OGDEN — A man accused of stabbing another man to death and then kidnapping his own wife is back in the Weber County Jail.
Kurt Hayes Wangler, 37, was booked into jail early Wednesday for investigation of criminal homicide. He is being held without bail.
"We'll review what we have with the county attorney to decide if they want to file a kidnapping charge," said Ogden Police Lt. Tony Fox.
Wangler is accused of stabbing Tony Padilla, 22, to death just hours after being released from the Kiesel jail facility where he had been held for a Feb. 9 domestic violence incident involving his wife, Katherine Wangler, 27. She had him served with a protective order on Feb. 11.
Police said Kurt Wangler agreed not to contact his wife as a condition of his release from jail on Tuesday to search for a job. Weber County Sheriff's Capt. Klint Anderson said his office did not notify Katherine Wangler that her husband was going to be released because the no contact order was issued by the courts, which he said should have made the notification.
"It does raise questions as we look at procedures, and if that's how we should do it," Anderson said Wednesday. "There's no policy or legal requirement."
Instead of going out to look for a job and coming back to the jail, police said Wangler went back to the couple's apartment on the corner of Adams Avenue and 26th Street and forced his way in, confronting Padilla.
"There was a relationship between the two," Fox said. "It was a relationship that he (Kurt Wangler) objected to."
After killing Padilla, detectives said, Wangler forced his wife to flee with him.
"She was under a lot of duress," Fox said. "She feared him and feared that she couldn't leave because he might harm her further."
Police put out an endangered person alert late Tuesday afternoon and found the couple walking down a street in downtown Salt Lake City a few hours later. Fox said police used cell phone technology to help locate the couple.
"She's OK," Fox said of Katherine Wangler. "She wasn't harmed."
The woman was questioned extensively at Ogden police headquarters before being taken to a local shelter to be looked after.
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