In a harrowing incident in Minnesota, a 35-year-old man named J. Benson has been charged with murdering his girlfriend, whom he beat and strangled to death after wrapping her legs with an extension cord in a home where he was housesitting.
Benson is facing a second-degree murder charge in the death of his 38-year-old girlfriend, S. Koehne.
Sheriff’s deputies were sent to a house on November 2, 2024, after getting a call about a domestic assault. This is how the case became public.
The person who called, who owned the house and was on vacation in Florida, said that Benson, who was house sitting, had sent her a message admitting that he had killed Koehne.
When the police got there, they saw that Benson had cuts and scratches on his arms and face. “There is a dead body upstairs,” he told the deputies in a very scary way.
Koehne was found unconscious on the bathroom floor. There were marks around her throat and blood in her hair and ear, which showed that she had been in a fight.
Later, an autopsy confirmed that Koehne had died of “probable asphyxia” and that he had been killed.
The woman who lived there told the police that she had asked Benson to watch over her pets and house while she was away. She talked to Benson on Snapchat all the time and knew that Koehne was also staying at the house.
During the event, Benson told the homeowner that he and Koehne were having a fight and that she was attempting to leave.
In response, the homeowner told Benson to “get this taken care of.” Twenty minutes later, Benson gave a sad report, saying only, “She is gone.”
Benson put an extension cord around Koehne’s legs because he was afraid that her screaming out of an open window would get the attention of the police.
He then said, “I can not go back to prison,” referring to his 2009 conviction for felony burglary. They then beat and strangled Koehne to death.
After more research, it was found that Benson had a video on his phone of an argument he had with Koehne earlier that day, the day she died. On the video, Koehne, who had bruises on her face, begged Benson to stop hurting her and begged him to call 911.
Benson kept filming even though she begged him not to and said she was trying to break in.
In text messages to his ex-wife after the incident, Benson hinted at how bad things were by saying he needed a friend because “something happened” and calling it “atomically bad.”
Benson was caught and is being held at the county jail on a $100,000 bond. He will be in court again on December 10 to face a serious charge that fits the horrible crime he committed.
The community and the victim’s family are still in shock over the senseless act of violence that killed a woman who was known to be loving and kind.
This terrible case shows how terrible domestic violence is and how important it is to deal with signs of abuse before they get worse and can not be fixed.