Frederick Mundt was sentenced to death by the State of Ohio for the murder of Brittany Hendrickson
According to court documents Frederick Mundt would kidnap seven year old Brittany Hendrickson who would be sexually assaulted and murdered
Frederick Mundt would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Frederick Mundt Photos
Frederick Mundt Now
Number
A486456
DOB
08/23/1974
Gender
Male
Race
White
Admission Date
12/17/2004
Institution
Chillicothe Correctional Institution
Status
INCARCERATED
Frederick Mundt Case
On March 9, 2004, seven-year-old Brittany Hendrickson disappeared from her home in Noble County. The next day, searchers found Brittany’s raped, battered body hidden in a nearby abandoned well. Appellant, Frederick A. Mundt, was convicted of the aggravated murder of Brittany and sentenced to death.
{¶ 2} The evidence at Mundt’s trial revealed that Brittany’s mother, Misty Hendrickson, became acquainted with Mundt in 1999. She and her daughters, Brittany and Lindsay, soon moved into Mundt’s house in Lower Salem, Noble County. In 2004, Mundt and Hendrickson lived there with Brittany and Lindsay, and their infant son, Shay Mundt. Mundt’s mother, Sarah Mundt, lived nearby with her boyfriend Tim Bowman and their adult daughters, Mundt’s half-sisters, Timica, Teresa, and Mary Anne Bowman.
{¶ 3} During the late morning or early afternoon of March 9, 2004, Mundt visited the Biolife Plasma Services Plasma Center in Parkersburg, West Virginia to sell his blood plasma.
{¶ 4} March 9, 2004, was a school day for Brittany Hendrickson. The school bus brought her home that day around 4:10 p.m., and her bus driver saw her go inside the house.
{¶ 5} Five or ten minutes later, Mundt’s stepfather, Tim Bowman, arrived. Bowman and Sarah, along with their daughter Mary Anne and her date, had plans to play bingo that night in Woodsfield, Ohio. Bowman came to invite Hendrickson to join them. After checking with Mundt, Hendrickson accepted. Bowman was at Mundt’s house for five to ten minutes; during that time, he saw Brittany and Lindsay at play.
{¶ 6} Hendrickson fed her daughters about 4:45 p.m. Half an hour later, Bowman arrived at Mundt’s house to pick Hendrickson up.
{¶ 7} Hendrickson said goodbye and “told the kids to go upstairs with their dad [Mundt] when they [were] done eating.” Although Bowman did not enter the house, he recalled hearing Hendrickson telling the girls to eat dinner and go upstairs.
{¶ 8} Around 8:00 p.m., Mundt arrived at the Bowman residence with Lindsay and Shay. Timica and Teresa Bowman were present. Mundt asked Timica if Brittany was there and said, “[S]he ain’t up home, and I have to find her.” Leaving the children with Teresa, Mundt and Timica drove to Woodsfield.
{¶ 9} They arrived at the bingo hall around 8:30 p.m. Mundt approached Hendrickson and asked if Brittany was with her. Hendrickson replied, “No, I left her there with you.” She got up, grabbed her coat, and left with Mundt and Timica. The three then drove back to Mundt’s house. At 9:18 p.m., Hendrickson called the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office to report Brittany missing. Officers immediately began to search for Brittany, a search that lasted into the next day.
{¶ 10} On March 10, a civilian volunteer taking part in the search noticed a sheet of tin covering the opening of an old well on property near Mundt’s house. Moving the tin revealed a chunk of concrete wedged into the opening of the well. The surface of the well water was visible around the sides of the concrete chunk. The volunteer looked into the well and saw a pair of green shoes floating amid some debris. The volunteer reported his find and led sheriff’s deputies to the well.
{¶ 11} The deputies recovered one of the shoes and brought it to Hendrickson, who identified it as Brittany’s. Other officers removed the chunk of concrete and recovered Brittany’s body from the well.
{¶ 12} Shortly after the officers recovered her body, Agents Gary Wilgus and William Hatfield of the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (“BCI”) arrived at the crime scene. Wilgus noted numerous abrasions and contusions on Brittany’s head. Her jeans were undone, and the leg bottoms partly covered her feet.
{¶ 13} Hatfield found bloodstains and hairs on the chunk of concrete from the well. Hatfield later weighed and measured the chunk; it was 36 inches long and 14 inches wide at its widest point and weighed 254 pounds.
