New Market woman receives 2-year sentence for helping conceal husband's body after son killed him

A New Market woman has been sentenced to 2 ¼ years for helping dispose of her abusive husband's body in 2013 after their son shot his sleeping father in the back of the head in the family's suburban Twin Cities home.

Connie L. Herbst, whose 64th birthday was Friday, was sentenced by Scott County District Judge Colleen King to a term well below state sentencing guidelines for her role in aiding and abetting her son after he killed 57-year-old Gary A. Herbst in July of that year.

With credit for time in jail since her arrest more than 15 months ago, Herbst has just shy of three months to serve in prison before being put on supervised release, according to County Attorney Ron Hocevar.

Austin Herbst, 27, pleaded guilty, was sentenced in June and has about seven more years to serve in prison for second-degree murder.

Defense attorneys spelled out in great detail the decades of physical and emotional abuse they say Gary Herbst inflicted upon his wife and son, who fired the fatal shot in their home in Elko New Market while Connie Herbst was at the library.

Through Connie Herbst's own words, and a letter written from prison by her son, the two said Gary Herbst ruled the household with drug- and alcohol-fueled violence, inflicting psychological torture until the moment a 19-year-old Austin Herbst decided to kill his father.

"She did nothing more than any normal parent would do to protect her own," Austin Herbst wrote to Judge King from the St. Cloud prison. "I ask, beg, for you to show mercy on my mom, as she has shown others her entire life."

Hocevar said Thursday that King based her light sentence on Connie Herbst "taking responsibility by entering a guilty plea and the history of domestic abuse."

Prosecutors had argued for a term of 4³⁄₄ years, the top of the state guidelines range. Hocevar said Connie Herbst "lied throughout the investigation. Covering up a murder for seven years and only pleading guilty when facing a mountain of incriminating evidence is not in the state's view taking responsibility."

As for the abuse allegations against Gary Herbst, Hocevar said, "The main source of evidence of domestic abuse came from" Connie Herbst and Austin Herbst, who accused his father of some of the same forms of abuse.

Austin Herbst recounted how his mother was "the victim of abuse longer than I have lived! I had to watch her be abused by the man ... who vowed to love and protect her, but instead hated and harmed her."

The defense's presentence filing alleged that Connie Herbst could have no friends, was threatened with death, was belittled, locked in a basement closet for hours and endured repeated beatings that left her badly bruised.

"I couldn't go to the bathroom without telling him where I was going," the filing quoted Connie Herbst as saying. "I couldn't read books."

Gary Herbst refused to let his wife attend her mother's funeral more than 20 years ago, the court document continued.

"I got down on my hands and knees and begged, and he still wouldn't let me," she recalled.

Austin Herbst was his mother's lone defender against his father, and that made them especially close, the defense said.

"Austin would get in between us, and Gary would back off," Connie Herbst said. "When he heard Gary yelling, he would come stand in front of me. No child should ever have to do that."

The mother and son's secret started to unravel in December 2017, when a pet dog found the dead man's skull south of Barron, Wis., and brought it to back to the pet owner's home.

After the skull's discovery, Barron County sheriff's deputies soon found the rest of Gary Herbst's skeletal remains. It took 2½ years before authorities identified them, thanks in large part to the DNA Doe Project, a volunteer organization based in California that helps law enforcement solve especially challenging crimes across the country.

On June 29, 2020, about a week after authorities announced the identity of the remains, former neighbors told police they saw the Herbst pickup backed up behind the home after dark in mid-August 2013, the charges against the mother and son read. One neighbor saw the two load into the pickup something that looked like rolled-up carpeting. Prosecutors believed Gary Herbst's body was inside.

Connie and Austin Herbst later moved to a townhome in New Prague.

On the same day the neighbors were interviewed, sheriff's deputies and state forensics experts entered the home where the Herbst family had lived and were told by the current owners that they discovered a stain on the basement floor during remodeling.

Tests on the stain were positive for human blood. A second search turned up blood elsewhere in the basement, including in the floor track of the sliding glass door.