Man charged in local homicide
Jimmy D. McDaniel
By Ted Pennekamp
A Hampton, Ga., man accused of murdering his girlfriend in the town of Bridgeport, was charged with first degree reckless homicide in Crawford County Circuit Court Monday afternoon, Oct. 17.
Jimmy D. McDaniel, 49, appeared via video at his initial court appearance and began crying as Judge Lynn Rider read the charge to him. McDaniel continued to cry throughout most of the hearing.
He faces up to 60 years in prison if convicted of recklessly causing the death of Linda Kline, 53, at the house she lived in on Velvet Lane in the town of Bridgeport.
According to the criminal complaint filed Monday, at about 12:15 a.m. on Oct. 5, a 911 call went to the Crawford County Law Enforcement Center stating a woman had hanged herself. Sheriff’s department deputies and a Prairie du Chien police officer responded to the scene.
The police officer was the first to arrive, and he noted a woman lying on the ground in the back yard of the residence and a man kneeling near the woman’s head. The man, later identified as McDaniel, looked up at the officer and began what appeared to be CPR compressions on the woman. The officer told McDaniel to back away and go into the residence. Emergency medical personnel were then contacted by the officer. EMTs arrived and confirmed the woman was dead. She was identified as Kline.
Officers observed Kline to be positioned under a wooden T-shaped structure, designed to hold a bird feeder. Officers saw a white extension cord with one end tied to the cross-piece of the bird feeder.
Kline’s body was transported from the scene, according to the statement. She was described as about 5-feet, 3-inches tall and weighing between 120 and 140 pounds.
A sheriff’s department lieutenant went to the bird feeder where the electrical cord was hanging and pulled down on the cord. The top cross piece of the bird feeder completely detached from the post with very little effort or force, the complaint said.
When an officer spoke to McDaniel inside the residence, he said he and Kline had a relationship since October 2015. McDaniel gave a timeline of events that day. He said he and Kline were doing chores outside, cutting and hauling brush. At about noon, they went into the house to get ready to go to La Crosse for Kline’s doctor’s appointment. McDaniel said after returning from La Crosse, he, Kline and Kline’s sister, Michelle Little, had dinner. McDaniel and Kline then went downstairs to watch a movie around 8 p.m.
At about 8:30, Kline told McDaniel she was going outside to clear out the rest of the branches they had brushed out that morning. McDaniel said he told Kline she didn’t have to do that and they could finish it in the morning. Kline then sat back down on the couch, according to McDaniel, and he went into the bedroom to play a game on his cell phone.
At about 8:45 p.m., McDaniel came out of the bedroom and Kline was not on the couch so he went looking for her, the complaint said.
McDaniel said he went looking for Kline, first upstairs and then outside. He said he then saw her partially suspended from the waist-up from the cross piece of the bird feeder, with her legs out to one side. McDaniel said he lifted Kline up, slipped the cord off her neck, laid her down, and ran to the house.
McDaniel said he told Kline’s sister to call 911 because Kline had hanged herself. Little then immediately called 911, McDaniel said, according to the complaint.
Because the 911 call came into the dispatch center at 12:15 a.m., McDaniel was asked as to his and Kline’s whereabouts and actions between 8:45 p.m. and 12:15 a.m. McDaniel was unable to provide this information.
When informed that Kline was, in fact, dead, McDaniel became emotional and began yelling at Kline’s sisters, brother and mother who were at the residence, the statement said. McDaniel was then taken to the Crawford County Law Enforcement Center.
Officers spoke with Little, the owner of the house, who said she had no contact with Kline or McDaniel after dinner until she heard someone banging on the back door of her residence. When she got to the door, it was McDaniel and he told her to call 911 because Kline had hanged herself, according to the complaint. Little said she was not aware of anyone else in the residence that evening.
A Crawford County lieutenant spoke again with McDaniel, who was very detailed about events leading up to 8:30 p.m., but could provide no information about his or Kline’s actions between then and 12:15 a.m., the complaint said. In fact, the lieutenant said McDaniel ppeared to become very nervous, fidgety, and would begin to sweat profusely when asked about this time period.
McDaniel was taken back to the residence to get some personal items and clothes and then dropped off at the Holiday Motel in Prairie du Chien at about 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 5.
Kline’s body was taken to University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison for an autopsy. The pathologist, Dr. Michael Stier, said the cause of death was not asphyxiation, or death by hanging. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and face and strangulation prior to the alleged hanging. Stier observed multiple lesions and hand-finger marks on Kline’s neck, which he noted as acute manual strangulation occurring prior to the alleged hanging. He classified this as “complex homicidal violence.” He ruled the death a homicide and said this was a “staged hanging” or “staged suicide.” Stier also noted “defensive wounds” to Kline’s hands and forearms, the complaint said.
After learning the results of the autopsy, the lieutenant contacted the Prairie du Chien Police Department. McDaniel was apprehended at 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 6 at the AmericInn in Prairie du Chien. McDaniel had been waiting for a ride to the La Crosse airport so he could fly to Georgia, according to the complaint.
During a bond hearing on Oct. 10, Judge Rider set bond at $500,000 cash.
At his initial appearance on Monday, McDaniel’s preliminary hearing was scheduled for 3 p.m. on Oct. 26. It was also noted that the preliminary hearing may be moved up to 2 p.m.
