TLDR
An argument inside a small house in Garrison, Kentucky, ended with a single shot to the face and a murder conviction. Jurors in Lewis County weighed not only how Kylie Marie Weitz died, but what her boyfriend had said and done in the months before. Their verdict carries a recommended 50-year prison term. It also places the case squarely within Kentucky’s promised crackdown on domestic violence homicides.
According to the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office and reporting in Law And Crime, 23-year-old Damien Hebbeler was found guilty of intentional murder for the August 9th, 2023, killing of his 20-year-old girlfriend inside a residence on Willis Lane. Weitz was pronounced dead at the scene, and Hebbeler is now awaiting formal sentencing on the jury’s recommendation.
From 911 Call to Arrest
On August 9th, 2023, Kentucky State Police troopers were dispatched to the Garrison home after a 911 caller reported that Weitz had accidentally shot herself, according to arrest documents cited by local media. When law enforcement arrived, they found the 20-year-old unresponsive on the floor near the front door, with a gunshot wound to her face, and she was declared dead at the scene.
Roughly three hours after the first emergency call, investigators arrested Hebbeler. According to Law And Crime, authorities said he admitted pointing a loaded pistol at Weitz’s face, squeezing the trigger, and firing the round that killed her. He was initially booked into the Greenup County Detention Center, then later transferred to the Lewis County Jail as the case moved toward a September 2023 indictment for murder.
The Special Bullet and Trial Evidence
During the investigation and at trial, prosecutors focused on a single round that Hebbeler, by his own account, carried with him as what he called a special bullet. Investigators concluded that this same bullet was fired at close range into Weitz’s face, which prosecutors argued undercut any suggestion of an accident and supported an intentional murder charge.
The Attorney General’s Office also pointed to Hebbeler’s earlier comments about Weitz. In a press release summarizing the case, officials wrote, “Less than a year before the shooting, the defendant made statements that he wanted to kill Weitz,” casting the killing as the culmination of escalating domestic violence. Attorney General Russell Coleman said, “Today’s jury verdict delivers hard-won justice and affirms that Kylie Marie Weitz’s life mattered.”
Sentencing, Domestic Violence Context, and Next Steps
After hearing the evidence, the Lewis County jury recommended that Hebbeler serve 50 years in prison, a term within Kentucky’s statutory range for murder. The trial judge is scheduled to consider that recommendation at a June 5th sentencing hearing, where Hebbeler’s defense team can present mitigating information, and the state can argue for the jury’s proposed punishment.
Weitz’s obituary described her as a young woman deeply involved in school sports, lifeguarding, and restaurant work, with a wide circle of relatives and friends. The conviction answers the legal question of who killed her, yet Kentucky officials have framed the case as part of a broader effort to identify warning signs and respond more aggressively to intimate-partner violence before it turns lethal.
As Hebbeler awaits sentencing, the court will turn from questions of guilt to the length and conditions of his imprisonment. For those who knew Weitz, the verdict may bring a measure of accountability, but it cannot reverse the loss that began with a single shot inside a rural Kentucky home.
