Trial date set for woman accused in baby’s death

A Feb. 19 trial date was set today for a woman charged in
the death of her 10-week-old daughter, whose remains were found a year later in
an an Arkansas storage unit.

Krissy Lynn Werntz, 34, is charged with murdering her daughter, Montana,
in Desert Hot Springs in February 2001.

In December, a jury recommended execution for the baby’s father, 39-year-old Jason Michael Hann, who was convicted of first-degree murder and assault on a child causing great bodily injury, along with a special circumstance allegation of having a previous murder conviction. Hann is scheduled to besentenced on Feb. 21.

Hann struck Montana in the head, inflicting fatal skull fractures about Feb. 10, 2001, while the family lived in a motor home in Desert Hot Springs. He wrapped her head in duct tape and her body in trash bags and put her in a Tupperware container, which was then put in another trash bag and kept in a trailer in a Arkansas storage unit, Deputy District Attorney Lisa DiMaria said during Hann’s trial.

When Hann and Werntz stopped making payments, the trailer was auctioned off to an Arkansas man, who found the girl’s remains in February 2002. Hann and Werntz were arrested in April 2002 at a motel in Portland, Maine.

The day after they were arrested, police found the remains of another of their children, a boy less than 2 months old, in a plastic container in a storage unit in Arizona. That baby, named Jason, had been killed in July 1999 in Vermont.

In February 2006 in Vermont, Hann pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in the baby’s death and was sentenced to 27-30 years in prison. Werntz wasn’t charged in that case.

Authorities investigating the couple determined that their third child, a 1-month-old boy named Michael, had skull, femur and rib fractures and was on the “brink of death” when he was found, DiMaria told jurors. That boy was later adopted and renamed.

While being questioned, Hann told police that Montana died in Desert Hot
Springs. The baby was born in Arizona Dec. 1, 2000, and the family moved to
California about a month later.

According to a sworn declaration in support of an arrest warrant, Werntz told investigators that she returned from work Feb. 10, 2001, and found Montana dead in the bathtub. She said Hann told her he’d put Montana there with a bottle, went outside and found her dead when he returned, Riverside County sheriff’s Deputy Gary LeClair wrote in the declaration.
“He said he fell with Montana. He then changed his story and said she
spit up and choked,” LeClair wrote.

Werntz was “distraught,” and the couple left Montana at their trailer and stayed at a motel for the night. Hann later decided to keep Montana with them, Le Clair wrote.

`Krissy denied having any knowledge of Jason killing and/or hitting Montana. She never witnessed any abuse from Jason and denied abusing her children herself,” LeClair wrote. “She said neither of them made any effort to call for medical help for Montana. She had no explanation on why two of her children died for unknown reasons while in the care of Jason.”

Hann was in prison for Jason’s death when Vermont law enforcement authorities agreed to extradite him to California to stand trial for Montana’s death. He and Werntz were indicted by a grand jury in September 2009.