Prosecutors said Damien Hebbeler admitted he fired the shot that killed 20-year-old Kylie Marie Weitz at a home in Garrison, and jurors later heard him describe carrying a “special bullet” used in the killing.
VANCEBURG, Ky. — A Lewis County jury has convicted a 23-year-old Kentucky man of intentional murder in the 2023 shooting death of his girlfriend, after prosecutors said he killed her at close range inside a Garrison home and later described carrying a “special bullet” used in the shooting.
The verdict brings a criminal case that began with a 911 report of an apparent accidental shooting to its most important stage yet, with formal sentencing set for June 5. Authorities said Damien Hebbeler killed Kylie Marie Weitz on Aug. 9, 2023, and a jury on March 24 recommended that he serve 50 years in prison. The case drew attention across northeastern Kentucky because of the close-range nature of the shooting, the prosecution’s description of prior threats, and the state attorney general’s decision to highlight it as a domestic violence prosecution.
According to Kentucky State Police and local reporting published soon after the killing, the case began at 6:06 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2023, when KSP Post 8 received a request from Lewis County Sheriff Johnny Bivens to investigate an unresponsive woman at a residence on Willis Lane in Garrison. In the initial 911 call, officials said, the shooting was described as accidental. Bivens told troopers the victim had a gunshot wound to the face. When troopers arrived, they found Weitz on the floor near the front door frame, and Lewis County Coroner Tony Gaydos pronounced her dead at the scene. About three hours after the first emergency call, Hebbeler was arrested. Investigators said he admitted he had “pointed the loaded pistol” at Weitz’s face and pulled the trigger. He was first taken to the Greenup County Detention Center to be lodged for Lewis County.
The public record that followed sketched a more deliberate case for the jury. In a March 24 statement announcing the verdict, Attorney General Russell Coleman’s office said jurors found Hebbeler guilty of intentional murder, a Class A felony, and recommended a 50-year sentence. The same statement said Hebbeler told the court at trial that he carried a “special bullet” with him and that the round was the same one used to shoot Weitz in the face and kill her. Coleman’s office also said evidence showed Hebbeler had made statements less than a year earlier saying he wanted to kill Weitz. Public summaries released so far do not lay out a fuller motive, the complete defense theory, or a detailed account of every witness who testified. They do, however, show a prosecution built around Hebbeler’s own statements, the physical scene inside the house, and the timeline that moved from the first call to an arrest in the span of a single evening.
The victim was 20 years old. In an obituary published days after her death, Kylie Marie Weitz Willis was remembered as a Garrison resident who worked as a waitress at Buffalo Wild Wings and had been active in cheerleading, track, volleyball and lifeguard work. The notice said she enjoyed traveling, going out to eat and spending time with friends, and that relatives and friends would “sadly miss her.” A memorial service was scheduled for Aug. 17, 2023, at Globe Family Funeral Chapel in Garrison. Those details, while far from the courtroom language of indictments and sentencing recommendations, help explain why the verdict carried weight in a small Lewis County community where the death itself, the arrest and the obituary all became public within days. For state prosecutors, the case also fit a broader message about intimate-partner violence. Coleman called the verdict “hard-won justice” and said the state would continue to pursue domestic violence crimes aggressively.
The procedural trail stretched across more than two and a half years. Hebbeler, who was 20 when he was first charged, appeared in Lewis District Court for arraignment in mid-August 2023 before District Judge Paul Craft, who appointed public defender Alea Hipes and scheduled a preliminary hearing. By late September 2023, a Lewis County grand jury had indicted him on a murder charge tied to Weitz’s death. Kentucky State Police remained the lead investigative agency, with help from the sheriff’s department and the coroner’s office. When the case reached trial in 2026, the prosecution was handled by Assistant Attorney General Tony Skeans and Tim Cocanougher, the executive director of the attorney general’s Special Prosecutions Unit. Aaron Ash, with the Office of Victims Advocacy, provided services to surviving family members, according to the attorney general’s office. What comes next is narrower but still important: a judge is scheduled to formally sentence Hebbeler on June 5, after the jury’s recommendation of 50 years.
The case leaves behind two very different public records that now sit side by side. One is the stark language of investigators and prosecutors: a woman found near a doorway, a pistol, a close-range shot, an arrest within hours and a later conviction for intentional murder. The other is the brief portrait in family notices and local remembrance. Weitz was described as athletic, social and close to a large circle of relatives and friends. In his public statement after the verdict, Coleman said the jury’s decision “affirms that Kylie Marie Weitz’s life mattered.” That line served both as a reaction to the conviction and as a reminder of what the case had become by the time jurors returned their verdict: not only a homicide prosecution, but also a long public accounting of a young woman’s death in a rural Kentucky community. Some details remain outside public view, including any fuller explanation Hebbeler may have offered for the shooting and what evidence the defense emphasized most heavily at trial.
As of Saturday, March 28, 2026, Hebbeler stands convicted of intentional murder and is awaiting sentencing in Lewis County. Unless court action changes the schedule, the next major public step in the case is the June 5 hearing, when a judge will decide whether to adopt the jury’s 50-year recommendation.
Author note: Last updated March 28, 2026.