The Murder of Josh Niles and Amber Washburn

 

I used to tease my husband all of the time that the reason I watch true crime shows is so I know how NOT to kill him, all of these people got caught. I have also often spoken here about the stupidity of perpetrators and the dumb stuff that they do that lead to their arrest but I almost think that this case takes the cake in that area. And, the most amazing thing about it was that the shooter had not just been a police officer, but he had been a police chief in a small town in Texas. I do not say this like it is unusual that police officers commit murders, but because you would think with his training he would have done a little better at concealing his involvement.

Josh Niles and Charlene Childers were childhood sweethearts. They never married but were together for several years and had two children before the relationship went south in 2013. They had both lived in Sodus New York which is about half way between Rochester and Syracuse. When they split Charlene moved to Texas. Josh and Charlene would fairly successfully co-parent their children and they both moved on with their lives.

Charlene would go on to marry a man and have another child. Charlene began working as a dog catcher in the town of Dumas Texas in July of 2016. She would meet Tim Dean there as he was a police officer. Tim Dean was also married but he and Charlene struck up a relationship. In October of 2016 Tim would take the new job of police chief in the small town of Sunray Texas. Tim and Charlene would divorce their spouses and in March of 2018 the two would marry.

In the meantime up in New York Josh too had moved on with his life. He had met Amber Washburn and they would have a son together. By 2018, their son was four and the two were engaged. Josh maintained a good relationship with his two other children, Gabby and Bentley, who lived with Charlene in Texas.

In May of 2018, just two months after their marriage began, Tim and Charlene faced trouble. Tim had a small daughter of his own and it was quickly discovered that he and Charlene had different parenting styles. It is unclear what Charlene's motive was but she videotaped Tim being abusive towards his daughter, but instead of reporting it to the police, or even just keeping it to herself it seems that she sent the video to a few friends. One of the friends took the video to the police and Tim was charged with felony child abuse. Not only did Tim lose his job as police chief but both he, and Charlene, lost custody of their children, at least temporarily.

Tim's daughter went to live with her mother and Charlene's youngest son went to live with his father in Texas but her children with Josh went to live with Josh and Amber in New York. It was said that Josh was already headed to pick the children up for a visit when he received the phone call that he needed to get there soon.

While Josh had custody of his oldest two children it appears that he was either considering or had already decided to file for full custody of the children. It was said that Charlene had gone to New York on several occasions to talk Josh out of doing that. I suspect that part of reason Josh had made this decision was because Charlene had chose to stand by Tim throughout this time. It was later said that while Charlene was not planning to split up with Tim or file for divorce, publicly that was the image that the two wanted to project so that it looked better for her to regain custody of her children.

On October 22, 2018 at around two in the afternoon Josh was out in his driveway working on his car. His next door neighbor heard some yelling and looked outside her window to see Josh arguing with a man she would describe as wearing a “hoodie.” Just was the neighbor was preparing to turn around she saw the man pull out a gun and shoot Josh in the chest. As Josh was falling to the ground Amber pulled up in the car with her four year old son in the backseat. Amber immediately put her car in reverse but before she could even hit the accelerator the shooter turned to her and fired one shot. Amber was hit in the head and died instantly. Her car rolled out of the driveway, across the street and into the neighbors driveway. The shooter then turned back towards Josh, who was attempting to crawl under his car, and shot several more times. The shooter then took off through the backyard of the home and disappeared.

The Sodus police department not only put a lock down of the area, including schools, they did what was called a reverse 9-1-1 call informing neighbors to stay in their homes and not to allow anyone inside as they searched for the shooter.

Investigators would later say that it was strange to them that Charlene would call the police department fairly quickly to say she had heard there was a shooting in the area of Josh's home and she was calling to check on her children. While this would maybe seem reasonable for a mother to check on her children investigators found the speed in which Charlene contacted seemed odd. Charlene immediately headed to New York and investigators interviewed her. She would claim in her interviews that her relationship with Josh was very good and that she thought Amber was a good stepmother to her children. She indicated that she was distraught at their murders. Investigators were not so certain.

As we all know those closest to the victims are always looked at suspects in a murder. The fact that it was made known that Charlene and Josh were about to battle in a child custody case had them looking at Charlene very early on. This of course had them investigating not just Charlene, but also Tim Dean, her husband.

It was not made exactly clear, or at least I do not remember and did not take note, just exactly how the pieces to this case fell into place and investigators knew that they were on the right track with Tim Dean. I am going to theorize that when going through Charlene's finances they discovered that her credit card had been used in Kansas to rent a car just a few days prior to the murders. Tim Dean had been driving a rental car in Kansas and apparently had gotten lost when he wrecked on a dark, desolate road and hit a culvert. This accident required him to have to call for help to get out which of course also required the police to show up at the scene. The officer who arrived at the scene had a body cam on that was running while he had a discussion with Tim Dean. New York investigators were able to obtain footage from that body cam and were amazed at what they were hearing.

Tim Dean told the Kansas officers that he was going through a rough patch in life that was including a divorce and that he was basically just driving around and that he was thinking about going and visiting a friend in New York. This of course immediately piqued the interest of investigators. Then apparently after wrecking one car Tim Dean called Charlene and she in turn used her card to rent him a new car. Investigators would discover that the first rental car was not in either Tim or Charlene's name but in the name of Bron Bohlar. Tim also stated to the officer that showed up at the accident scene that he had several firearms in his vehicle. This was not something that bothered the officer because in Kansas this was something apparently common.

Bron Bohlar was a friend to Tim and a police officer with the Sunray Texas police department. He was interviewed by investigators and he admitted not only renting the car for Tim but also being present when there was a discussion be himself, Charlene and Tim about making a trip to New York to commit a murder. It was never made clear if Amber was also part of the plan or if her murder occurred because she had showed up at the scene.

Both Charlene and Bron Bohlar would accept plea deals from the prosecutors. Both it seems were required to testify against Tim Dean who was facing a jury trial. There was not a lot of information that I found about Tim's trial. From my understanding though aside from Charlene and Bron's testimony there were at least a few other things. First, Josh's next door neighbor identified Tim Dean as the man she saw shoot both Josh and Amber. Secondly, it was said that there were actually camera's in the neighborhood that had shown Tim walking up and down the street earlier in the day as if he was casing the street. I am certain there was more, but that seems to be enough, at least for me. Tim Dean was convicted on six felony charges, including first degree murder. In May of 2019 he was given a sentence of life without parole.

The following month both Charlene and Bron Bohlar were sentenced. Bron agreed to plead guilty to second degree conspiracy for helping Tim rent a car to go to New York. He was given a 1-3 year sentence. Charlene was given a twenty-eight year sentence for a charge of first degree manslaughter. It looks like Bron may be released sometime in November of 2020, just next month but the New York Department of Corrections website was a bit confusing. Charlene is not eligible for parole until the year 2042 and Tim Dean will die in prison.

Josh and Charlene's children are being raised by one of Josh's sisters. Josh and Amber's son is being raised by Amber's family.