub.
The authorities were already skeptical about his story of suicide when they overheard her daughter, Brooke Wilkins, accusing him of murder over the phone call. Due to a lack of physical evidence, the authorities could not make an arrest. However, after gathering more information about Kendy’s death over the next couple of years, including medical reports and testimonies from loved ones, the police managed to obtain an arrest warrant. Finally, in April 2023, Dan Howard was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of felony domestic battery. Maintaining his innocence, he pleaded not guilty and decided to take his chances in court. Although he had posted bail, he was ordered to wear an ankle monitor while awaiting trial.
Dan Howard is Currently Incarcerated at an Idaho Prison Facility
More than three years after Kendy Howard’s untimely death, Dan Howard’s trial commenced on March 4, 2024. During the trial, the prosecution claimed that the defendant had killed Kendy by strangling her to death using a carotid restraint hold and staged the crime scene as a suicide to get away with it. To counter that, the defense argued that everything pointed at her death being a suicide. In the midst of the trial, he allegedly tried to run away but was caught at the Spokane International Airport. He claimed that he was not trying to escape but to help a friend return a rental car. Despite his claims, his bail was revoked, and he was detained in a jail cell in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Over the course of 10 days of testimony, a total of 62 witnesses took the stand. After eight hours of deliberations, the jury returned with a guilty verdict and convicted Dan of all the charges against him on March 19, 2024. A couple of months later, on May 23, the convict begged the judge for leniency at his sentencing. He stated, “I love my wife, and I miss her. And I am not that monster, I assure you, that, um, people have portrayed me to be. Kendy and I had, um, 28 years together. And, um, raised a family. Had mostly a good marriage and a good life. I’m not that animal that they portray me to be. It is not my intention to anger the court or disrespect the process that, uh, I used to believe in. But, your Honor is about to sentence an innocent man to prison.”
Seemingly unmoved by his statement, the judge addressed him, saying, “What we know beyond a reasonable doubt is that you strangled your wife. You murdered her. And then you staged her naked body in the bathtub, shot her through the mouth, and tried to pass this off as a suicide. You killed a mother. You killed a grandmother. You killed a sister. You snuffed that out because of your own pride, greed, and anger.” Ultimately, Daniel Howard was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. As of today, the 59-year-old wife killer is serving his sentence at Idaho State Correctional Institution in Boise, Idaho.
