Aaron Joseph Wedel, a 26-year-old male from Phoenix by way of Bryan, Texas, was killed on June 4, 2009, when he was shot in the head inside the garage of a home near 103rd Avenue and Indian School Road in west Phoenix. Phoenix police later confirmed that he died at the scene from the gunshot wound. Obituary notices describe Wedel as having recently completed training as a radiology technician and planning to return to Texas to build a better life for himself and his two young sons, and they
remember him as a gentle, devoted father and family man whose life “came to a tragic end” in Phoenix. Public records and news coverage do not clearly specify his race or ethnicity.
According to Phoenix Police Officer Luis Samudio, officers were called to the house around 12:30 p.m. that Thursday and found Wedel in the garage with a fatal wound to the head. Earlier in the day, police had already been dispatched to the same residence because of a reported dispute involving Mark Benson and another person in the home, but officers arrived to find that Benson had already left. At the time of the shooting, Wedel's mother and four other children were inside the house; none of them saw the actual shooting. Two young children were initially reported missing in the confusion, but Phoenix Fire Department spokesperson Shelly Jamison later said they were found hiding inside the home and were unharmed.
Police quickly focused on 53-year-old Mark Benson, identified as the boyfriend of Wedel's mother and a man who was living at the home but in the process of moving out. Investigators said Benson “may have been drinking” before the incident. Phoenix police took Benson into custody and booked him on suspicion of second-degree murder in connection with Wedel's death. Accounts later summarized in domestic-violence fatality reporting describe the situation as a family-violence homicide in which an intimate partner's conflict escalated into lethal violence against a family member.
Subsequent court records show that the case proceeded to trial in Maricopa County Superior Court, where a jury convicted Mark Alan Benson of second-degree murder. An Arizona Court of Appeals decision explains that Benson's girlfriend had ordered him to move out of the house after a heated argument and after discovering that he had used a garden hose to flood the home. Later that day, while she and her daughter were inside gathering Benson's clothes, Wedel stayed in the garage “standing watch” over Benson; they then heard a loud bang, and when they opened the door to the garage they found Wedel lying in a pool of blood while Benson's shotgun and hunting vest lay discarded in the hallway and Benson drove away in his van. Benson later testified that he had been drinking heavily, claimed alcoholic blackouts, and suggested the gun might have gone off accidentally when the victim grabbed the barrel, but the jury rejected this version and returned a guilty verdict.
In the end, Benson was sentenced to 20 years in the Arizona Department of Corrections for the second-degree murder conviction. His conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal, and a later petition for post-conviction relief was denied, leaving the verdict and lengthy prison term in place. Publicly available records and case summaries do not indicate that any other suspects were ever identified or arrested in connection with the killing of Aaron Joseph Wedel; the criminal case centers solely on Mark Alan Benson as the perpetrator.
