In June 2020, Linda Dane learned that a skull discovered in rural Barron County, Wisconsin, had finally been linked to her brother, Gary Herbst. The bones had been found by a dog in 2017 and, after genetic genealogy work by the DNA Doe Project in 2019–2020, were identified as Gary’s. He had vanished in 2013 at age 57.
Gary had been largely isolated in the years before he disappeared and had limited recent contact with family, a fact that helped explain why his disappearance went overlooked. In 2013 his wife, Connie, told Linda that Gary “grabbed a suitcase” and left in an old gray Honda. Connie did not initially report him missing. Acting on Linda’s urging, she later filed a missing-person report with police in Elko New Market, Minnesota, but the account she gave contained details that later conflicted with other statements.
After the DNA match, Barron County detectives traced the Herbst family to a retirement community where Connie and their son Austin worked. Investigators noted inconsistencies in the couple’s accounts from the outset. Connie’s description of where she was when Gary left shifted — she first said she was home, then claimed she had been at the library. She initially made no mention of a missing gun and later said a .40-caliber pistol was gone. Austin’s story also changed: he first said his father left with an unknown driver, then described a heavily tattooed man as the supposed driver.
Neighbors painted a complicated portrait of Gary. Many remembered him as combative and intimidating; several said they considered him a menace. That view appears to have discouraged people from reporting suspicious activity. Neighbors recalled a stormy night around the time Gary disappeared when they saw a truck backed up to the family’s sliding glass door. They watched Connie and Austin carry large trash bags and a rolled-up carpet into the truck. In the days afterward, some neighbors noticed the couple acting unusually buoyant — holding a yard sale that included men’s clothing, tools and ammunition, and going door to door offering cookies. Despite what they had seen, multiple neighbors admitted they had not come forward because of their negative opinions of Gary.
Investigators obtained a search warrant for the Herbsts’ former home. The new homeowner pointed out a large reddish stain on a bedroom wall. A cadaver dog named Radar gave a strong alert in the garage and near the sliding glass door, and luminol testing produced reactions consistent with blood in those areas. Those findings, together with neighbor testimony and the family’s inconsistent statements, deepened investigators’ suspicions that Gary had died inside the house.
Both Connie and Austin agreed to multiple interviews and to polygraph exams arranged with FBI involvement. Authorities reported that Connie’s exam showed no signs of deception while Austin’s exam indicated possible deception. Under repeated questioning, Austin’s story changed several times. On Nov. 19, 2020, police arrested Connie, then 62, and Austin, then 26. During interrogation Austin ultimately confessed.
He told investigators that on July 8, 2013, after an argument between Gary and Connie, he retrieved a pistol from under the couch, entered the living room where Gary lay half-asleep, and shot him in the head. He said he wrapped his father’s body in a rug, put it in the trunk, and with his mother drove across the border into Wisconsin and left the body in a field by a stand of trees, assuming wildlife would scatter the remains. The skull found in 2017 matched the remains he described.
Austin described a childhood and adult life marked by what he said was prolonged emotional and physical abuse by his father. He said he believed he and his mother were in danger and that killing Gary was the only option to protect them. In interviews and on camera for a television segment he expressed remorse and said the act forever changed him, while also acknowledging a sense of relief after years of fear.
Prosecutors challenged the abuse narrative because they found no contemporaneous reports, medical records or other evidence to corroborate the claims. They also argued that, from a legal standpoint, the shooting did not qualify as self-defense: Gary was asleep on the couch when Austin shot him, and there was no immediate threat at that moment.
Faced with a case built largely on circumstantial evidence — neighbor statements, canine and chemical testing, shifting accounts, and Austin’s confession — prosecutors pursued plea agreements. Austin pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a negotiated sentence; Connie pleaded guilty to aiding an offender after the fact.
At sentencing in June 2021, prosecutors urged significant punishment, citing the brutality of the killing and the manner in which the body was disposed. The judge, however, found Austin’s claims of fear credible and imposed a 12-year, six-month sentence, with eligibility for release in 2029. Some family members and neighbors felt the sentence was too lenient. Connie received a sentence under Minnesota guidelines of two years and three months but ultimately served about three months and was released in May 2022.
The case left unresolved questions. Authorities said they never found independent evidence to substantiate the alleged long-term abuse, and they could not independently verify Connie’s exact whereabouts at the time of the shooting. Some prosecutors wondered if she might have been more involved than she admitted, though Austin consistently maintained she did not pull the trigger.
The turning point in the long-dormant investigation was the DNA Doe Project’s genetic genealogy work, which traced the skull back to the Herbst family and reopened a case that had otherwise faded from public attention. For Linda Dane, the identification brought mixed feelings: relief at knowing what had happened to her brother, and sorrow that it took seven years and a skull found in a field to produce answers. In the town where the killing occurred, reactions remain split — sympathy for a son and mother who said they were driven to extremes, and disquiet over a violent death and the unresolved elements that still surround it.