By ASSOCIATED PRESS
WAHOO, Neb. (AP) — A jury has found a Nebraska man guilty of first-degree murder and other counts in the stabbing death of his fiancé nearly two years ago in their Saunders County home as her two young children slept upstairs.
Kolton Barnes, 27, of Malmo, was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder in the July 15, 2020, death of 27-year-old Kayla Matulka at their Malmo home, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. The jury also found Barnes guilty of animal cruelty, two counts of child abuse, two counts of use of a deadly weapon and evidence tampering.
Investigators said Barnes kicked in the home’s locked door after Matulka ended the relationship, then beat, strangled and stabbed Matulka more than two dozen times. Police said Barnes left Matulka’s naked, blooded body — with a restraint still attached to one of her wrists — in the home for her children, ages 11 and 6, to find.
Prosecutors painted a picture of a man who changed his story to police repeatedly and told the the jury he had deleted texts he had sent to Matulka saying he would break into the house. Barnes initially told police he was being framed, prosecutors said, then that Matulka had killed herself. At trial, he changed his story again to claim self-defense, saying that Matulka killed the dog and then attacked him.
Barnes faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole when he’s sentenced in July.