A Wisconsin man has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide after police say he shot and killed a woman because he believed she was pregnant and had said she wanted to keep the baby.
Logan Barclay, 23, of Janesville, shot 22-year-old Kiersten Hansen. Family members say Hansen was Barclay’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. The couple already had a young child together, who is in the custody of Barclay’s parents. Barclay told police that Hansen had mentioned that she might be pregnant with his child again, and he got angry when she said she would not abort the preborn baby.
After lying to authorities numerous times about his whereabouts the evening Hansen went missing, Barclay eventually confessed to killing her.
According to court documents, Barclay told police that he and Hansen were out for a walk in a local park and she was “still talking about [the pregnancy], no matter how many times I told her to stop, she wouldn’t. And I broke. I snapped. Screamed at her, and took it out and said ‘stop following me, stop talking about it, please.'” He then shot her with a .22-caliber handgun and walked away. Two women walking on a trail found Hansen’s body the next day.
The medical examiner has yet to determine whether or not she actually was pregnant.
Police said, “She decided to keep the baby, which made Logan extremely angry, because he did not want that kind of responsibility.”
Homicide is known to be a leading cause of death for pregnant women. Women are more likely to be murdered during pregnancy than they are to die from the three leading obstetric causes of death (high blood pressure disorders, hemorrhage, and sepsis). A large number of these incidents are domestic violence situations. Recently, there has been an uptick in crimes against pregnant women who are assaulted or killed because they refuse to kill their preborn children.
Barclay was given a $1 million cash bond and is expected back in court soon.
