Ian Christopher Baunach Bio – Ian Christopher Baunach Wiki
Ian Christopher Baunach, a Florida bodybuilder, was charged with murder after charred remains were found in a backyard burn pile.
AGE:
Ian Christopher Baunach is 43 years old.
DETAIL OF INCIDENCE:
Ian Christopher Baunach is accused of killing his 39-year-old ex-wife Katie Samantha Baunach, who was last seen on Sept. 29.
Before her disappearance, Katie accused Baunach of physically abusing one of their children. She also received an injunction for domestic violence against him on behalf of the child.
Police learned of Katie’s disappearance after a friend contacted the Hendry County Sheriff’s Office and reported she was concerned for her friend’s safety.
The friend told police that on Sept. 29, around 9 p.m., Katie dropped off her two kids and went to Baunach’s home to pick up some of her belongings.
She had not been heard from since.
The following day, officers found her car outside Baunach’s home with her purse inside the vehicle.
Officers returned to the home with a search warrant and found “evidence that a homicide had occurred there,” according to a federal criminal complaint.
The complaint states that law enforcement also allegedly found blood inside Baunach’s vehicle trunk after they applied luminol and signs of a struggle.
“There was damage to the wall and exposed screws in the wall where an object appeared to be previously mounted,” according to the complaint.
Inside a safe, law enforcement allegedly found her wedding band, engagement ring, and 13 silencers.
On Oct. 1, law enforcement interviewed Baunach. The former bodybuilder alleged he saw Katie on Sept. 29 after she called him up and “said she needed gasoline for her vehicle,” according to the complaint. He told officers that after she arrived, they argued over another woman, and he went to bed because he didn’t want to fight with her. When he woke up, she was gone, he alleged.
According to the complaint, police asked him about the blood in his vehicle, and he claimed that if there was blood, it was “due to groceries that he had transported.”
“During the interview, Baunach said they “did not have a body” of Katie Baunach and disputed that she was actually a missing person,” the complaint states.
That same day, law enforcement searched Baunach’s property and allegedly found a “fragment of a human mandible with an intact tooth in a fresh burn pile and discovered a blue fifty-gallon barrel near the burn pile which reeked of decaying flesh.” Law enforcement discovered more human bone fragments inside the barrel and around the burn pile.
Baunach, an International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness competitor, is also charged with destruction/concealing physical evidence, use of a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony, cremating a dead body 48 hours after death and failure to report the end to the medical examiner.
He was also charged federally with possessing an unregistered weapon after federal authorities found silencers in his home.
He is currently being held in the Hendry County Jail with no bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 20 or 21, NBC News reports.
His attorney could not be reached for comment.