Murderer sentenced to death

LYNDON (AP):

A judge sentenced a Kansas man to death yesterday for fatally shooting his estranged wife, their two daughters and his wife's grandmother, then ordered him to stay in court and listen to his victims' relatives talk about the pain he caused them.

James Kraig Kahler declined the opportunity to address the court during the brief hearing, and showed no emotion as his sentence was announced.

Kahler, 48, was convicted in August in the Thanksgiving 2009 killings in Burlingame, about 30 miles southwest of Topeka. Prosecutors said he shot his 44-year-old wife Karen, her grandmother, 89-year-old Dorothy Wight, and the Kahlers' two daughters, 18-year-old Emily and 16-year-old Lauren, as the couple struggled through a divorce.

Psychiatrist testimony

A psychiatrist testified during Kahler's trial that he had been upset with his daughters for siding with their mother, who had instigated the divorce, and that he believed Wight should have encouraged his wife to stay in their marriage. Karen Kahler had been having an affair with a woman from Weatherford, Texas.

Kahler's attorneys said he was unable to control his emotions and had been suffering from a deep depression when he went from room to room at Wight's home and shot the victims with an assault rifle. The jury that convicted him recommended the death penalty.

"It was clearly anticipated. There's never been a judge in Kansas that's overturned a jury's recommendation," Kahler's attorney Thomas Haney said.