Defense argues double-homicide in Superior in 2023 a 'crime of passion'

HAMILTON — Defense attorneys for a man accused of shooting and killing his wife and his wife's friend in a Superior bar last year argued in court Monday that the double homicide was a "crime of passion" after he learned of an alleged affair. It was the start of the weeklong trial for Kraig W. Benson, 48, who has been charged with two counts of deliberate homicide after shooting his wife of more than 20 years, Jenny Savage Benson and their friend Logan Gardner.

Gardner was a childhood friend of Jenny's who was serving drinks at the Four Aces Bar on the night of the shooting. "On Aug. 27, 2023, Kraig Benson lost it," Missoula defense attorney Paul Simon told the jury to begin his opening statement.



"...

His actions that night were reprehensible, they're inexcusable, and we are not going to ask you to acquit Kraig Benson at the end of this trial." Instead, Benson's lawyers will ask the 12-person jury to find their client guilty of a lesser offense, mitigated deliberate homicide, according to Nick Brooke, another Missoula attorney representing Benson. "What Kraig didn't know as he entered the bar that night is that Jenny and Logan were having an affair," Simon said.

"Things had recently moved from being longtime friends to a more intimate relationship." Simon said Benson will be testifying during the trial. But in arguing for deliberate homicide verdicts, Montana Department of Justice prosecutor Dan Guzynski argued there was no evidence Gardner had a romantic relationship with Benson's wife.

He also pointed to video surveillance from the bar showing not only the shootings, but Benson at one point leaving the bar, getting what Guzynski said is a handgun from his vehicle, then smoking a cigarette before putting it back and returning to the bar. "What the video shows is somebody that's calm, shows that if he is intoxicated, he's not overly intoxicated," Guzynski said. "And you can see the way he gets that gun from his car, goes and sits on a bench, smokes his cigarette, sits on the bench for a number of moments.

You can presume that his brain is working." The video footage, portions of which were shown to the jury during opening statements on Monday, shows an animated discussion inside the bar, followed by Benson again going outside and taking an object from his vehicle. The bar's video recordings show Benson shooting both Jenny — seated at the bar next to him — in the head, before he points the gun at Gardner and shoots him.

Jenny falls to the ground, and Benson shoots her again. Afterward, Benson places an object, which Guzynski described as the 10 mm Glock handgun found there by investigators, on the bar and walks out of the frame. Surveillance footage from a camera on the bar's exterior shows people running out of the bar, followed by Benson, who walks slowly to his parked SUV and drives off .

Benson was later arrested after law enforcement tracked his vehicle down in Petty Creek Canyon, where he had begun hiking up a mountainside. But Guzynski also focused on several audio recordings of Benson's calls with others when he was sitting in jail. Those phone calls, Guzynski argued, show that Benson felt in the months after the shooting "that his actions were justified.

" "After what I've been through in the last 20 years ...

It's amazing, the burden that's been lifted off my shoulders," Benson can be heard saying in a recording of a call with his sister. In another recorded call, Benson indicates he learned of an affair on the day of the shooting and agrees with his friend when he tells him, "That motherf—-r got what he deserved." Jenny and Kraig Benson's daughter, Paige Benson, also took the stand Monday.

The 23-year-old described a marriage that had been on the rocks for years, with her parents going "down different paths in life." "He was always kind of a little short-tempered," Paige said of her father. "He had that personality of he liked things his way.

" Paige became emotional on the stand as she remembered her mother, a breast cancer survivor and successful businesswoman who she repeatedly called "my best friend." "She was the most confident person I think I had ever met," Paige testified. "She was very fun, very lovable.

She had never been a stranger, she would light up any room that she would walk into." If convicted of deliberate homicide, Benson would face a minimum prison term of 10 years per conviction, and up to life in prison..