11-year-old son testifies he saw his dad fatally shoot his mother; great-grandmother, sisters also killed (Lyndon, Kansas)

We first reported on this case after it first broke over a year ago. Now dad JAMES KRAIG KAHLER is finally on trial for the murder of his wife, her grandmother, AND his two daughter. It appears the 11-year-old son was not physically harmed in the attack, and is now testifying as a witness to his mother's shooting. Catch this: Daddy Dearest offered to waive the hearing, so as spare his son the "stress and emotional trauma of testifying." Ah shucks. I'm so moved. Guess Kahler thinks he can get major Daddy Points at trial now? SPARE ME PULEEZE.

If Daddy had cared about the welfare of his son, he wouldn't have slaughtered four members of his family--all women by the way. But of course the fathers rights people will call me out as an awful sexist for pointing that out, won't they?

Earlier accounts related this murder to a "custody dispute." I guess the media is dropping that language too.

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/21/2535313/boy-11-testifies-he-saw-his-father.html

Boy, 11, testifies he saw his father fatally shoot his mother
The Associated Press

LYNDON, Kan. An 11-year-old Kansas boy says he was cleaning coins with his mother at his great-grandmother’s house when his father came into the home and shot his mother with a deer rifle.

The boy testified Tuesday in a preliminary hearing for 47-year-old James Kraig Kahler . The father is charged in Osage County with four counts of capital murder in the November 2009 killings of his wife, her grandmother and the couple’s two daughters.
Kahler was working at the time as a city official in Columbia, Mo.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that the boy testified over a remote TV hookup to Osage County District Court.

Kahler had offered to waive the hearing because he didn’t want his son exposed to the stress and emotional trauma of testifying.

The hearing was expected to last at least through Tuesday.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/21/2535313/boy-11-testifies-he-saw-his-father.html#ixzz18mbMqXwZ