Prosecutors said the shootings of his ex-wife and adult son were followed by a house fire meant to hide the crime.

FRANCISCO, Ind. — A Gibson County judge has sentenced Michael R. Kegg Jr. to 126 years in prison after jurors found that he fatally shot his ex-wife and adult son inside their southern Indiana home and then set the house on fire in an attempt to conceal the killings.

The sentence closes one major chapter in a case that stunned this small community near Francisco, where firefighters answering a structure fire on Dec. 31, 2024, found two bodies inside the home. Prosecutors said the fire scene was staged after the shootings and that the killings came about two weeks after a divorce hearing involving Kegg and his ex-wife, Malisa Kegg. The investigation is still not fully over because Amanda Kegg, who authorities say helped carry out the plan, faces separate murder and conspiracy charges.

Judge Jeffrey F. Meade imposed the sentence on Feb. 13, ordering 64 years for the killing of Michael Kegg III and 62 years for the killing of Malisa Kegg, with the terms to be served one after the other. The punishment followed a January trial in Gibson County in which jurors convicted Michael Kegg Jr., 53, on two counts of murder. Investigators traced the case back to the early hours of Dec. 31, when the Gibson County Sheriff’s Office and the Francisco Fire Department were called to a fire at a home in the 7000 block of East State Road 64. After the flames were brought under control, responders entered the house and found one victim in the kitchen and the other in the living room. Court records said the body in the kitchen was later identified as 34-year-old Michael Kegg III. The second victim was identified as 51-year-old Malisa Kegg. Autopsies found that both had been shot in the chest before the fire started.

Investigators said the physical evidence inside the house pointed away from an accidental blaze and toward a deliberate effort to destroy a crime scene. Authorities recovered three spent .410-gauge shotgun shells, with two near Malisa Kegg and one near her son. They also found a shotgun in the home, propped against a wall and loaded with an unfired shell, according to court filings described in media reports. Prosecutors said a can of accelerant was found near Michael Kegg III’s body and that a flammable liquid had been poured in the home. Additional details in court records suggested violence before the fatal shots. Reports cited during coverage of the case said Michael Kegg III had scalp lacerations, a sign that he may have struggled before he was killed. Michael Kegg Jr. told investigators that he had gone to the residence to work on a vehicle, spoke with both victims, was told to leave and walked away through a field. He said that as he left, he heard and saw emergency vehicles heading toward Francisco. Prosecutors rejected that account and argued that the fire was set only after the shootings.

The case also unfolded against the backdrop of a failing marriage and a recent court appearance. Prosecutors said Kegg had appeared with Malisa Kegg at a divorce hearing about two weeks before the killings. During that proceeding, local reports said, the judge ordered him to complete several tasks on a short timeline. Investigators later pointed to actions they said showed rising anger and planning. One day before the fire, authorities said, Kegg went to Francisco Town Hall and asked that water service at Malisa Kegg’s home be shut off because he no longer wanted to pay the utility bills. That detail became part of the state’s broader theory that the killings were not spontaneous. Instead, prosecutors portrayed them as the violent end of an escalating domestic dispute. In rural Gibson County, the deaths also carried an added shock because the victims were killed inside their own home, and because the suspect was not only Malisa Kegg’s former husband but also the father of the second victim. The case became one of the region’s most closely watched homicide prosecutions of the past year.

Authorities later expanded the investigation beyond Michael Kegg Jr. On Jan. 1, 2025, he was arrested and charged with murder. Months later, detectives arrested Amanda N. Kegg, 34, describing her as a second suspect in the double killing. At the time of the shootings, she was married to Michael Kegg Jr., according to court documents. Investigators said she first told detectives that she had argued with him on the night of Dec. 30 and did not see him on Dec. 31. But they said she later changed her account and admitted that he told her to leave her phone at home and drive him to Francisco so he could “take care of something.” Detectives said she dropped him off near a park and waited in the vehicle for about two hours. They also said she went to a bank and withdrew $800, the maximum allowed from an ATM that day. In a later affidavit, investigators accused her of dropping him off near the crime scene and picking him up later at a prearranged spot in Patoka. Amanda Kegg is charged with two counts of murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder. She has pleaded not guilty, and her case remains pending.

The prosecution’s theory was that the fire was part of the crime, not an aftermath that happened by chance. Detectives wrote in court documents that they believed Michael and Amanda Kegg had “formulated a plan” to kill the victims and then set the house on fire to cover up the murders. At trial, prosecutors relied on the sequence of events, the shotgun evidence, the autopsy findings and statements by the defendants to argue that the killings were intentional and coordinated. The defense position, as reflected in pretrial reporting and court summaries, centered on Michael Kegg Jr.’s denial that he shot either victim. But jurors rejected that account after deliberating for about an hour and a half before returning guilty verdicts on Jan. 23. The sentence that followed gave the state nearly the maximum punishment available for the two murders. By stacking the terms rather than allowing them to run at the same time, Meade ensured Kegg would spend the rest of his life in prison. No additional arson conviction was needed for prosecutors to present the fire as an aggravating factor in the killings.

Even after the verdict and sentence, the case still carries the feel of a fresh wound in Francisco and the surrounding area. The blackened house on East State Road 64 became a symbol of how quickly a private family dispute turned into a public tragedy. Sheriff Bruce Vanoven said when Amanda Kegg was arrested that the move was part of the ongoing effort to bring justice for the victims. That statement reflected the state’s position that the prosecution is not complete while charges against the alleged co-conspirator are still awaiting trial. The upcoming case is expected to focus on what Amanda Kegg knew, when she knew it and whether her actions amounted to direct participation in the murders. For now, one defendant has been convicted and sentenced, and another still faces a jury. The facts that are still contested are narrower than they were at the start of the investigation, but the legal process is not over.

The case now stands at two different points. Michael Kegg Jr. has been sentenced and is headed to the Indiana Department of Correction. Amanda Kegg is scheduled for a separate trial in November, the next major court date in a case that began with a New Year’s Eve fire call and grew into a double murder prosecution.