A former Marine and Florida bodybuilder is suspected of killing his ex-wife when she came to get some of her belongings and then setting her body ablaze in an oil drum in the backyard.
In court in Tampa on Monday, 43-year-old Ian Christopher Baunach entered a not-guilty plea for the murder of Katie Baunach, his two children's mother, who was 39.
The former Marine and engineer Baunach was charged with domestic violence by strangulation in November 2021 and freed the same day on a $25,000 bail.
Katie Baunach filed for a restraining order against him in September of this year, ten months after she first accused him of assaulting one of their children.
When she left the two kids with a friend on September 29, she was last seen, claiming Baunach had told her she may come over to "collect some of her personal stuff."
She promised to return immediately away to the buddy, but she never did.