Shortly after being charged with murder, 50-year-old Judson Keith Hoover entered a guilty plea to killing his 38-year-old wife, Rebecca Ruth Hoover.

On August 2nd, Judson filed for divorce, and the following day, Rebecca was last seen. According to officials, she had already passed away at the time.

The couple’s eight-year-old boy told a school counselor that he had seen his father kill his mother, which led to the investigation into the incident.

Judson reportedly accepted a guilty plea in order to spare the youngster from having to provide a statement in court.

According to Bailey’s statement from the New Albany Police Chief, Rebecca’s mother reported her missing on August 4. Rebecca was unable to be located when the police arrived at her St. Joseph Road house.

Fast-forwarding to August 27, Bailey said: “Our criminal investigators received a tip that Ms. Hoover’s disappearance might have been illegal in character. Our criminal detectives kicked things into high gear and spent many hours figuring out the case’s facts based on that information.

Reportedly, search warrants were performed at the couple’s residence and an unidentified family member was subjected to a forensic interrogation.

The same day that Rebecca’s body was found, Judson was arrested on suspicion of her murder.

On the same day that formal charges were made, he entered a guilty plea.

The boy reported witnessing his father, who was wearing black boots, stomp his mother in the head 20 times while she was lying on the ground near to a black refrigerator in the basement, according to the probable cause affidavit. The youngster also saw Judson Hoover strike Rebecca Hoover in the stomach while holding a set of keys, but Rebecca remained motionless and unresponsive. The young witness saw blood oozing from Rebecca Hoover’s left ear and head.

When investigators approached Judson on August 27 as he was leaving the kids’ school, he gave them permission to examine the family’s residence and cars.

Blood spatter was found at the base of the basement stairs by investigators and crime scene personnel.

Judson said in his plea that he had first left Rebecca in the basement after strangling her to death.

But in line with the son’s story, the medical examiner determined that Rebecca died from blunt force injuries to her head and torso.

Rebecca’s body was likewise disfigured, according to the authorities, but Judson insisted he did not remember doing it.

A few miles from the family’s residence, on August 4, minutes after police had visited the house to investigate the missing person complaint, Judson was seen on security camera at a storage facility transporting what looked to be a body.

On August 28, a day after being questioned by police, he was seen on camera driving a rental Dodge Caravan back to the storage unit. He was spotted lifting a 55-gallon container into the van.

He admitted to transporting the container holding his wife’s body to another storage unit on Strawberry Lane in Louisville. The facility recovered Rebecca’s body.