Neighbors Suspected Foul Play in Gary Herbst's 2013 Disappearance, Years Before Discovery

Connie Herbst told family that her husband had simply vanished, walking out on her and their teenage son, Austin. But the neighbors next door saw something that night that they would never forget.

Kaia Kraml placed the time at "maybe midnight-ish" when she and her husband Chad looked out their window during a thunderstorm. Kaia recalled the conditions: "thunder, lightning, everything. Like, it was crazy." What they saw through those windows, directly into the Herbst home, would stay with them for years.

When investigators later canvassed Gary Herbst's old neighborhood, they uncovered a trove of new clues from the time around his disappearance. Gary Herbst was 57 years old and living in Elko New Market, Minnesota, at the time he vanished in July 2013. His disappearance on July 8 of that year initially drew little suspicion. Despite his sudden absence, it did not immediately trigger a full investigation, allowing critical time to pass before authorities began to examine what had happened.

The Kramls had a clear line of sight into the Herbst house. Chad and Kaia told investigators they remembered seeing Austin and Connie scrubbing the floors in the middle of the night, and loading large garbage bags into Gary's truck. Then came a detail that made Kaia certain something was wrong. The truck was pulled right up to the sliding glass door, which, as Kaia put it, "we knew was super strange because Gary was very particular with his yard. He did not like anything out of order."

Then they watched Austin and Connie carry something larger out of the house. "They were also carrying out a carpet or some sort of rug and also throwing it in the back of the truck," Kaia said in the 48 Hours segment. "So we were watching the scene and I turned to Chad and I was like… 'What is going on?' And Chad looked at me and he said, 'Kaia, I think they finally killed him.'"

Det. Jeff Nelson told investigators that neighbors "didn't like him, were afraid because he was very confrontational," a portrait that may have made Herbst's apparent walkout easier to accept at first glance. His sister, Linda Dane, found it strange that Connie had not reported his disappearance to police. At Linda and her family's urging, Connie eventually filed a missing person report with the Elko New Market Police Department.

The Kramls' midnight observations sat dormant for years before investigators circled back to the neighborhood. In December 2017, a property owner in Barron County, Wisconsin, made a discovery that changed the direction of the case: a dog had brought a human skull fragment onto the driveway, prompting a search of the surrounding wooded area. Working with the Wisconsin Department of Justice, volunteer genealogists with the DNA Doe Project used genetic genealogy to confirm in June 2020 that the skeleton was that of Gary Albert Herbst.

Authorities said the Midwest Medical Examiner concluded that Gary Herbst died from a gunshot wound to the head and ruled the death a homicide. During a search of the family's former home in Elko New Market, investigators also reported finding signs of decomposition and blood. Scott County detectives arrested Connie and Austin Herbst on November 19, 2020, and charged them with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

In May 2021, Austin pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree intentional murder and was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison. Connie pleaded guilty to aiding an offender as an accomplice after the fact by hiding and transporting her husband's remains to Wisconsin, and in January 2022 was sentenced to 27 months in prison, receiving credit for 462 days served.

What Chad Kraml said to his wife during that stormy Minnesota midnight turned out to be exactly right. It just took seven years for the evidence to prove it.