Steven Shaun Knoefler forced his 14-year-old son to dig a grave for the woman Knoefler had just killed while the son watched, according to a Yuba County Superior Court document.
Knoefler, 49, was sentenced Monday to 16 years to life in prison for the May 2008 bludgeoning death of his estranged girlfriend, 36-year-old Vanessa Jane Hobbs, at his home near Rackerby in the Yuba County foothills.
Knoefler told the son, now 18, that he would "end" him if he did not dig the shallow grave and keep quiet about it, according to the transcript of a hearing where Knoefler pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
In June, the son went to the Butte County Sheriff's Office and revealed what happened three years prior. Knoefler was arrested and did not dispute the account.
Yuba County Sheriff's Department investigators went to Knoefler's home and found Hobbs' body buried about 2 feet deep in a grave about 100 feet from his front door. Her skull had been smashed into 64 pieces.
Knoefler used a dumbbell to kill Hobbs. Detectives found it in nearby blackberry bushes.
According to the transcript, Hobbs was intoxicated when she came to Knoefler's home and the two began arguing. She would not leave.
Knoefler had recently spent time in jail after the two were involved in a domestic violence incident. He told her she would not be sending him back there again.
Knoefler picked Hobbs up by the neck and punched her until she was unconscious, then dragged her by the hair into a bedroom. When she regained consciousness and begged for her life, he hit her in the arm with an electric guitar, breaking the arm, then began hitting her with the dumbbell, according to the transcript.
Instead of immediately burying the body, Knoefler took it to a junkyard on his property and put it in a refrigerator. About a month later he wrapped the body in a tarp, put it in a black garbage bag and buried it in the grave his son had dug.
Hobbs had four children by four different men, not including Knoefler. On Monday, one of the children, Brandon Wilder, read his statement to the court. After his mother disappeared, he said, he repeatedly asked Knoefler where she was. Knoefler said he didn't know, Wilder said.
"I'll never forgive you," Wilder told Knoefler. "I don't want to hear any apology from you for what you did."
Instead of apologizing, Knoefler interrupted Wilder, saying Hobbs was responsible for what happened. A bailiff quickly silenced him.
His mother, Wilder said, was far from perfect "but she did the best thing by giving us up."
Two of Hobbs' older sisters declined comment as they left the courtroom. One said previously that Wilder and the other three children all ended up in the custody of their biological fathers.
It will be 16 years before Knoefler, who weighs 447 pounds and has multiple health problems, can apply for parole.
"It's two pages long," he told Judge Kathleen O'Connor about his list of ailments.
According to a Yuba County Probation Department report, he once tried to commit suicide with a drug overdose after killing Hobbs.
No comments:
Post a Comment