James Kornhardt and Steven Mueller: Life in Prison in Murder-for-Hire Cold Case

James Kornhardt
James Kornhardt
James Kornhardt
Today's news is somewhat anticlimactic. When they were found guilty in June for murder, the charges required that they be sentenced to a minimum of life in prison.

Still, today's sentencing of James Kornhardt and Steven Mueller to life prison terms brings final closure to a murder-for-hire case began back in 1992.

That's when Danny Coleman was found dead in his burned-out truck in rural Franklin County. For the the next 18 years Coleman's death remained a mystery. Then, this year, his widow Karen Coleman confessed to hiring Kornhardt and Mueller to killing her husband and paying them with his life-insurance proceeds.

Coleman was sentenced earlier this year to 20 years in prison for her role in the murder.