GUILTY In - Halee Rathgeber, 20, Fatally Shot, Warrick County, 24 April 2017 *arrest*

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I saw in Aleah's case you found SWs online - have you seen anything related to this case?

No, and unfortunately I don't think it will be online. Warrick County doesn't have their records online (at least not that I've found). Vanderburgh has theirs online via Indiana MyCase and Doxpop which is where I found the warrants from Aleah's case. Even those weren't that helpful since the returns weren't uploaded, it was just information showing that warrants had been created/served.
 
Does anyone but me have a hard time seeing this beautiful girl having this doofus guy as a boyfriend for more than 5 minutes? I'm sorry but when I saw his picture, I thought no way. Have any friends or family members confirmed that they dated? Or did he just announce himself as the ex a la wishful thinking?

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:thinking:
Do you think the wallet, keys and cell phone were taken to delay the identification of the body?
Why didn't he get rid of those items? (Maybe after removing money from wallet.)
Thanks for this - I don't think I had seen it stated explicitly that he is being accused of pulling the trigger. Actually with the documents being sealed I assumed we would not get that level of detail anytime soon.
 
Does anyone but me have a hard time seeing this beautiful girl having this doofus guy as a boyfriend for more than 5 minutes? I'm sorry but when I saw his picture, I thought no way. Have any friends or family members confirmed that they dated? Or did he just announce himself as the ex a la wishful thinking?

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I don't think we have enough facts to have the answer to this. But certainly there's more to dating than looks. And I assume if Halee knew he was capable of murder, she wouldn't have been dating him.



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Does anyone but me have a hard time seeing this beautiful girl having this doofus guy as a boyfriend for more than 5 minutes? I'm sorry but when I saw his picture, I thought no way. Have any friends or family members confirmed that they dated? Or did he just announce himself as the ex a la wishful thinking?

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Just curious why you consider him a doofus? Are you just talking looks-wise? I got the impression from googling him and from his social media that he seemed to be a pretty good soccer player and a social guy. So, I don't think it's weird. Also, mugshot after being accused of murder probably isn't going to be a real photogenic moment for anyone.
 
Sorry if anyone was offended. My opinion only. And yes there's more to dating than looks.

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Just curious why you consider him a doofus? Are you just talking looks-wise? I got the impression from googling him and from his social media that he seemed to be a pretty good soccer player and a social guy. So, I don't think it's weird. Also, mugshot after being accused of murder probably isn't going to be a real photogenic moment for anyone.

For me it's not the photo, just that the guy didn't seem intelligent at all or to have any drive to succeed. Just kind of a slacker. Can't figure out what she saw in him.
 
:thinking:
Do you think the wallet, keys and cell phone were taken to delay the identification of the body?
Why didn't he get rid of those items? (Maybe after removing money from wallet.)

My best guess so far on why someone would take the wallet, keys, and phone of their victim: to make it look like a robbery and perhaps drive suspicion more toward a stranger than someone closer to her?

Also, I would be interested to know if these specific things are mentioned because he specifically took each one or if perhaps he took a purse or clutch which contained all those items. Taking a purse doesn't strike me as weird, especially if you want it to appear like a robbery. But say she had a wallet in hand, phone in one pocket, keys in another, taking each of those things seems more weird to me. JMO.
 
Thanks for this - I don't think I had seen it stated explicitly that he is being accused of pulling the trigger. Actually with the documents being sealed I assumed we would not get that level of detail anytime soon.

I hadn't either - I would like to see an exact transcript of what the Judge said. The Courier Press had a line that stuck out to me as possibly carefully worded:

"The charges accuse Hagan of killing Rathgeber sometime during the night of April 23 or the early morning of April 24. The felony murder charge alleges he killed her while committing another felony, in this case robbery, a level 2 felony. Both murder and felony murder carry a 45-65 year sentence. Indiana law allows defendants to be charged with murder if a death occurred while another crime was being committed, even if the person charged did not cause the death."

I'm not sure if the reporter is just explaining the concept of felony murder, or if he also wasn't sure from what the Judge said if Hagan pulled the trigger. Then again, the same quote I excerpted above says "the charges accuse Hagan of killing Rathgeber..." so I may be reading too much into it.

http://www.courierpress.com/story/n...lling-makes-first-court-appearance/101193708/

At the hearing, at least from what's being reported, the Judge went through the robbery charge, felony murder, and obstruction - but did not discuss the straight murder charge. I really want to know more about the straight murder charge.
 
For me it's not the photo, just that the guy didn't seem intelligent at all or to have any drive to succeed. Just kind of a slacker. Can't figure out what she saw in him.

It seems like he came from a really nice, religious family. I really want to know what happened for him to go from a college athlete finishing his junior year to dropping out, lying about attending college, and working at a coca cola bottling plant. It doesn't add up to me. Drugs? Fell in with a rough crowd? Or as someone else mentioned, could it just be money trouble and had nothing to do with this?

