Updated

Updated · Yahoo! Voices · Aug 18

13-Year-Old Missaukee Shooting Victim Stabilizes as Ex-Wife Blames Judge, Prosecutors for 5 Killings

Updated

Updated · Yahoo! Voices · Aug 18

13-Year-Old Missaukee Shooting Victim Stabilizes as Ex-Wife Blames Judge, Prosecutors for 5 Killings

Q: What specific credibility issues forced prosecutors to offer a lenient plea deal to a known abuser shortly before his deadly rampage?

Prosecutors said the plea deal was driven mainly by credibility problems involving Hickman’s ex-wife, the key witness in the domestic-violence and sexual-assault case. Missaukee County Prosecutor David DenHouten said his office learned that, in prior family-court testimony given under oath, Frye had denied that an assault had occurred. That earlier sworn statement sharply undercut her later criminal allegations and raised questions about whether a jury would believe her. Prosecutors also pointed to the timing of the allegations: they were reported years after the alleged abuse and surfaced during an acrimonious divorce, factors the office said complicated the case. DenHouten’s office also said it lacked enough corroborating evidence to confidently prove the more serious felony charges beyond a reasonable doubt. While police records indicated that children in the home described witnessing abuse, prosecutors said there was not sufficient independent evidence to support the assault allegations as charged once the victim’s credibility was “severely damaged.” Because of those issues — the prior contradictory sworn testimony, the delayed reporting, the divorce context, and what prosecutors described as insufficient corroboration — the office said it agreed to a plea deal that dropped the felony assault and criminal sexual conduct counts and left Hickman pleading guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of children.

Q: Why were multiple crime scenes targeted, and what was the hidden connection between the shooter and the five victims who lost their lives?

Investigators have not publicly established a final motive, but the available reporting points to a targeted rampage against people within Chad Hickman’s personal circle, not random victims. The shootings unfolded across three locations because the victims were in different places Hickman appears to have gone to one by one during the attack. The clearest known connection is at the main LaChance Road home. The dead there were Amanda Everitt, 40; her son Eric Thomas, 16; and Amanda’s boyfriend Shane McGowan, 47. Bella Padilla-Everitt, 13, survived after calling 911. Family members said Hickman was not a stranger to them: he had known the family, and McGowan had been Hickman’s friend since childhood. That is the key hidden link in the case. The victims appear to have been connected to Hickman through overlapping personal relationships in a small community, rather than through a single obvious public tie. Authorities also found a 53-year-old man dead at a second home and a 29-year-old woman dead near Hickman’s body in the woods by Whitlock Lake, suggesting he moved between sites to target specific people he knew. Police have said the investigation remains active and that they are still working to determine the full motive and the exact relationships between Hickman and all five victims. So far, the evidence indicates a personal, relationship-driven chain of attacks across multiple scenes.

3 articles · Updated · Yahoo! Voices · Aug 18

Michigan State Police said the 13-year-old girl wounded in last week’s Missaukee County rampage was upgraded from critical to stable condition Tuesday.
Katie Frye, ex-wife of suspected gunman Chad Hickman, said on Facebook that prosecutors and Family Court Judge Melissa Ransom ignored her warnings that he was violent and "let this happen."
Hickman, 39, was accused of killing five people before dying by suicide; Frye said her children survived only because 13-year-old Bella Padilla-Everitt called 911 after being shot four times.
Court records show Hickman took a 2024 plea deal to fourth-degree child abuse and contributing to delinquency, with more serious assault and sexual-conduct charges dismissed; he received 365 days in jail.
Ransom’s 2025 divorce opinion described the marriage as involving domestic-violence allegations and dysfunction, while the prosecutor’s office did not immediately comment and the judge declined comment.