Companion of Texas real estate agent killed in Mercedes dispute has lengthy criminal record
William Kistler, the mysterious 26-year-old companion of the Texas real estate agent who was fatally shot after the pair allegedly brushed against a parked Mercedes, has a lengthy criminal record.
According to FOX 4 Dallas, 28-year-old Ashlee Long was leaving a bar in downtown Dallas on April 5 with a group of friends, including Kistler.
Dallas police said that Kistler "reached out and brushed his hand along the passenger side of a passing Mercedes as they were walking across the street." Investigators said that 34-year-old Kendrick Finch then exited the passenger side of the vehicle with a gun and opened fire.
The affidavit states, according to FOX 4, that Kistler reached into Long's purse and pulled out his gun, and that's when police say Finch opened fire, striking both Long and Kistler. Kistler was able to fire back, but Finch then took off.
Finch shot both Long and Kistler, according to police. Long later died from her injuries at the hospital, while Kistler survived.
Finch, who has a prior criminal history that includes drug charges and burglary, later turned himself in to authorities. He is currently charged with murder.
Kistler was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, a felony. He is being held in the Collin County Jail.
On March 7, prosecutors said that Finch fired "at least 8 times."
"From the evidence that I see, it is our firm belief that Mr. Finch was the first one to shoot. That he has to own. He fired that gun at least eight times. In a crowded residential-commercial street with cars and people walking all around."
Finch's attorney, Dallas County defense lawyer Josh Healy, said in court that the shooting was an act of self-defense and that Kistler "started everything that night."
"We know for sure Ashlee Long would be alive today except for William Kistler. William Kistler is the one who started everything that night. It showed in the video. It shows his actions, how he was acting. We don't have the toxicology report yet of these two individuals, but I can bet where that's going to end up. He's trying to fight random people on the street, and then my client's car, driving by at a normal rate of speed, gets hit," Healy said.
Healy also emphasized the seven seconds it took his client to exit the vehicle.
"He goes over how, during those seven seconds, he says Kistler is trying to get a gun out of Long's purse."
"What I do know is my client never gets out of that car except [that] Mr. Kistler is reaching for that gun immediately . . . but if you watch that video, Mr. Kistler, when he's fighting around trying to get that gun and gets it, goes like this towards my client."
At that moment, Healy lunged forward in court, acting out what he claimed was visible in the video.
"And when he takes those steps towards my client, my client has every right under the law to defend himself," he said.
Finch was released on May 13 after posting a $500,000 bond. His release came after a judge denied a motion from his defense team to reduce the bond amount.
Long's companion's lengthy criminal history, primarily misdemeanors, was brought to light after he was charged.
In April 2018, he was charged with theft of services valued between $750 and $2,500, a case that was ultimately resolved in County Court. Later that year, in November 2018, he was charged with assault causing bodily injury to a family member, another misdemeanor.
In March 2019, Kistler was charged with violating a protective order or bond conditions in a domestic violence case, which was also resolved without a felony conviction. In July 2023, he faced another theft charge involving property valued between $750 and $2,500, again concluding with a misdemeanor disposition.
In addition to these closed misdemeanors, Kistler is involved in two ongoing legal proceedings.
In May 2019, he was indicted by a grand jury for burglary of a habitation—a felony. After a period of inactivity, the case was reactivated and remains pending.
In July 2022, Kistler was charged in connection with a vehicle accident that caused at least $200 in damage. That case has also been reopened.
Fox News Digital reached out to Kistler's attorney for comment.
Henry Long, the father of the victim, released a statement mourning the death of his daughter and calling for Finch to stay in jail.
"Ashlee's life mattered. And so does justice," Long wrote on Facebook. "Kendrick Finch must remain behind bars — permanently.
"He made the choice to kill. He should not be given the opportunity to walk free and make that choice again."
Long said the pain of losing a child is "indescribable."
"But to lose her this way — to gun violence at the hands of a stranger — is a trauma no family should have to endure," he wrote. "Kendrick Finch made the choice to take her life. He didn't just end her future — he shattered the lives of everyone who loved her."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
35 minutes ago
- CNN
Family of Colorado attack suspect taken into ICE custody
Federal agencies CrimeFacebookTweetLink Follow The family of the Egyptian national charged with attempted murder after an antisemitic Molotov cocktail attack in Colorado has been taken into ICE custody and are being processed, a DHS official confirmed to CNN Tuesday. The suspected attacker, Mohamed Soliman, has a wife and five children, according to court filings. It remains unclear what the family members' US immigration status is and whether the whole family was taken into custody. This is a developing story and will be updated.
