ATHOL, Idaho — It’s been almost three years since a North Idaho mom, grandma and friend was found dead. More than two years after Kendy Howard’s body was found in her home, her estranged husband, Dan Howard, was charged with her first degree murder.
“I knew right away… there’s no way she would have shot herself,” Kendy’s daughter Brooke Wilkins said.
Brooke is sharing her story for the first time because she wants her mom remembered for how she lived, and not just how she died.
“She was the first one to want to go out and do whatever, in any weather, she was always down to do something,” Brooke said of her mom. “She was so kind. Sometimes that was overlooked because of how fun she was with this big personality.”
Those who knew Kendy Howard say she was like a magnet. She was a proud mother of two, grandma of one and extremely close with her family. Her love of life was infectious.
“She was super into holidays,” Brooke said. “Every holiday was a huge event.”
She especially went all out on any occasion for her granddaughter.
“She’d take her skiing, to do nails, they were constantly doing something,” Brooke said of her daughter and mother’s close bond. “I don’t think (my daughter) could have asked for a better grandma.”
And Brooke says she couldn’t have asked for a better mom.
“We were very close,” she said.
She says every day since her mom was so tragically taken has been challenging, but this time of year, as we near the anniversary of her death, is particularly painful.
“It’s been hard, super, super hard,” Brooke said. “Life moves on, but it feels like we are stuck almost because we are waiting. For a long time.”
A wait that began in early Feb. 2021, Brooke says her grandparents just had a feeling something was very wrong with Kendy.
“They hadn’t been in touch with her for a few hours,” she said. “They were worried.”
That’s just the kind of family they were, constantly in contact. Kendy’s mother’s intuition that something was terribly wrong was confirmed that day. Brooke got the news from Kendy’s estranged husband, her stepfather, Dan Howard.
“(He just said that there) had been an accident,” she said. “He said she shot herself.”
Brooke says their entire family was stunned. For multiple reasons, she says her mind immediately ruled out suicide. She searched for other possible explanations on how her mother wound up dead.
“You don’t want to think someone you have known your whole life could actually do it,” she said. “I tried for about a week saying maybe this could have happened, or maybe this but nothing fit to make it make sense.”
For more than two years after Kendy’s death, detectives with the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office have been investigating what happened. In April 2023, they charged Howard with Kendy’s murder. He entered a plea of not guilty.
Dan and Kendy had been married 27 years and lived in a home in Athol. A relationship she says had far more lows than highs. Howard once worked as an Idaho State Police Officer. He hasn’t been with the department since 2014 when he faced some legal troubles.
Brooke was just a toddler when her mom and Dan got together. She says the pending divorce was a long time coming, adding that things were especially tense in those final days of her mother’s life.
“We knew a separation and divorce was coming,” she said.
They all hoped for better days, that have been instead filled with an agonizing state of limbo.
“At this point it feels so open ended,” she said.
There are many details that have never been released about the ongoing case, including the exact circumstance behind how Kendy died. Brooke says it will all come out in the upcoming trial.
“It’s very complex,” she said of the case.
Brooke says all the court proceedings have been painful, and knows the trial will be too. Still, she’s eager for some sort of resolution and peace for a woman who brought so much joy.
“There are so many things people don’t know,” she said. “The fact we could say, this is what happened…(that would be justice.)”
Howard remains out on bail pending his March trial in Kootenai County.
