A former Marine and Florida bodybuilder is suspected of killing his ex-wife when she came to get some of her belongings and then setting her corpse ablaze in an oil barrel in the backyard.
In court in Tampa on Monday, 43-year-old Ian Christopher Baunach entered a not-guilty plea for the murder of Katie Baunach, his two children’s mother, who was 39.
The former Marine and engineer Baunach was charged with domestic violence by strangulation in November 2021 and freed the same day on a $25,000 bail.
Katie Baunach filed for a restraining order against him in September of this year, ten months after she first accused him of assaulting one of their children.
When she left the two kids with a friend on September 29, she was last seen, claiming Baunach had told her she may come over to “collect some of her personal stuff.”
She promised to return immediately away to the buddy, but she never did.
Police were summoned, and they rushed to his LaBelle, Florida, house on September 30th, which is 30 miles inland from Fort Myers, only to discover that he was not there.
Her automobile was outside, parked.
When they soon after returned, they saw the automobile had been relocated, and when Baunach refused to allow them inside, they acquired a warrant to examine the premises.
Detectives discovered blood stains and signs of a fight inside the home, which he said were caused by groceries.
The wedding and engagement rings of Katie Baunach were discovered in a safe.
According to the complaint, officers also discovered 13 silencers, an AR-15 upper receiver, and a Glock Model 27.40 mm handgun concealed inside a plastic bag on a bookcase.
In the attic above the garage, there were three rifles and a shotgun, and Baunach also had another.
He had a 40-caliber Glock on him.
After that, the police discovered human remains outdoors.
In a new fire pile, they “found the portion of a human jaw with an undamaged tooth, and uncovered a blue fifty-gallon barrel beside the burn pile which reeked of decomposing flesh,” according to court filings.
The blue fifty-gallon barrel included another piece of human bone that was found by law authorities. Around the smoldering pile, authorities recovered other probable human bone pieces.
Baunach claimed there was no corpse and that his ex-wife had vanished while denying murdering her.
He acknowledged that he had a disagreement with her that was “about another lady.”
After Katie Baunach requested and obtained a domestic violence order against him, Baunach “confessed to becoming furious.”
He said that after going to sleep, she had left by the time he awoke the next morning.
He claimed to have relocated her vehicle to the street after that.
“Baunach indicated that he did not trust the police when questioned about the blood discovered inside the Premises.”
After being apprehended, Baunach was charged with first-degree premeditated murder, concealing/destroying physical evidence, and cremating a corpse 48 hours after death.
He may get the death sentence or life in prison if found guilty of first-degree murder.