Investigators say the gun and cellphone evidence contradicted the account James Radford gave after his wife died in 2016.
SHAWANO, Wis. — A handgun that investigators say lacked expected blood or blowback material and cellphone evidence showing Sabrina Radford was holding her phone when she died are at the center of a Wisconsin homicide case that has now led prosecutors to accuse her husband of intentionally killing her.
The forensic findings matter because they address a specific story James Radford gave investigators after the April 11, 2016, shooting at the couple’s home in the Town of Fairbanks. Radford said his 25-year-old wife shot herself after an argument in which he confronted her about alleged infidelity and said he planned to divorce her. He told authorities she held his handgun in both hands when the fatal shot was fired. Investigators now say the physical evidence did not fit that description, and the Shawano-Menominee County District Attorney’s Office has charged him with first-degree intentional homicide with a domestic abuse modifier.
According to the criminal complaint, the weapon was a .44-caliber handgun. Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory testing showed that one chamber was empty, one round had been fired and four cartridges remained. More important to investigators was what they said was absent from the firearm. Authorities reported finding no blood or other blowback material on the barrel or muzzle that they expected would be present if the gun had been held close to or against Sabrina Radford’s chest when it fired. Prosecutors contend that absence undermines the self-inflicted-shooting account.
The phone evidence creates a different conflict with the same story. Radford told investigators his wife was using both hands to hold the weapon, according to the complaint. Crime laboratory findings later indicated that Sabrina Radford was holding her cellphone at the time she died. That does not independently answer every question about how the shooting occurred, but investigators treated it as evidence that Radford’s description of the final moments was inaccurate. The state is expected to rely on the broader combination of physical, digital and testimonial evidence rather than any single finding.
The contents of Sabrina Radford’s phone also became part of the renewed investigation. The latest complaint cites a text message from February 2016 in which she reportedly said James Radford was threatening her if she saw another man. Prosecutors have included that communication as part of the history surrounding the couple before her death. Radford, meanwhile, told police that on the night before the shooting he discovered evidence that his wife had been involved with somebody else and confronted her about it. Those statements are allegations and pieces of evidence that remain subject to challenge in court.
Radford’s version of events included additional details that investigators examined. He claimed he found a scarf containing semen and said there appeared to be similar material on a couch, according to the latest complaint. Investigators reported that testing did not find semen on the couch. Radford said he left the home for a time and returned at about 3 a.m. on April 11. He told investigators that divorce came up in the ensuing confrontation and that Sabrina Radford later returned with his gun and indicated she did not want to live without him.
For years, authorities did not have a conclusive determination that resulted in a homicide prosecution. Sheriff George Lenzner later said investigators continued working the case, conducting interviews with Radford and other people connected to it and reexamining evidence already collected. The sheriff credited advances in investigative tools and forensic technology, as well as the use of expert witnesses, with helping authorities determine that Sabrina Radford’s death was not a suicide. The case illustrates how evidence gathered at an older scene can take on new significance when it is reviewed with different methods or by additional experts.
The renewed investigation led to a major step on April 11, 2025, exactly nine years after Sabrina Radford died. Authorities charged James Radford with first-degree reckless homicide. He was taken into custody and eventually held in the Shawano County Jail on $800,000 cash bond. The charge accused him of causing his wife’s death through criminally reckless conduct but stopped short of alleging at that stage that he acted with the intent to kill her.
That case advanced in July 2026. A judge heard testimony at a preliminary hearing and found probable cause to bind Radford over for trial. He entered a not guilty plea to the reckless homicide charge. The preliminary hearing was not a trial and did not resolve disputed forensic questions. Its purpose was to determine whether the prosecution had presented enough evidence for the felony case to continue. The defense remained free to contest how investigators interpreted the gun, the phone and other evidence.
The legal landscape changed again in August. Assistant District Attorney Brent DeBord, who said he was newly assigned to the case, reviewed the evidence and decided it supported an allegation of first-degree intentional homicide rather than reckless homicide. Prosecutors filed the new charge with a domestic abuse modifier. DeBord told the court that the earlier reckless charge had been brought before he became involved and that his assessment of the existing evidence pointed to an intentional killing.
The defense has focused in part on the fact that the stronger charge did not follow the discovery of new evidence. Attorney John Swimmer objected when DeBord sought to raise Radford’s cash bond from $800,000 to $1 million. Swimmer argued that the facts were the same facts prosecutors had possessed before the charge was upgraded. He also pointed to Radford’s continued detention and argued there had been no missed court appearances or bail jumping. The defense sought a signature bond rather than an increase in cash bail.
Prosecutors argued that the new charge changed Radford’s incentive to flee because first-degree intentional homicide carries the possibility of life imprisonment upon conviction. Judge Gregory Huber kept the cash bond at $800,000. Swimmer separately objected to the new case moving forward before the prior homicide prosecution had formally been dismissed. DeBord said he was taking steps to dismiss the earlier case. Those procedural issues do not resolve the central factual question about what happened inside the Fairbanks home in 2016.
Instead, the state’s case remains tied to the reconstruction of a shooting that had no trial verdict or immediate homicide charge when it occurred. Prosecutors will have to establish their allegations under the rules of evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt at any eventual trial. Radford can challenge the forensic conclusions, offer competing interpretations and question the reliability or significance of evidence that investigators reexamined years after the death. His not guilty plea in the earlier case underscores that the state’s account is an accusation, not an adjudicated fact.
The progression of the investigation is also important because investigators have described a cumulative process rather than a single breakthrough. Authorities returned to old interviews, consulted experts, reviewed the firearm and considered digital evidence. The sheriff’s office said those efforts ultimately supported the conclusion that Sabrina Radford did not die by suicide. The prosecutor now assigned to the matter has taken the further position that the evidence supports an intentional-homicide theory.
For now, Radford is jailed on $800,000 cash bond. A preliminary hearing on the intentional homicide case is scheduled for Aug. 28. The hearing will give prosecutors another opportunity to show why the upgraded charge should proceed, while the defense can challenge whether the evidence reaches the required probable-cause threshold. The forensic disputes that revived the case after years without a homicide prosecution are therefore likely to remain central as it moves through court.
Author note: Last updated August 24, 2026.