Southwest
Texas dad reveals chilling text he received moments before wife shot 3-year-old son
A bereaved Texas father, whose wife shot their 3-year-old, then herself amid a bitter custody battle after sending a text saying “say goodbye to your son,” said that the family court system failed the toddler.
The bodies of Savannah Kriger, 32, and 3-year-old Kaiden were found in a drainage ditch with gunshot wounds to their heads at San Antonio’s Tom Slick Park on March 19, according to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.
At 3:19 p.m. that day, 19 hours before they were found, Savannah sent a chilling text to her husband, who had filed for divorce on March 7, according to court records.
“Say goodbye to your son,” she wrote, per screenshots provided to Fox News Digital by father Brian Kriger.
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Kaiden Kriger, 3, was shot dead in a murder-suicide by his mother, Savannah Kriger, on March 18. His father, Brian Kriger, left, shared the harrowing text messages and calls he received in the hours before their bodies were recovered. (Brian Kriger)
“She sent the message on the tail end of a wire transferring all the money out of [our] joint account,” Kriger said on Friday. “I assumed she was running with him – that’s what prompted my lawyer to initiate the order for writ to make her appear in court the next day.”
About two hours earlier, per a timeline based on GPS records released by the department, the mother let herself into her Kriger’s house and destroyed property inside. Meanwhile, the department said, phone tracking showed that the unwitting father was still at work.
An hour later, after surveillance footage showed Savannah picking the 3-year-old up from daycare, she called Kriger via FaceTime call he recorded and later shared with police.
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Pictured are Savannah Kriger’s final texts to her son’s father before she shot Kaiden and herself on March 18. (Brian Kriger)
“You don’t have anything to go home to now, you really don’t,” she said. “You won’t have anything at all at the end of the day.”
“You left us for a piece of a–… Daddy left us for some woman he met on the internet… explain to your son why you’re not here,” she said, the toddler in the back seat.
When he asked why she vandalized objects in his home, Savannah replied that he “cared more about [his] material possessions than his son.”
Kriger called police and raced home to find that “every article of clothing” he owned had been cut, he said. Officers arrived at the home at 3:37 p.m.
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“What was going through my head was that I needed to get my son out of her custody as quickly as possible because of her erratic behavior after seeing the damages,” Kriger told Fox News Digital. “The only thing that [the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office] did was a welfare check to her residence, which was stupid because I told them that she wasn’t there, and she had my son and intentions to take everything from me.”
Officers called a relative to let them into the Dover Den home, where their findings “made them pause,” Sheriff Javier Salazar said at a press conference.
Savannah had laid out wedding dresses and wedding portraits displayed on the bed pierced by two gunshots. A shell casing found in the house matched shell casings later found near the mother and son’s bodies in the park, the department said.
The bereaved father is pictured with his 3-year-old son. (Brian Kriger)
The next morning, an Amber Alert was issued for the toddler, but by that time, based on phone records, the department believed the woman and child were already dead.
After an unsuccessful attempt to FaceTime her husband, a 21-second video found on Savannah’s phone, recorded at 3:21 p.m., appears to show the woman and child in the drainage ditch. She instructs the child to “say goodbye to [his] daddy,” which he does, per the department. She kisses the child and apologizes that his father “can’t be there with [him].”
Savannah’s phone records show that she looked up children’s cartoons at 3:29 p.m. – the department has inferred that these were the child’s final moments, Fox San Antonio reported.
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Brian Kriger, who asked that Fox News Digital not post photos of Savannah, said that his son “lit up a room” and had “so many friends and family that loved him.” (Brian Kriger)
Investigators found Savannah’s abandoned white 2023 Lincoln Aviator at the park off State Highway 151 East, but they did not find their bodies until the next day.
The Bexar County Medical Examiner ruled the child’s death a homicide on Friday, KENS5 reported.
Kriger told Fox News Digital that his son was a “sweet and loving person” who “lit up the room whenever he was around.”
