PREBLE COUNTY — Deputies say a murder suspect admitted to killing a woman he did not know with a machete.
Kenneth Brabant was back in court Wednesday.
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Moments after Brabant walked into court, investigators spoke about when they interviewed him.
“I just told him that some stories was not matching up.” Capt. Shane Hatfield with the Preble County Sheriff’s Office said.
Deputies found Leigha Huff lying dead at a home near Gratis.
She had a cut on her leg.
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Huff had been there with a man she knew at his friend’s house.
Then, she hopped on the back of his motorcycle for the drive back to his home in Eaton.
Hatfield testified about what Brabant told him happened minutes later.
“He seen the motorcycle coming and he swung. So I asked him what he swung. And he said, ‘That’s the bad part.’ I said ‘what was it?’ He said. ‘It was a machete,’” Hatfield said.
That’s when the man on that motorcycle drove back to his friend’s house with Huff, where they called 911.
But five minutes before that 911 call from their house on Upper Somers Road near Camden, Brabant’s daughter made a call to dispatchers.
“My ex is running up and down the road on his motorcycle, revving it up trying to get my dad to come out. My dad is outside,” she said.
But on Wednesday, Hatfield testified about what investigators found when they looked into that claim.
“That wasn’t the case. It was two innocent people driving by,” he said.
Brabant’s lawyer declined to comment after the hearing.
Court documents say Brabant tried to clean blood off the machete and hid it in the woods behind his home.
Deputies testified Wednesday that Brabant drew a map for them of where to find the weapon and about how Brabant reacted when they told him Huff had died.
“He became emotional. He was upset and apologetic,” Hatfield said.
News Center 7 checked Wednesday afternoon, and Brabant is still in jail and needs $1 million to change that.
If he comes up with the money, a judge told him he’ll be on house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor.
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