A young mother shot while her kids watched In the winter of 1994, the life of Diana Ault, a 26-year-old female, was tragically cut short in her Independence, Missouri, home. On the evening of January 31st, she returned from a Super Bowl watch party with her two young children, a four-year-old son and a six-month-old daughter, only to be met by an intruder lying in wait. A single gunshot to the neck ended her life in the hallway of what should have been her safe haven.
Her husband was out of town for work at the time.
The discovery of the crime began when police were alerted to her abandoned red Pontiac Grand Prix in a nearby church parking lot. The car was still running, and inside, investigators found a. 44 magnum revolver, ammunition, and a spent shell casing. The gun was later confirmed to be the murder weapon and belonged to Diana and her husband. When police went to her home to investigate, they found the front door unlocked and heard a baby crying inside. They entered to find Diana's lifeless body on the floor, with her two children physically unharmed but nearby. Her young son was able to tell the police that 'someone shot mommy' and that the killer had placed him in a closet before fleeing in their car.
For decades, Diana's murder remained a cold case, a source of unending pain for her family. Investigators believed the scene suggested the killer was familiar with the family, as the bedroom had been ransacked, seemingly to find the handgun that was stored there. Suspicion eventually centered on Carolyn Heckert, a woman who had been having an affair with Diana's husband. Friends and family of Diana reported that she had been receiving harassing and threatening phone calls from the mistress in the time leading up to her death.
Despite the suspicion, no arrests were made in Diana's case. Heckert was also a suspect in the 1989 murder of another romantic rival, Sarah DeLeon, and was charged in that case in 2016. However, a judge later dismissed the charges due to a lack of evidence. In 2022, the FBI announced that it was reopening Diana Ault's case, bringing a renewed sense of hope that advances in technology, particularly in DNA analysis, could finally lead to a breakthrough. Investigators began re-examining all the physical evidence collected nearly three decades prior, hoping to finally bring justice to Diana and her family. To this day, no one has been convicted for her murder.