ETA: I hope that didn't come off as condescending or snobby. There's obviously nothing wrong with not going to college, or deciding it isn't for you once you start. But it seems odd to spend all the time and money to get 3/4 way through and then drop out. I guess in a lot of these cases you see some major change in a killer's life that then influences them going off the deep end - I wonder if that's this.
 
It seems like he came from a really nice, religious family. I really want to know what happened for him to go from a college athlete finishing his junior year to dropping out, lying about attending college, and working at a coca cola bottling plant. It doesn't add up to me. Drugs? Fell in with a rough crowd? Or as someone else mentioned, could it just be money trouble and had nothing to do with this?

I think he attended Kentucky Wesleyan.
 
Drugs?

It seems like he came from a really nice, religious family. I really want to know what happened for him to go from a college athlete finishing his junior year to dropping out, lying about attending college, and working at a coca cola bottling plant. It doesn't add up to me. Drugs? Fell in with a rough crowd? Or as someone else mentioned, could it just be money trouble and had nothing to do with this?

ETA: I hope that didn't come off as condescending or snobby. There's obviously nothing wrong with not going to college, or deciding it isn't for you once you start. But it seems odd to spend all the time and money to get 3/4 way through and then drop out. I guess in a lot of these cases you see some major change in a killer's life that then influences them going off the deep end - I wonder if that's this.
 
I think he attended Kentucky Wesleyan.


He did previously, but his social media said he was currently enrolled at USI, This prompted USI to make a statement that he was not currently enrolled and had never been enrolled there. Sorry I don't have a link MOO
 
I have a feeling that he was kicked out of school at KWC for some reason and he planned on transferring to USI but could not. Otherwise, why move from Owensboro to Evansville? He states on his Twitter feed that his parents moved to Evansville after he did so it wasn't to be closer to his parents. Evansville is slightly more expensive than Owensboro. Owensboro has other colleges - Daymar College, Western Kentucky University, Brescia University, and Owensboro Community and Technical College. Evansville has USI, University of Evansville, and Ivy Tech Community College. USI was probably his best shot at getting on another soccer team, though.
 
I have a feeling that he was kicked out of school at KWC for some reason and he planned on transferring to USI but could not. Otherwise, why move from Owensboro to Evansville? He states on his Twitter feed that his parents moved to Evansville after he did so it wasn't to be closer to his parents. Evansville is slightly more expensive than Owensboro. Owensboro has other colleges - Daymar College, Western Kentucky University, Brescia University, and Owensboro Community and Technical College. Evansville has USI, University of Evansville, and Ivy Tech Community College. USI was probably his best shot at getting on another soccer team, though.
Or, maybe he was kicked off the soccer team at KWC (failed a drug test, maybe) and thought he could qualify at USI but perhaps information was shared between the 2 institutions so USI didn't accept him.

IDK if there's a way to find out if he applied at USI but wasn't accepted. I guess that might be a reason he'd lie to people about being enrolled at USI, even to his parents. MOO
 
My best guess so far on why someone would take the wallet, keys, and phone of their victim: to make it look like a robbery and perhaps drive suspicion more toward a stranger than someone closer to her?

Also, I would be interested to know if these specific things are mentioned because he specifically took each one or if perhaps he took a purse or clutch which contained all those items. Taking a purse doesn't strike me as weird, especially if you want it to appear like a robbery. But say she had a wallet in hand, phone in one pocket, keys in another, taking each of those things seems more weird to me. JMO.
I'm thinking he took each of those items from Halee with a purpose. Taking the wallet may have been to stage a random robbery, and perhaps to delay ID of the body if her ID was in it. The purpose of taking her cell phone could also be to delay ID, but I think it was more. I think Halee knew about something secretive and threatened to tell (maybe tried to convince IH and other friends to own up and make things right), and I think she had proof stored on her phone and probably on her home PC also, which may be why IH took her keys. One question, though, is whether Halee's house key and car key is on the same chain. We still don't know where her car was when she was killed, so maybe he needed to move Halee's car and took the car key. But, I'm wondering if it was her house key he took instead because he intended to go to her apartment to wipe something incriminating off of her PC, and maybe he did. I wonder if LE found evidence he'd been at her apartment after killing Halee. MOO

Could the secret IH was keeping and Halee threatened to reveal have to do with IH not being enrolled at USI, drugs or both? Again, MOO
 
Or, maybe he was kicked off the soccer team at KWC (failed a drug test, maybe) and thought he could qualify at USI but perhaps information was shared between the 2 institutions so USI didn't accept him.

IDK if there's a way to find out if he applied at USI but wasn't accepted. I guess that might be a reason he'd lie to people about being enrolled at USI, even to his parents. MOO
Failing a drug test would probably have him suspended for a game or two. I doubt it would get him kicked off the team. Just my opinion, but I worked for a division 1 basketball team.

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