Following the break in the Selena Hidalgo-Calderon case by the discovery of the suspected skeletal remains of her baby, Owen, Wayne County Sheriff, Barry Virts thought it would be time to take the long-awaited two week vacation he promised his wife, Sandy.
The couple packed their luggage and took off for South Carolina to visit relatives. They never made it. The call came in late afternoon on Monday, October 22. There was a brutal daytime double homicide in Sodus. The Sheriff headed back to Wayne County, the planned vacation would have to wait.
Joshua Niles, age 28, along with his girlfriend, Amber Washburn, age 24, had been gunned down at the home they shared in Sodus – Niles next to his car, Amber in the vehicle, with her 5 year-old child in the back seat, crying as his mother bled out.
Niles had recently gained custody of the two children he had with former girlfriend, Charlene Childers, a nine year-old daughter and seven year-old son, who are students in the Sodus Central School District. The two children were in school at the time of the killings.
Of course, Charlene would top the list of potential suspects.
“Out of all the years I’ve known these people, I’ve never, ever heard of anyone wanting to harm them,” said Aleixiandra Hinkle. She says she went to school with the victims, and used to be roommates with Charlene Childers. She lives in Maryland now, but is a Wolcott native.
But Hinkle says that, in 2015, Childers moved to Texas, and took her two young kids with her. Hinkle says Childers and Niles recently went through the custody battle, days before he was killed.
“I know Charlene was very upset about the situation,” Hinkle says. Childers’ current husband, Timothy Dean, a former police chief, was already in jail, accused of injuring a child.
Wayne County Sheriff’s investigators say Childers was in Texas at the time of the shootings. She allegedly arrived back in Wayne County two days after the killings.
Charlene appeared at a candlelight service for Niles days after the killings, proclaiming, yes, there were hard feelings about the child custody case, but that was in the past.
Hinkle says she thought it was strange that Childers was back in Wayne County at all. “It’s very ironic that she would come up here, and then boom, this happens, and she gets her children back. I thought it was very shocking,” she said.
In the week that followed, Charlene’s husband, Timothy Dean, the former police chief for the Town of Sunray, Texas, came into focus on the investigator’s intelligence radar.
Dean had been arrested in May, on a charge of Injury to a Child, a Third-degree Felony, after that state’s Child Protective Services contacted Texas Rangers requesting an investigation. Dean resigned a month later.
In the week following the deaths of Niles and Washburn, Lead Investigator Lieutenant Rob Milby, along with four other Wayne County Investigators, prepared for the long drive to Texas.
Sheriff Virts scrambled for hours that Saturday (10/27) to assure that his Investigators had the funds and support they would need for the four days of interviews and two days of constant shift travel.
Over their stay in Texas the puzzle pieces began to come together. The Texas Rangers, working with the Wayne County Investigators, began building the case.
Childers, while still in Wayne County, allegedly for the candlelight vigil and hopefully to retrieve her two children lost in the custody battle, was arrested on October 29, by Wayne County Sheriff’s Deputies on a warrant out of Texas in the felony child abuse case. She was being held in Wayne County Jail as a “Fugitive from Justice” due to pending criminal charges in the State of Texas, until Thursday’s (11/8) Sodus Court appearance.
In court documents it was also alleged that Childers conspired with Dean to kill Niles and Washburn.
The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office alleges, in a criminal complaint, that Childers was in possession of a 9mm pistol at 215 Walker Street in Palmyra on October 23, a day after the shooting. Wayne County Sheriff Barry Virts said a 9mm weapon was used to kill Niles and Washburn.
Bron Bohlar, a third suspect and a police officer, is accused of conspiring with Dean and Childers to commit murder several days before the shooting happened, according to a criminal complaint from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff Barry Virts announced that Childers was charged with Conspiracy in the Second Degree and Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree. She is being held on $100,000 cash or $200,000 bond. Her case has now been referred to a Wayne County grand Jury.
Dean faces charges of First-Degree Murder, two counts of Second-Degree Murder and two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon. He is currently being held in Texas on the unrelated felony child injury charges.
“It’s our belief Dean pulled the trigger,” Sheriff Virts said during a news conference Monday night.
The third suspect, Bron Bohler, age 34, was also a police officer in the Sunray, Texas Department. He was arrested on Wednesday (11/7) and is also accused of conspiring with the couple in the plot.
Bohler, according to court documents, helped Dean rent a vehicle for him to drive to New York to kill Niles, putting it under his own name, and did so with the assistance of Charlene.
Dean then drove that rented vehicle to Kansas where he had an accident, rented another car and finished the trip to Sodus, killing Niles on the 22nd at 2:07 p.m.
Both Dean and Bohler are now currently awaiting extradition from the jail in Texas. Wayne County Sheriff Barry Virts said the extradition process which would bring them to New York is well underway.
“Dean came under our radar the second, or third day after the killings, after intelligence from the Texas Rangers”, said Sheriff Virts. “The case continues to evolve. We spent an enormous amount of hours, every single day on this case. I don’t think he (Dean) thought we (law enforcement) were that good,” he added.
Virts said the Texas Rangers, Texas DPS, local law enforcement in Texas and the FBI assisted in their investigation.
Sheriff Virts says the investigation is ongoing, anyone with information is asked to contact the department at 315-946-9711.
All three children are currently under the care of family members.