It’s Done

Lisa Caldwell was the daughter of Wapello County sheriff’s deputy Todd Caldwell. She had served as a reserve deputy and later worked as a jailer at the Washington County jail. In October 2011 she married Seth Techel, a volunteer firefighter, and the couple lived in a trailer in Agency, Iowa. By May 2012 Lisa was 23 and 17 weeks pregnant with a daughter.

Early on May 26, 2012, Lisa was shot in bed with a 12-gauge shotgun. Seth said he had been in the shower and that an intruder must have fired, and attention briefly turned to a neighbor, Brian Tate, who had been feuding with the couple. Investigators found the shotgun, wiped clean, in tall grass about 90 feet from the trailer. They also learned that Seth had been having an affair with a coworker, Rachel McFarland, and had bought a prepaid phone to keep contacting her after Lisa found out.

Seth was charged with first-degree murder and nonconsensual termination of a pregnancy. Juries deadlocked in February 2013 and again that November. A third jury, sitting in Davenport, convicted him on both counts on July 24, 2014. On September 10, 2014, he was sentenced to life without parole plus 25 years, and the Iowa Court of Appeals upheld the convictions in July 2016. Brian Tate died on September 30, 2012, and his family blamed the stress of the suspicion.