In a tragic turn of events, a Wisconsin man expressed remorse for a fatal road rage incident, in which he allegedly said to his passenger, “Watch this” before pulling the trigger on another driver.
“I apologize to all of you,” stated Todd Gieck during his sentencing on August 12 in a Trempealeau County courtroom for the murder of Kyle Dahl. As captured in a WEAU broadcast, he added, “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I was frightened.”
Gieck continued, explaining, “There was an incident, and I acted impulsively, resulting in what was truly an accident. I was mishandling the firearm, leading to it discharging. I have been honest about what transpired, and I take full responsibility for my actions.”
Todd received a prison term of 40 years, along with 20 years under supervised release, courtroom records reveal, as reported by Oxygen. Despite pleading not guilty, his defense team hasn’t yet given any comments to Oxygen.
Judge Thomas Clark emphatically addressed Todd, stating, “Your behavior was recklessly dangerous, and it resulted in the death of Kyle Dahl. Consequences must follow.”
Todd was found guilty of first-degree reckless homicide with use of a dangerous weapon, discharging a firearm at a vehicle and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, court records show.
While Kyle’s death was initially viewed as suspicious, Todd’s passenger helped shed light on what allegedly occurred in May 2024.
The passenger told police in a criminal complaint cited by WXOW that Todd was “highly amped” and “fast paced” while driving that night. At one point, he said, Todd stopped on the side of the road to check out an abandoned pontoon boat when a car behind them slowly passed by.
The presence of the car “elevated Gieck’s level of agitation,” the passenger said in the complaint, and Todd asked what it was doing.
Todd caught up with the other car, according to the complaint, and the passenger heard the “rack of a gun and Gieck said something like ‘watch this.’”
The passenger said he then heard a gunshot along with the sound of breaking glass and saw the other car “kind of go off the road.”
When he asked Todd if they were going to make sure the other driver was OK, according to the complaint, “Gieck drove his car the other direction.”
Police found Kyle’s car in a ditch, according to a criminal complaint cited by WEAU. He had head trauma and, with an object embedded near his eye. That injury was later determined to be a gunshot wound,
Kyle was flown to a hospital, where he later died.
Todd was arrested in June 2024 for first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree recklessly endangering safety and possession of a firearm by a felon, according to a news release from the Trempealeau County Sheriff’s Office viewed by WEAU.
At sentencing, Kyle’s family spoke about their loss.
“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was tell our 6-year-old son that his dad wasn’t coming home,” Kyle’s wife Brittany Dahl told the court. “Eventually I had to tell him the truth. How do you explain to a little boy that someone made the choice to shoot his dad while driving? How do you help your child understand that the person he looked up to, the person who made him feel safe, was taken from him in an act of unimaginable violence?”