COLUMBIA -- Former Columbia Water and Light Director James Kraig Kahler remains in a Kansas jail with a bond of $10 million.
Authorities said Kahler is suspected of murdering his wife Karen and two teenage daughters and critically injuring his wife’s grandmother during a shooting rampage over the weekend in eastern Kansas.
Columbia City Manager Bill Watkins asked Kraig Kahler to resign as the director of Columbia’s water and light department in September because of family problems.
Kraig and Karen Kahler were going through a divorce. Karen's friends said that Kraig stalked and harassed his wife and family.
Karen Kahler was Traci Wilson-Kleekamp’s personal trainer at Columbia’s Activity and Recreation Center. Traci remembers when Karen showed up at the gym with bruises on her arm.
“Some women who go into a shelter, they get to go into hiding," Wilson-Kleekamp said. "Karen was living her life everyday. She was living openly. She was enjoying life, making the best of it with her children. I can’t do anything but respect that.”
Karen Kahler’s divorce attorney Dan Pingelton said authorities could never prove Kraig was harassing his wife by hacking into her computer, slashing her tires and cutting her utility lines. The only physical evidence was the bruises on Karen’s arms.
“They were monitoring him and trying to keep tabs on him to see where he was," Pingelton said. "She had concerns about his welfare. That’s the kind of person she was.”
Pingelton is working to help Sean Kahler, 10, who survived the shootings. As for Traci Wilson-Kleekamp, she wants to blame someone for allowing Kraig Kahler to murder Sean’s mother and two sisters.
“I don’t think people realize that once they took his resignation at the city that he was going to spend all of his time stalking his wife,” Wilson-Kleekamp said.
Karen got a restraining order against her husband after Kraig was arrested for third-degree domestic assault in March.
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