Associated Press
39 minutes ago
- Associated Press
COVID-related agreement continues to shield some on Georgia's death row from execution
ATLANTA (AP) — The fact that the COVID-19 vaccine is not available for newborn babies is shielding a group of prisoners on Georgia's death row from execution. Executions in Georgia were halted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the state attorney general's office entered into an agreement with lawyers for people on death row to set the terms under which they could resume for a specific group of prisoners. At least one of those conditions, having to do with the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine, has not been met, and seeking an execution date for a prisoner covered by the agreement would breach the agreement, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shukura Ingram ruled. The agreement includes three conditions that had to be met before executions could be set for the affected prisoners: the expiration of the state's COVID-19 judicial emergency, the resumption of normal visitation at state prisons and the availability of a COVID-19 vaccine 'to all members of the public.' Once those conditions were met, the state agreed to give three months' notice before pursuing an execution warrant for one of the prisoners covered by the agreement and six months' notice for the rest. The state has argued that the agreement should no longer apply, contending the conditions have been met. But defense attorneys say it's still valid because the vaccine isn't yet available to infants under 6 months old, and visitation at state prisons has not returned to normal. Ingram's ruling, issued Friday, addressed only the vaccination question. She plans to handle the visitation issue separately. Ingram wrote that the state's arguments 'all boil down to an attempt to rewrite the Agreement.' The state is '(u)nhappy with the language it drafted' and wants to change it so that the condition would be satisfied once vaccines are available to 'most members of the public.' 'But courts cannot rewrite contracts to relieve a party of their regrets,' she wrote. She ruled that the agreement is 'binding and enforceable,' that the vaccination condition hasn't been met and that seeking an execution warrant before the requirements have been met would breach the agreement. The state attorney general's office plans to appeal, a spokesperson said Tuesday. Ingram noted that the Food and Drug Administration has approved clinical trials for infants under 6 months old, and newborns receive other vaccines. That shows it is possible for the COVID-19 vaccine to ultimately be available for that age group, and the state should have foreseen that that could take years, she wrote. Experts for both sides had testified that it was probable that the COVID-19 vaccine would eventually become available to babies under the age of 6 months, Ingram wrote. That was before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed U.S. health secretary. Kennedy last week announced that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. A few days later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website, which had said those groups should get the shots, was revised to say the vaccinations 'may' be given to those groups. The agreement covers fewer than 10 of the 34 people currently on Georgia's death row. While Georgia stopped carrying out executions during the pandemic, death penalty cases continued to wind their way through the court system, and as people exhausted their appeals, they became eligible for execution. A committee of a judicial task force on COVID-19 in early 2021 instructed lawyers for people on death row and the state attorney general's office to come up with terms under which executions could safely resume. The two sides reached the agreement in April 2021. The agreement only applied to people on death row whose requests to have their appeals reheard were denied by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while the judicial emergency was in place. The agreement was to remain in effect through Aug. 1, 2022, or one year from the date on which the conditions were met — whichever was later. The legal fight arose from a lawsuit filed when officials set a May 2022 execution date for Virgil Delano Presnell Jr. The Federal Defender Program, which represents Presnell, said the state had violated the agreement because the conditions hadn't all been met. Based on that argument, a Fulton County Superior Court judge halted the execution less than 24 hours before it was to take place, and the Georgia Supreme Court ruled in December 2022 that the agreement was a binding contract. People on death row who are not covered by the agreement have since become eligible for execution. One of them, Willie James Pye, was put to death in March 2024.
CBS News
44 minutes ago
- CBS News
2 West Covina women arrested for alleged $4.8 million hospice care fraud
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that two West Covina women were arrested Tuesday for an alleged scheme to defraud Medicare of $4.8 million with false hospice care claims. One of the women who was arrested is the owner and operator of two West Covina hospices, Golden Meadows Hospice Inc., and D'Alexandria Hospice Inc., which billed Medicare for hospice services for patients who were allegedly not terminally ill. Between Sept. 2018 and Oct. 2022, owner and operator Normita Sierra, 71, and an accomplice, Rowena Elegado, 55, collected more than $3.8 million from Medicare on false claims, the DOJ said. Sierra, of West Covina, is charged with nine counts of healthcare fraud, one count of conspiracy, and four counts of illegal remuneration for healthcare referrals. Elegado, also of West Covina, is charged with one count of conspiracy, and four counts of illegal remuneration for health care referrals. Sierra and Elegado allegedly worked together to pay marketers to recruit patients to the hospices, knowing that most of those patients had not been referred by their primary care physicians for such services. According to the DOJ, once enrolled, the fraudulent patients rarely died in hospice care and were often discharged after six months, with payouts reaching as much as $1,300 per patient each month they stayed in hospice service. Others involved in the alleged scheme include Carl Bernardo, 53, of Chino, who pleaded guilty in September 2024 to one count of receiving kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program, and Relyndo Salcedo, 60, of Fontana, a nurse practitioner who pleaded guilty on May 22 to one count of health care fraud. According to the DOJ, Salcedo was pressured to admit ineligible patients into the hospice and then exaggerated and falsified the patients' conditions to make them seem terminally ill. If convicted of the charges, Sierra would face a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison for each count of healthcare fraud. Sierra and Elegado would face up to five years in federal prison for the conspiracy count and up to 10 years in federal prison for each illegal kickback count. The United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General and the FBI investigated the matter.
