The Iowa Court of Appeals has upheld the first-degree murder conviction of a Council Bluffs man, charged with killing his neighbor and stuffing his naked body into a trash can. A jury convicted 26-year-old Kaine Dye of 1st-degree murder in April 2008, in connection with the bludgeoning and strangling death of 64-year-old William C. Moser.
The men lived in the same apartment complex. A motive for the killing was never established, but a witness testified at Dye’s trail. The man told her he killed Moser because the victim caught him stealing and had threatened to report him to police. In May 2008, Dye was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In his appeal, Dye argued that his insanity defense should not have been rejected. In its ruling, the court said Dye’s defense evidence failed to prove insanity, and the state’s evidence demonstrated Dye possessed the mental ability at the time of the murder, to “know the difference between right-and-wrong, to appreciate the nature and quality of his actions, and to act with premeditation, deliberation, willfulness, and specific intent.”
Contributed by Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic