A 23-year-old Wisconsin man has been hit with multiple charges following his father’s death, who police found dismembered in a wooded area last week, ABC News reports. The 23-year-old’s mother is also still missing.
Chandler Halderson was arrested for tentative felony charges, including providing false information in a missing person investigation. He has also been charged with mutilating a corpse, hiding a corpse, and intentional first-degree homicide.
Halderson reported that his parents, 50-year-old Bart Halderson and 53-year-old Krista Halderson, had gone missing last Wednesday from their home on July 1. On Thursday, authorities discovered a human torso in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, where someone had allegedly seen Chandler driving his vehicle in reverse “with the rear hatch open in a field near a wooded area,” according to the probable cause statement.
A statement from the Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office said that Bart died from “homicidal violence including firearm injury.”
The official theory is that Chandler shot and dismembered his father and then proceeded to dispose of the remains in Cottage Grove, which is a rural area. Police say he subsequently lied to the authorities, explaining that his parents had disappeared after a Fourth of July trip to their cabin with an unknown couple.
However, police found no evidence that they had visited their lake house in White Lake, Langlade County.
“Halderson reported that his parents, Krista and Bart Halderson, were picked up by an unknown acquaintance in the early hours of July 1, 2021, to travel to the family’s cabin in White Lake, Wisconsin,” the probable cause statement read. “Halderson reported that his mother Krista had sent him a text message on July 4, 2021, stating that they had arrived and were in White Lake, and were planning on attending a parade that day. Investigation revealed that where was no parade and that Krista and Bart Halderson did not travel to their cabin in White Lake.”
Chandler is being held on a $10,000 bond and will be formally charged on Thursday.
