Son accused of killing, decapitating father called him ‘evilest person that ever lived,’ mother says

JEFERSONVILLE, Ind. (WAVE/Gray News) - An attorney for a 33-year-old Indiana man accused of murdering and decapitating his father is planning an insanity defense.

Bryce Winnecke, 33, appeared in court Tuesday afternoon. He is charged with murder and abuse of a corpse after he allegedly stabbed his father to death and decapitated him. While the Clark County coroner has not yet released the victim’s name, he was identified in court documents as Erich Winnecke.

Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull announced Bryce Winnecke will be held on no bond, and he is seeking a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 33-year-old.

“My number one priority is going to make sure that this community is safe and that no one is ever again in danger by Mr. Winnecke or his actions,” Mull said. “In light of this murder, in light of his conduct in dismembering the victim afterwards, it’s my opinion that he should not be allowed out of prison again.”

The probable cause affidavit reveals the alleged timeline leading up to Friday’s murder.

According to the document, the suspect’s mother, who is also the victim’s ex-wife, called police that morning to request a welfare check on Erich Winnecke at his Jeffersonville home because she had not been able to contact him and believed her son might have hurt him. Before officers could get to the house, she and her other son found the victim’s body in his master bedroom.

Responding police officers describe finding a bloody scene. They say all four walls and the ceiling were covered in blood spatter, and the victim had been stabbed multiple times and decapitated. His head was not found at the house.

A police officer who had arrived first on the scene reported seeing a man carrying a plastic grocery bag with an object about the size of a human head inside. The officer says he appeared to have a large knife and to be talking on the phone with someone. Video caught on a doorbell camera shows the same sight. The man was identified as Bryce Winnecke.

Police say doorbell video also captured the suspect walking up his father’s house “carrying an elongated object” at 11:53 p.m. last Wednesday. Video shows him leaving about an hour later.

Police interviewed Erich Winnecke’s ex-wife, who told them she had stayed friends with him after the divorce and kept in touch, according to court documents. She said he told her last Wednesday that Bryce Winnecke had been behaving “delusional and acting very weird.” The next day, she sent several texts to her ex-husband, all of which went unanswered.

The affidavit says she also told police that Bryce Winnecke sent a text last Wednesday to his father, telling him he “Un-Forgives him” and that he “didn’t want to see of speak to him again.”

She went on to tell police that Bryce and Erich Winnecke had been involved in heated debates, and her son had been mad at his father in the prior weeks, according to the affidavit.

She said around 9:15 a.m. Friday, Bryce Winnecke came running from upstairs and “seemed excited.” She said she kept asking him if he was “alright,” but he “flew” out of the home after grabbing a knife from the silverware drawer in the kitchen. That’s when she called police.

According to the affidavit, after she found the victim’s body, she went outside and called her son. She said when he answered, he told her, “I killed him. I went over to dad’s because he is the evilest person that ever lived. I cut his head off.”

Police arrested Bryce Winnecke later Friday after a four-hour standoff at a different home in Jeffersonville. They say they found his father’s head in a plastic bag at the scene. It’s allegedly the same bag the suspect was seen carrying near the victim’s home.

Bryce Winnecke’s attorneys have filed a motion for him to be examined by court-ordered psychiatrists. Attorneys have also filed two separate defense motions, one for a defense of mental health or defect and another for an insanity defense.

His defense attorney, Larry Wilder, explained he has known the suspect’s family for more than 30 years. In fact, he said Bryce Winnecke spent time in Wilder’s home when he was young.

“Great kid,” Wilder said of Bryce Winnecke. “He was quiet. He and my daughter were good friends. The whole family, which you saw there, was suffering a tragedy two-fold. They were all there, and they support Bryce. They support each other. They don’t see what happened as anything other than a horrible tragic event, and they are doubly overcome with the anguish that comes along with losing a parent and essentially losing a brother.”

Wilder said he will be with the family through every step of the trial, adding they only want a “just” outcome.

“What they want is ‘just,’ and they understand that that may not be what other people think ‘just’ is,” he said.