Connie Herbst Case: Guilty Plea, 27-Month Sentence, and Abuse Claims

The Connie Herbst case is the Minnesota prosecution of a New Prague woman who helped conceal her husband’s 2013 murder after their son shot him in the family’s Elko New Market home; she pleaded guilty to aiding an offender as an accomplice after the fact, was sentenced to 27 months in February 2022, and was released that May after credit for time served.

What Connie Herbst Did

Gary Herbst, 57, was shot in the back of the head on the night of July 8, 2013, while he slept on the couch of the family’s Elko New Market home. The shooter was the couple’s son, Austin, then a teenager. Connie did not pull the trigger. What she did do, according to the case built against her, was help her son hide the killing for seven years.

Neighbors later told investigators they had seen Connie and Austin scrubbing the basement floors in the days after Gary vanished. They also saw the two loading what looked like rolled-up carpeting and large black garbage bags into a pickup truck around midnight, then leaving for several days.¹ Austin drove the body roughly two hours into rural Barron County, Wisconsin, and dumped it in the woods. The family held a yard sale to get rid of Gary’s belongings.²

Connie did not report Gary missing on her own. Gary’s sister, Linda Dane, pressed her to contact police after noticing no report had been filed. When Connie finally filed a report with the Elko New Market Police Department in 2014, she told officers Gary had packed his bags, taken $5,000 in cash and a wedding ring, and driven off in a gray Honda with an unknown person. She said she hadn’t thought a report was necessary because he had left voluntarily.² The case went cold.

How the Case Broke Open

On December 3, 2017, a resident of a rural property in Dallas, Wisconsin, reported that his dog had dug up a piece of human skull in the driveway. Barron County deputies searched the surrounding woods and recovered more skeletal remains, clothing, and dentures. The skull had a bullet hole, and the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office determined the cause of death was a close-contact gunshot wound.³

The remains stayed unidentified for years. The case was eventually picked up by the DNA Doe Project, and investigative genetic genealogist Robin Espensen used DNA from the remains to build a family tree that led back to Gary Herbst. By June 2020, the skull had been identified as his, with confirmation from a DNA sample provided by Austin.²³

In July 2020, investigators executed a search warrant at the family’s former home in Elko New Market. Using luminol and a cadaver dog, they found multiple bloodstains on basement drywall and rubber mats, corroborating the neighbors’ accounts.³ When Connie learned about the search, she texted Austin that there was a “problem.”¹ On November 19, 2020, Connie, then 62, and Austin, then 26, were arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder.⁴

Interviewed after her arrest, Connie changed her earlier story. She now told investigators she had been at a library when Gary “skipped town,” and said he had taken her .40 caliber revolver with him.⁵

The Guilty Plea

Connie was originally charged with second-degree murder alongside her son. In October 2021, she pleaded guilty to a reduced count of aiding an offender as an accomplice after the fact, admitting she had helped conceal and transport Gary’s body to Wisconsin.⁶ The murder charge was dismissed as part of the plea agreement.³

The 27-Month Sentence

Connie was sentenced on February 23, 2022, in Scott County District Court. Minnesota guidelines called for 41 to 57 months, and prosecutors asked for the top of that range. Chief Deputy Attorney Sarah Wendorf called the cover-up “particularly egregious because it lasted so many years” and described Connie’s conduct as “lawlessness.”⁷

Defense attorney John Baquero argued Connie had not committed the killing, had no violent history, was remorseful, and had “crossed a line that many parents would cross” in protecting her son. Austin sent a letter asking the court to show his mother mercy, writing that “she did nothing more than any normal parent would do to protect her own.”⁷⁸

District Judge Caroline Lennon granted a downward departure and imposed 27 months. She called the case “heart wrenching” and said the domestic abuse Connie and Austin described was “some of the worst” she had seen. Lennon cited Connie’s lack of direct involvement in the killing, the absence of serious prior offenses, and her amenability to probation.⁷

Connie received credit for 462 days already served and was sent to the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Shakopee with roughly three months remaining.⁸

County Attorney Ron Hocevar objected publicly to the outcome. “Covering up a murder for seven years and only pleading guilty when facing a mountain of incriminating evidence is not in the state’s view taking responsibility,” he said.⁸

The Abuse Claims Behind the Reduced Sentence

The domestic abuse allegations shaped both sentencings. Austin described his father as a “cruel, dangerous bully” who had threatened to kill Connie throughout their 30-year marriage, isolated her from friends and family, and forbade her from attending her own mother’s funeral.⁹ Austin told the court he believed his father was going to kill his mother the night of the shooting: “If I would have stood aside, my mom would be dead.”¹⁰

Connie told investigators Gary was a “volatile, angry, unpleasant person” and a drug user, though she said he had hit her only “once or twice” during their marriage.²

Prosecutors pushed back. They noted that neither Austin nor Connie had ever reported domestic abuse before the investigation opened, and that no physical or third-party evidence corroborated the allegations. They argued the killing could not qualify as a defensive act because Gary was asleep on the couch when he was shot, and that the seven-year cover-up looked self-serving rather than desperate.² Both Judge Lennon and, earlier, the court sentencing Austin found the abuse claims credible enough to justify substantial departures from guidelines.

Where the Case Stands Now

Connie Herbst was released from Shakopee in May 2022.⁸

Austin Herbst pleaded guilty to second-degree intentional murder in March 2021 and was sentenced in June 2021 to 150 months, or 12 years and six months. That was a significant downward departure from guidelines that called for roughly 21 to 30 years. With credit for time served since his November 2020 arrest, he was expected to spend about seven and three-quarter years in custody, with the balance on supervised release. He remains incarcerated at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in St. Cloud and is eligible for release in 2029.⁹³

1
Pioneer Press. Mother, Son Plead Guilty in Connection to 2013 Elko New Market Murder
2
CBS News. Murdered Minnesota Man Was Rolled Up in a Rug and Dumped in the Woods
3
KSTP. New Prague Woman Sentenced to 27 Months for Role in Husband’s Murder
4
Scott County, Minnesota. Cold Case Investigation Arrests
5
Inforum. 7 Years After Filing a Missing Persons Report, His Son and Wife Came Clean About the Murder
6
Scott County, Minnesota. Connie Herbst Plea
7
SWNews Media. New Prague Woman Sentenced to 27 Months for Aiding Son Following Father’s Murder
8
Star Tribune. Shakopee Woman Receives 2-Year Sentence for Helping Conceal Husband’s Body After Their Son Killed Him
9
Star Tribune. Prison Term Far Below State Guidelines for Man Who Said Years of Father’s Abuse Drove Him to Murder
10
Oxygen. Connie Herbst Pleads Guilty to Helping Son Austin Herbst Hide Father’s Corpse