{¶ 14} According to Hendrickson, Mundt stated on the morning of March 10 that “they will probably pin this on him * * * because he was supposed to be the last one to see her.”
{¶ 15} Detective Sergeant Mark Warden and Lieutenant Seevers of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Mundt after Brittany’s body was found. Mundt asked whether a condemned prisoner could “choose between lethal injection and the gas chamber.” Warden then informed Mundt that Brittany’s body had been found and that Warden “felt he was responsible for [her] death.” Mundt denied it.
{¶ 16} Warden noted that Mundt’s forearms were scratched. Mundt claimed that the family dog had knocked him down some steps while he was looking for Brittany. When Warden expressed disbelief, Mundt merely hung his head. Biolife Plasma Services personnel later testified that Mundt did not have those scratches on his arm when he sold plasma on the morning of March 9.
{¶ 17} Seevers asked Mundt whether Brittany could have been sexually assaulted. Mundt first said no, then asked, “Well, how would I know?” The officers then took a DNA swab and collected other trace evidence from Mundt’s person. As Warden was cataloguing these items, Mundt asked: “Do you think I should die?” Warden replied, “Well, do you think you should be put to death?” Mundt said, “Yes.”
{¶ 18} Dr. P.S.S. Sreenivasa Murthy, a pathologist and deputy coroner for Stark and Wayne Counties, conducted an autopsy on Brittany, assisted by Dr. Anthony Bertin, a urologist, who examined Brittany’s genitalia.
{¶ 19} Dr. Murthy found that Brittany had extensive blunt-force head injuries. These included multiple lacerations and bruises, a skull fracture, and hemorrhaging and contusions of the brain. She also had blunt-force injuries to her trunk and extremities.
{¶ 20} Brittany’s lungs were hyperinflated and contained excess fluid, leading Dr. Murthy to conclude that she had drowned in the well. But because Brittany was 47 inches tall while the water in the well was only 30 to 36 inches deep, Murthy concluded that Brittany’s injuries had left her unable to stand up. Murthy also concluded that given the severity of her injuries, Brittany would have died within 10 to 15 minutes. Thus, Murthy concluded that she died both of drowning and of her multiple blunt-force injuries.
{¶ 21} Dr. Bertin, the urologist, observed that Brittany’s panties were soaked with blood. Her vaginal opening was “imploded,” as if a large object had been forced into it. Her vaginal walls had been “ripped apart,” with deep, full-length lacerations on both sides. In Dr. Bertin’s opinion, a rigid object, approximately two and one-half inches in diameter, had been forced up Brittany’s vaginal canal with “considerable force.”
{¶ 22} Diane Larson, a BCI forensic scientist, examined numerous evidentiary items. Those yielding significant DNA evidence included vaginal swabs taken during Brittany’s autopsy, fabric cut from the crotch of Brittany’s panties, a bloodstained bedsheet found on the bed in Mundt’s master bedroom, and a bloodstained shirt found in Mundt’s bathroom and identified as his.
{¶ 23} Larson found sperm cells on the vaginal swabs and on Brittany’s panties. She identified a mixture of two DNA profiles on the sperm fraction of the vaginal swabs. One of the mixed profiles was consistent with Mundt; the other was consistent with Brittany. The proportion of the population that could not be excluded as a possible contributor to that mixture was one in 203,800.
{¶ 24} On the panties, Larson identified “two clean separate DNA profiles.” The major profile, or largest amount, came from sperm and was consistent with Mundt’s DNA. The expected frequency of the major profile was one in approximately 39 quadrillion, 350 trillion persons. The minor profile was consistent with Brittany’s DNA.
{¶ 25} On the bedsheet, DNA testing showed a mixture of two DNA profiles. The major profile was consistent with Mundt’s DNA; the minor profile was consistent with Brittany’s. The expected frequency of the minor profile was one in 146 million persons.
{¶ 26} Mark Losko, another forensic scientist at BCI, testified that testing on Mundt’s shirt revealed a mixture of two DNA profiles. The major profile was consistent with Brittany’s DNA. The expected frequency of that profile was one in 4.7 quadrillion persons. The minor profile was consistent with Mundt’s DNA.
{¶ 27} After Mundt’s arrest, his half-brother, Johnny Mundt, visited him in jail. Johnny testified that he asked Mundt “if he done it.” Mundt admitted that he had raped Brittany. Then he asked Johnny “if I can get the stuff out of the house.” Mundt told Johnny that “the stuff” was behind the stereo. Johnny agreed to remove it.
