Man shot girlfriend in the face with 'special bullet' he carried around

A Kentucky antheral faces the anticipation of spending respective decades down bars for shooting and killing his woman with a "special bullet," authorities successful the Bluegrass State announced this week.

On Tuesday, Damien Hebbeler, 23, was recovered blameworthy connected 1 number of intentional murder by a assemblage of his peers successful Lewis County implicit the August 2023 decease of 20-year-old Kylie Marie Weitz, according to a press release issued by the Kentucky Attorney General's Office.

"Today's assemblage verdict delivers hard-won justness and affirms that Kylie Marie Weitz's beingness mattered," Attorney General Russell Coleman said successful a statement. "In Kentucky, we instrumentality home unit crimes seriously, and we volition proceed to clasp offenders accountable."

The underlying incidental occurred connected Aug. 9, 2023, astatine a residence connected Willis Lane successful Garrison, a tiny, census-designated spot located conscionable southbound of the Ohio borderline and immoderate 100 miles northeast of Lexington.

At astir 6 p.m. that day, Kentucky State Police responded to a telephone from the Lewis County Sheriff's Office astir an unresponsive female, according to apprehension documents obtained by the Ledger Independent.

The sheriff himself told authorities troopers astatine Post 8 that the unfortunate had sustained a gunshot coiled to her face. In the archetypal 911 call, the caller reportedly said Weitz had accidentally changeable herself.

When troopers arrived astatine the house, Weitz was lying connected the level adjacent the beforehand doorway framework and pronounced dormant astatine the scene.

Three hours aft the archetypal 911 telephone was placed, Hebbeler was arrested and charged with Weitz's murder. Investigators said the antheral rapidly admitted to pointing a loaded pistol astatine the woman's face, squeezing the trigger, and firing the fatal slug that took her life.

Hebbeler was archetypal detained successful the Greenup County Detention Center and past transferred to the Lewis County Jail arsenic the probe continued and the ineligible process played retired implicit the adjacent fewer years.

In September 2023, the now-convicted antheral was formally indicted for Weitz's murder, according to the Lewis County Herald.

Later, the suspect had adjacent much to accidental astir it.

During his trial, Hebbeler admitted to carrying a "special bullet" with him, authorities said. Investigators determined this aforesaid circular was the 1 utilized to sprout Weitz successful the look astatine adjacent scope and termination her.

The execution did not travel wholly without warning.

"Less than a twelvemonth earlier the shooting, the suspect made statements that helium wanted to termination Weitz," the AG's property merchandise reads.

An obituary for the pistillate remembered her fondly arsenic a vibrant subordinate of her assemblage with a adjacent and extended household arsenic good arsenic galore friends who volition each "sadly miss her."

"Kylie was a waitress astatine Buffalo Wild Wings," the eulogy reads. "She enjoyed cheerleading, moving track, playing volleyball, moving arsenic a beingness guard, traveling, going retired to devour and being with her friends."

The killer's assemblage recommended a 50-year sentence, which volition beryllium taken into information by the justice during sentencing slated for June 5.