U.S.

Deadly Dad On Suicide Watch

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

June 28, 1999 / 11:13 AM EDT / CBS

Ronald L. Shanabarger planned his revenge against his wife for years. He wanted to father their son and then kill the infant, police said. Tuesday, he remains in custody under a suicide watch.

Police say Shanabarger almost pulled off the perfect murder. With just about everyone, including the local coroner, believing that his 7-month old son Tyler died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, he abruptly confessed to a brutal crime of revenge.

According to investigators, Shanabarger told police he planned the crime to exact punishment on his wife, Amy, who had refused to cut short a vacation to comfort him after his father passed away.

CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston reports that as he arrived in court Monday morning, Shanabarger looked like a man haunted by his own deed. Earlier, he confessed to killing his son the night before Father's Day. But when police learned the motive, the tragic became grotesque.

Authorities say this sad story began three years ago when Shanabarger became upset with his then-fiancée.

Tyler Shanabarger

"He asked her to come home when his father died and she wouldn't come home. And he had decided he wanted to get revenge and the way he decided to do it was by marrying her, conceiving a child and then killing the child," said Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner.

Dr. Stuart Fishchoff, professor of psychology at California State University, said, "The explanation would have to be looked at in terms of a kind of long-term obsession that Mr. Shanabarger had with his soon-to-be wife in a sense of betrayal that she was not there for him in his time of need and she was going to pay for that."

On June 19, alone in the house he shared with his wife and son, Shanabarger allegedly wrapped plastic around Tyler's head and face and left the room. Twenty minutes later, after assuring the child was dead, he removed the plastic and placed the baby in the crib face down.

"Shanabarger said he planned to make Amy feel the way he did when his father died," prosecutors said in an affidavit filed to support a murder charge.

"There is clearly a disconnect between him and his wife and obviously between him and the child. Here, the child was used as an object of revenge," Fishchoff added.

Everyone involved with the case is shocked. "It is the most bizarre case I've ever had anything to do with. It's probably the most bizarre case I've ever even heard of," said prosecutor Hamner.

If it weren't for Shanabarger's confession the truth may never have known. It was only after the child's funeral that Shanabarger confessed, first to his wife, and then to authorities, apparently unable to keep his dreadful secret to himself.

Shanabarger has reportedly confessed three times and asked police to shoot him. He is beinheld without bond until his trial, scheduled to begin November 30th. Prosecutors have not decided whether to seek the death penalty.