The man accused of killing a 40-year-old Waukesha man in August in a residential area near his home on a stormy night has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide.
Justin T. Carl, 720 E. St. Paul Ave., faces life in prison if convicted of the felony.
Carl, who is in custody at the Waukesha County Jail, is also charged with two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon. He faces a combined 20 years in prison and $50,000 in fines if convicted of those two counts.
Court Commissioner Thomas Pieper has set Carl's cash bond at $500,000. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 30 at the Waukesha County Courthouse.
The charges come more than a month after Carl, 35, holed up inside his Waukesha apartment, was surrounded by police on Sept. 2. Waukesha Police Chief Russell Jack said after Carl saw police, he stabbed himself in the throat. Carl's residence is next to where the homicide occurred and near the victim's residence.
According to a criminal complaint filed on Oct. 19, Kevin Hueman was found in front of a home at 238 Albert St. at 8:17 p.m. Aug. 14. He had been shot multiple times. A subsequent autopsy showed four gunshot wounds to Hueman's chest and stomach area. The gunshots appeared to be close range, the complaint said.
At a news conference after Carl was taken into custody last month, Jack did not indicate a motive for the shooting. The complaint also did not note a motive nor a relationship between Carl and Hueman.
Linked to the shooting
According to his obituary, Hueman was married and had a 6-month-old son. Hueman's wife told police that after dinner on Aug. 14, Hueman said he was going to the porch area to smoke and watch the storm outside their home at 735 E. North St.
As his wife was cleaning the table, she said she distinctly heard approximately five or six loud pops that occurred in succession. She thought they sounded like fireworks or lightning.
After continuing to hear their dog bark, she checked the front room again and noticed Hueman wasn't there. Shortly later she went outside to look for him and walked down Albert Street, adjacent to their residence. His wife then saw Hueman lying face down in their neighbor's front lawn with blood coming from his nose, the complaint said.
Police found a fired bullet in front of 727 E. North St. and a black Nike shoe near Hueman's body, evidence that later helped in identifying Carl as the suspect.
According to the complaint, Carl was seen at the VA Medical Center earlier that day wearing the shoes that matched the shoes at the crime scene.
Police traced the shoe bought by Carl's aunt at a store in Waukesha. The complaint says Carl's aunt confirmed the Nike tennis shoe she bought was the one found at the crime scene.
Carl's aunt's daughter said after police released the image of the Nike shoe, she and her aunt said it looked like Carl's shoe, the complaint said.
Alleged admission
According to the criminal complaint, Carl's aunt also said on Aug. 15, one day after the shooting, Carl showed up at her house unexpectedly and unannounced. He had a trash bag full of laundry and asked if he could do his laundry there, which she thought was unusual. He also asked her to let him stay with her.
Carl kept saying he was so sorry and he needed his family and a safe place to stay, according to the complaint. He also kept apologizing, sobbing, crying very hard at times, his aunt said.
Carl's aunt's stepdaughter took Carl to her house on Aug. 15. It was there that Carl admitted to his aunt that he killed Hueman, the complaint said
According to the criminal complaint, Carl, after being questioned by his aunt, told her Hueman "attacked me" and that he got rid of the gun. His aunt then said Carl's demeanor changed and then he denied killing anyone.
On Sept. 2, Carl's aunt called police, saying her husband was initially missing one of his firearms at the residence and, when it was found, it wasn't in its normal location. There were also five empty bullet casings in his ammo box. The gun tested positive for blood and the spent shell casing found Aug. 14 at the crime scene was consistent with a shell casing shot from the gun.
According to the complaint, the last time Carl was in his aunt's house was June 7 and that he was in the basement, where the revolver was stored.
In the complaint, Carl's aunt's stepdaughter's son, who was close with Carl, said that on Aug. 15 when they were together several spent shell casings were found wrapped in Kleenex. Carl gave one of the casings to the 13-year-old boy, according to the complaint. This shell casing had a marking on it, which was similar to an unfired cartridge located in Carl's apartment during a search warrant on Sept. 2.