A 23-year-old former University of Wisconsin-Whitewater student and athlete pled not guilty Friday in Walworth County Circuit Court.
Chad Richards, in court with attorney Gibson Hatch, entered a not guilty plea at his Nov. 8 arraignment in front of Judge Kristine Drettwan.
The hearing took all of about two minutes, as Hatch entered the plea for his client and, with no victim statements, court was adjourned.
Richards is accused of shooting and killing UW-Whitewater student and former championship gymnast Kara Welsh in a Whitewater apartment Aug. 30.
According to the criminal complaint filed in September, City of Whitewater police were dispatched to a West Whitewater Street apartment that night just prior to midnight, when Richards called 911 and said a woman was dying.
Officers entered the building and allegedly found Richards in the hall on the phone, “crying hysterically.” While he was escorted out of the building, police entered the apartment and found the victim on the floor in a pool of blood with gunshot wounds to her neck, shoulder, wrist and leg. She was not breathing and didn’t have a pulse.
Another officer found multiple holes in the door to the bedroom, consistent with someone striking it, and a black handgun on the floor of the living room along with spent casings.
After Richards was read his Miranda rights, he spoke with a City of Whitewater detective at the police department. Richards allegedly told police Welsh was his girlfriend and the two had gotten into an argument at her apartment.
Richards allegedly told the detective he didn’t remember what the argument was about, but he had gotten angry enough to punch the door. He said while the couple was in the bedroom, Welsh grabbed Richards’ handgun, and he wrestled it away from her.
He also told police that he shot her because “he feared for his life.” Richards then called his father – and then called 911.
An autopsy of Welsh through the Walworth County Medical Examiner’s Office showed that she had been shot eight times, including wounds to her neck, wrist, abdomen, thighs and lower back.
After obtaining a search warrant, police went back to the apartment and recovered 11 spent shell casings. Another detective is on record saying that, based on his training and experience, the injuries to Welsh and the evidence at the scene were consistent with some of the shots occurring while the shooter was standing over the victim lying in the fetal position on the floor.
Welsh, from Plainfield, Illinois, was majoring in management at UW-Whitewater’s College of Business and Economics.
In 2023, she won an NCAA Division 3 title on the vault, and was a consistent contributor in that event and floor exercise for the Warhawks.