{¶ 28} On April 24 and 25, 2004, while Mundt was incarcerated in the county jail, he had several telephone conversations with Johnny. In these conversations, Mundt repeatedly urged Johnny to remove and destroy certain “stuff” or “trash” located in the wall behind the stereo in Mundt’s house. The sheriff’s office recorded these conversations, and the state introduced them at trial.
{¶ 29} These recordings convey Mundt’s sense of urgency and concern for secrecy because he continually expressed his anxiety about when Johnny was going to burn the “trash” and whether he had burned “all of it.” He warned Johnny that their conversation was being taped and reminded him several times not to let their mother see him burning the “trash.”
{¶ 30} On April 24, Mundt asked Johnny: “Hey, did you get all that stuff out of there where the radio is? * * * Would you be able to get that out?”
{¶ 31} Mundt continued:
{¶ 32} “You going to burn that stuff? * * * Well, make sure Mom ain’t down there when you get burning that. * * * I really-really hope you can do that for me.”
{¶ 33} “You, uh, sure you can get that stuff out of there? * * * I’m really a-hoping. * * * ‘Cause I’m really wanting that stuff out of there. You hear? * * * Make sure you get it all.”
{¶ 34} “Yeah, I hope you do that, take-take that trash out. Out-out back of the stereo. I really need to get that out of the house. You hear? * * * Back behind the stereo, yeah. Where the wall’s at? * * * Down in there. * * * You going to burn all that? * * * That would do me a lot of good.”
{¶ 35} On the following day, Mundt talked to Johnny three more times. In the first of these conversations, Mundt asked: “Did you get all that trash burnt?” Mundt explained that the “trash” was hidden in the wall to the left of the stereo “where the insulation [was] moved,” approximately two feet away from the drywall. He instructed Johnny to “find all that trash” and “get rid of that for me and burn it. * * * Don’t have Ma and them up there.” He also warned Johnny that “[t]his telephone’s taped.”
{¶ 36} In their second conversation on April 25, Mundt pressed Johnny: “Did you get it? * * * Did you get all of it? * * * Make sure you burn all that trash. * * * Mom and them can’t see that.”
{¶ 37} In his third April 25 conversation with Johnny, Mundt again asked: “Did you make sure that other trash is burnt?” He told Johnny to “make sure that burns up nice and good. * * * Make sure there ain’t nothing left of it. * * * ‘Cause they be up there looking through that next.” Johnny said, “They’re done up there, they ain’t gonna go back up there.” Mundt replied, “Don’t bet on it.”
{¶ 38} According to Johnny, he eventually found “a little hole” in the corner of a room in Mundt’s house. In that hole, Johnny found a pair of boxer shorts, a T-shirt, a pair of girl’s socks, and a pillowcase, each spattered with blood. Johnny put these items into a box and hid the box in another part of the house. The next day, he took the box home and burned it with the bloodstained items inside.
{¶ 39} On April 26, Mundt talked to Sarah Mundt from jail. The sheriff’s office recorded this conversation. Sarah mentioned that Johnny had been burning things the night before, including a box. Mundt had his mother describe the box, then asked: “He burn it?” Mundt pressed Sarah for details: “Did you go up with him last night? * * * Did he pour gas on all that trash? * * * Did it burn?”
{¶ 40} On May 3, 2004, police searched Mundt’s house again. In a second-floor room, between a floor joist and the exterior wall, they found the space where Mundt had hidden the bloodstained items.
{¶ 41} Police cut out a section of the floor joist from the hiding place. The joist tested positive for blood. Mark Losko, the BCI forensic scientist, found a mixture of two DNA profiles on the joist. The major contributor’s DNA profile was consistent with Brittany’s and would be found in one of 4.7 quadrillion persons. The minor contributor’s DNA profile was consistent with Mundt’s and would be found in one of 139 persons.
{¶ 42} On June 19, Mundt had yet another phone conversation with his mother from jail, and this too was recorded by the sheriff’s office. Mundt urged his mother to remove his weights from his house: “You need to get those weights out of there. * * * They’ll use that against me. * * * They’ll try to say that I lifted those things down there. * * * Well, at least take some of the weights off the weight bench. * * * Did you take any weights off it?”
Verdict and Sentence
{¶ 43} At trial, the jury found Mundt guilty of four counts of aggravated murder, each with four death specifications; two counts of rape, R.C. 2907.02(A)(1)(b) and (A)(2); and one count of kidnapping.