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Man Goes To Police And Confesses To Wife’s Murder Nearly 13 Years To The Day After She Vanished
Keith Alan Comfort said he “strangled” his wife, Megan Shultz, and sealed her body in a garbage bag, which he threw in a dumpster, police report.
On the eve of the 13-year anniversary of his wife’s disappearance, Keith Alan Comfort allegedly strode into a Wisconsin police department and confessed to killing his former spouse in Columbia, Missouri in 2006.
Lake Geneva Police said Comfort arrived at their department around 1:35 p.m. on Aug. 4 and asked to speak with detectives about a missing person case.
“A City of Lake Geneva officer interviewed Comfort who implicated himself in the death of Megan Nicole Shultz,” police chief Michael Rasmussen wrote in a press release.
The 37-year-old was charged with second-degree murder and was subsequently booked into Walworth County Jail. Comfort was also issued a $1,000,000 cash-only bond.
"The circumstances where you have someone come into a police station and accept responsibility 13 years later, yes, that is a long time in a different state," Dan Knight, Boone County prosecutor, told FOX6. "That is unusual."
Knight didn't respond to Oxygen.com's request for comment.
Lake Geneva police said they’ve turned the investigation over to Columbia Police Department, who have arrived in Wisconsin and are interviewing and preparing to extradite Comfort, who was living in a motel prior to his arrest.
Comfort allegedly told police he disposed of Shultz’s corpse at a city garbage dumpster on the 1700 Block of Amelia Street in Columbia. Police believe the dumpster would have been transported to a nearby regional landfill.
“Detectives are currently talking with the City of Columbia Solid Waste Utility, which manages the landfill, in order to determine if the area where refuse was disposed in 2006 from this particular address can be narrowed down,” a Columbia Police Department press release stated.
Authorities said the landfill stretches 107 acres, of which 16 acres are closed. The remaining 91 acres are used for trash disposal. Local media allegedly reported that the department was actively searching the landfill, but officials have refuted this, adding that they’re still strategizing on how to carry out such a search that has been ostensibly complicated by the passage of time.
“Additionally, detectives are researching the procedures that the landfill uses in order to determine if a search would be possible,” the press release added.
Shultz was 24 when she disappeared. Comfort reported her missing on Aug. 5, 2006. He told police at the time that his wife had “left their residence on Amelia Street in Columbia on foot.” Comfort filed for divorce soon after Shultz went missing, FOX6 reported.
During his interview with police in Wisconsin this week, Comfort allegedly confessed the couple had gotten into a violent argument over a drug deal the night Shultz was killed in 2006, according to a probable cause statement also obtained by the local network.
Comfort described her as “frantic” and told Wisconsin police that his wife was “yelling” and “swinging her arms at him.” He then, “took her to the ground and strangled her.” Afterward, Comfort said, he threw his wife’s body in a garbage bag, which he disposed of in a dumpster.
Debra Shultz, Megan’s mother, long suspected her son-in-law of being involved in her daughter's disappearance, local news outlet WKOW reported.
“Keith could smile and put on the charm, but he was a very troubled young man,” Shultz explained to the ABC affiliate. “Keith had it down to an art of lying and smiling."
