Christopher Buechting, 43, of the Festus area has been charged with murder in connection with the death of his live-in girlfriend, Angela McDonald, 39.
Buechting is suspected of beating McDonald, who was taken to the hospital on Jan. 23 with head and face injuries and fractures, said Capt. Gary Higginbotham of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
McDonald died two days later at the hospital, the report said.
Higginbotham said authorities believe McDonald died from the “significant injuries” she sustained on Jan. 23, but an exact cause of death can’t be determined until a Medical Examiner’s report is completed.
He said Tuesday that the report could take several more weeks to finish.
Higginbotham said McDonald not only had injuries from Jan. 23 but also it looked like she had previous injuries in “various stages of healing,” which “indicated past abuse.”
On Jan. 22, the Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call to a home in the 1400 block of Wilderness Acres Lane in the Festus area, where Buechting and McDonald lived, but by the time deputies arrived Buechting was gone and McDonald “was not forthcoming with information.”
She didn’t appear to have “recent injuries” that day, Higginbotham said.
The next day, on Jan. 23, the Sheriff’s Office was called back to the home, after Buechting called 911 about McDonald, who was “unresponsive,” Higginbotham said.
On Monday (Feb. 6), Buechting was arrested, and the same day the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged him with one count of second-degree murder, a class A felony punishable by 10 to 30 years or life in prison.
He was being held Tuesday (Feb. 7) at the Jefferson County Jail on a $100,000 cash-only bond.
Buechting previously was charged with misdemeanor third-degree assault stemming from a Sept. 5, 2015, incident, and that case is pending. He previously pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor DWI charges for incidents in October 2005 and June 2011 and to one misdemeanor assault charge for a May 2006 incident, according to court papers.