Jury Delivers Guilty Verdict To Danial Rinehart For Second-Degree Murder, Rape, Incest

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UPDATED: 5:26 pm CDT April 20, 2010

HARRISONVILLE, Mo. -- A jury found Danial Rinehart guilty of second-degree murder, rape and incest on Tuesday.
Jurors brought in from Boone County, Mo., deliberated 2 1/2 hours before reaching a verdict.
Prosecutors claimed Rinehart had four children with his daughter. Only one of the children she gave birth to is living.
The trial began on Monday. Rinehart's daughter, Ashley Rinehart, 20, testified that her father began to have sex with her when she was 5 years old. She also testified about the deaths of three of her four children.
In its verdict, the jury said that Rinehart caused the death of Jack, Ashley Rinehart's third child, because he refused to seek treatment for the boy.
During her testimony, she never referred to the accused as "father" or "dad" but always as "Danial Rinehart."
KMBC's Dan Weinbaum reported that the defense called no witnesses, and Rinehart declined to testify on his behalf.
Jurors are also deciding the penalty phase of the trial. The jury listened to a victim-impact statement from Ashley Rinehart.
"(It's) sad I don't have a mother and father who love me," she said. "Danial Rinehart cheated me out of my childhood."
Ashley Rinehart said she fears Danial Rinehart will find and kill her.
"I still live in fear," she said.
Danial Rinehart was also found guilty on charges of endangerment of a child and two counts of abandoning a corpse.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the jury delivered the maximum sentence on all counts.

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Man Fathers Children with Daughter, Three Dead
Bones of Children Found in Coolers

CASS COUNTY - Horrific allegations of incest, abuse and death have unfolded in Harrisonville. A man is charged with fathering four children with his own daughter, murdering one of them and then hiding the bodies of three of his children.
The house where the incest allegedly took place is now owned by someone else. But, it was the new property owner who actually found the children's remains.
Danial Rinehart, 47, is charged with several counts including murder in the second degree, endangering a child in the first degree, statutory rape in the second degree, two counts of incest and two counts of abandoning a corpse. His wife, Linda Rinehart, is charged with one count of endangering a child in the first degree.
Police said the new property owner was cleaning out a garage when he found two coolers containing the remains of two infants. The Cass County Prosecutor said the first and fourth children of Rinehart with his daughter were stillborn.
The second child is now three-years-old and in state custody. And, the third child lived a couple of months, but died from pneumonia.
"That child died of an illness that they had tried to medicate and failed to take that child for medical care, for that Danial Rinehart is charged with murder," said Teresa Hensley, Cass County Prosecutor.
Police said the family's secret was exposed in October when one of Rinehart's daughters called police to file a sexual abuse report. According to court documents, Linda Rinehart helped her daughter give birth and was aware that her husband got her daughter pregnant several times.
In fact, the court documents said Linda cut the umbilical cord with scissors. And, when one child died with pneumonia, the daughter said she put the baby in a dark blue box with a blanket wrapped around him along with a teddy bar and matchbox car.
Danial Rinehart's niece said she's glad her uncle is being charged. Rinehardt's mother drove past her old house where police said the crimes were committed. But, she was too distraught to speak with FOX 4.
Linda Rinehart has been released on $10,000 bond. Danial Rinehart is at the Cass County Jail held on $500,000 cash only bond. He's expected back in court in about one week.

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Posted on Mon, Apr. 19, 2010 11:55 PM



It was wrong having a baby with her father, the girl knew, but when Jack was born, she loved him as a mother should.
She tried to keep him warm in the overhead camper — the family’s home — when the 4-month-old got sick and wheezed that cold January. When baby Jack ran a high fever, she pleaded with her father for a doctor.
“I stayed up with him for two nights,” Ashley Rinehart, now 20, tearfully told a Cass County court Monday on the first day of her father’s trial.
“I just dozed for a few minutes, and when I woke up he was dead in my arms.”
As she told her story of years of alleged incest that began when she was 5 and produced four babies, her teal headband, chosen to match her blouse, bobbed with her cries.
Twenty feet away in the Harrisonville courtroom, Danial Rinehart, 49, leaned back in his chair and swiveled, peering over the top of his glasses as if listening to a stranger.
He is charged with second-degree felony murder, statutory rape and two counts each of child endangerment, incest and abandonment of a corpse.
Authorities say that DNA identifies him as the father of the babies and that he did not allow Ashley, who attended school only through the eighth grade, or any of the babies medical attention.
After his arrest in January 2009, he told police he didn’t want to take any of them to a doctor because his father had died in an ambulance.
The jury saw a video of a police interrogation in which Rinehart appeared to admit sex with his daughter but blamed his actions on medicine he took.
“It makes the back of my head swell up, and I didn’t know what I was doing,” Rinehart said.
He also said his daughters would peep at him through a hole in the wall when he took a shower and that the victim sometimes would want to have sex with him.
“How would she let you know that?” a detective asked.
“She would rub my shoulders,” Rinehart answered.
Over the years, the family, including three other daughters, moved from town to town, traveling a nomadic life in a pickup and spending nights in an overhead camper. By late 2005, the family had settled on a small farm north of Harrisonville that belonged to Danial Rinehart’s parents.
Assistant Cass County Prosecutor Scott Wright said new owners of the property found remains of two infants in chest-type coolers there.
Defense attorney Janeal Matheson said the trial, which is expected to continue at least through Thursday, would not be the “slam dunk” that prosecutors indicated it would be. She hinted that a key part of the defense would be that Jack’s death was accidental. The murder charge stems from the death of that child.
The investigation began when Hayley Rinehart, the year-younger sister of Ashley, ran away and called police from the Walmart in Harrisonville.
Their father had threatened the sisters with death if they ever revealed the abuse, Hayley said, but she couldn’t go on knowing what was happening to her sister.
The sisters also told of neglect and hunger. Authorities say Rinehart’s wife, Linda, knew of the incest but did nothing to stop it. She is charged with two counts of child endangerment and is scheduled for trial in August.
Court documents say Linda Rinehart was jealous of the relationship between her husband and daughter but helped with the deliveries of the babies.
Investigators say the first baby, Ethyl, was born in 2004 and buried in Oklahoma. Ashley was 14 at the time. The second, a boy, now 4, survives.
The last two babies were the remains found in the coolers. The jury saw graphic photos of the containers’ contents, bones and infant toys.
During her time on the witness stand, Ashley told how she buried Jack with a little stuffed bear, a Hot Wheels truck and a stocking cap with “Touchdown” on it.
The last baby, a girl, Goldie, was born April 6, 2008. Ashley had gone into labor while painting her father’s race car.
Goldie died soon after birth.
“I kept asking him (her father) if she was OK, and he said she was,” Ashley said. “But then he wrapped her in a blanket and left her at my feet.”
The judge stopped her testimony several times so Ashley could compose herself.
Danial Rinehart also talked about the ordeal of burying the dead babies. The detective told him he could have called a mortuary, and they would have taken care of all that.
“They would have?” Rinehart asked.
“Sure,” the detective answered. “But they might have asked some questions.”

Linda Rinehart, Danial’s wife, is scheduled for trial in August on two counts of child endangerment. Authorities say she was aware of the incest, was even jealous of her daughter, but helped in the delivery of the babies in the crowded overhead camper and truck in which the family lived.