A Montana man will spend the rest of his life behind bars over the killing of his wife and a bartender he suspected she was having an affair with.
Kraig Walter Benson was sentenced to 140 years in prison on Friday for the deaths of his wife, Jenny Benson, 49, and bartender Logan Gardner, 43. He was found guilty in October 2024 of two counts of deliberate homicide.
Kraig was Captured on Camera Leaving the Bar, Grabbing a Gun from Car Outside Before Killing Victims
Kraig shot and killed Jenny and Gardner at the Four Aces Bar in Superior, Montana, on Aug. 27, 2023. An affidavit obtained by KECI outlining the case said surveillance video from the bar and a neighboring business captured the murder.
The footage showed the Bensons at a table inside. At one point, Kraig Benson went outside, smoked a cigarette, grabbed a gun from his wife's Chevrolet Tahoe, and returned to the bar.
At 9:19 p.m., the time-stamped video shows him returning to the table with his wife in the middle of the bar. He reaches into his waistband, pulls out the gun and shoots her in the head as patrons run for the doors. She falls from her bar stool onto the floor, and he extends the firearm over the bar toward the bartender and fires at the bartender as he retreats toward the front door.
Benson fires again at his wife once more as she lies on the floor and then fires at the bartender, shooting him three more times as he lies on the floor near the entrance.
Kraig then sets the firearm on the bar and leaves in the Tahoe. He was later arrested after the Tahoe was seen with a flat tire driving erratically on a highway in Missoula County.
'She Told Me She was Not Going Home with Me'
At his trial, he testified in his own defense."She told me that she was not going to go home with me, that she was going to go home with Logan," Benson said during cross-examination, local affiliate KULR reported.
"I went outside, and I'm pretty sure that's why I went outside ... and was going back into the bar and having the last conversation."
Kraig made a statement prior to being sentenced, saying, "I would like to apologize for my actions. To my friends and family, thank you for your support. To my children, I love you more than life itself," he said while crying on the stand. "I too lost my best friend that night, my best friend and the love of my life."
"Shooting two people in a bar, with witnesses, are not actions with memory, having no memory is no excuse," Kraig said. He was remanded to the custody of the Mineral County Sheriff's Office to await transport to the Montana State Prison at a later time.