“He had so many friends and family that loved and adored him and I miss him so much,” he said. “I thought he was so funny and he was so smart for his age. He was going to be something special, he had so much life ahead of him.”
Savannah had a restraining order against her husband at the time of the murder-suicide, per Bexar County Court records. The couple were scheduled to meet in family court days afterward.
Brian Kriger filed for divorce on March 7, days before Kaiden and Savannah were found dead. The divorcing couple were scheduled to meet in family court later that week – a temporary restraining order that prohibited Brian from seeing his son in person, but allowed him to speak to the toddler via phone and FaceTime, had been issued. (Brian Kriger)
“There definitely needs to be more consideration for fathers in the family court system,” Kriger told Fox News Digital. “Instead of always taking the mother’s side and believing everything they say.”
“Obviously she had a motive to all her false police reports and allegations of domestic violence to take my son away from me, which proved to be successful because the court system is biased to mothers. But obviously, mothers are capable of doing the worst possible thing to get back at the fathers, which is not fair.”
The father has not been criminally charged, the sheriff’s office and local police department told Fox News Digital. However, the last time Kriger saw his son, he said, was on March 7, after Savannah claimed he threatened her life in family court after he filed for divorce.
“We exchanged at the police station,” Kriger said. “The last time my son saw me [in person was] while I was crying that I didn’t want to give him up.”
Kriger said that Savannah “hid her mental health problems from everyone, including her closest family members, for years.”
“She never sought help for her trauma and never showed signs that there was anything wrong until it was too late,” Kriger claimed.
Kaiden Kriger is pictured in an undated Facebook photo. (Sav San on Facebook)
The bereaved father also claims that the judge overseeing their custody dispute was aware that she “had thoughts about suicide two times prior to [his] filing for divorce.”
“The justice system failed my son,” Kriger said. “I do feel like the judge who ordered me to surrender Kaiden did not have his safety in mind.”
Fox News Digital could not reach the attorney representing Savannah in her custody dispute at press time.
“We will never know the complete picture,” Marta Prada Pelaez, the CEO of Family Violence Prevention Services, told KENS5. “We only know of the level of despair that this mother must have had… The community’s attention should now go to those members of the family who are left with no real answers.”
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Jury says it is deadlocked in trial of man accused in Palisades Fire
Jurors deliberating the fate of the man accused of starting the Palisades Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history, failed to reach a verdict Thursday afternoon, telling the judge they were deadlocked.
A spokesperson from the United States Attorney’s Office told KTLA that jurors will continue to deliberate until they reach a verdict or give up.
Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, a former Uber driver and one-time Pacific Palisades resident, is accused of starting the Lachman Fire on New Year’s Eve. The fire continued to smolder underground for about a week, even after Los Angeles firefighters believed it had been extinguished.
Flames reignited on Jan. 7, erupting into the deadly Palisades Fire that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes in the upscale community, authorities said.
Prosecutors argued that Rinderknecht deliberately set the fire, claiming he had grown increasingly resentful of wealthy residents and viewed Pacific Palisades as a symbol of that frustration.
“Their case, though circumstantial, is strong,” KTLA legal analyst Alison Triessl said. “The defense is relying on, can they (prosecutors) show beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Rinderknecht actually started this fire and it wasn’t the result of fireworks or some intervening cause.”
The defense argued there is no direct physical evidence tying Rinderknecht to the fire and said the prosecution’s case relies entirely on circumstantial evidence. Rinderknecht did not testify during the trial.
Defense attorney Steve Haney spoke outside the courthouse Wednesday about why he believes it will be difficult for prosecutors to prove how the fire started.
“The lack of scene preservation. The fact that they got there after a lot of the evidence was missing. Not a lot of direct evidence. This is a circumstantial case, which is always difficult as a prosecutor to prove,” Haney said.
Rinderknecht, who was arrested and indicted last October, faces up to 45 years in prison if found guilty of three arson counts, including destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and timber set afire.
Tony Kurzweil contributed to this report
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