Missouri mom Carolyn Heckert, 48, has been implicated by DNA in the stabbing death of love rival Sarah DeLeon, in a 27-year-old cold case

College student Sarah DeLeon, 18, was dating Matt Utland, 21-year-old Heckert’s ex-boyfriend 

Now the high-flying Missouri area realtor is under investigation for the shooting death of yet another ‘rival,’ 22 years ago

Heckert allegedly, shot Diana Ault, in the Ault’s home with her husband’s own gun with both her son Josh, then four and their six-month-old daughter,  home 

The suspect was having an affair with Diana’s husband Timothy Ault, who was not home at the time

The DNA breakthrough in the 1989 case led to the reopening of the Ault murder, Timothy admitted to the affair with Carolyn Heckert

Today, a successful realtor, married with two daughters and a high-powered job, but back in 1989 both Heckert and Timothy Ault worked for the US Postal Service

Cops say the killer locked Josh in a closet while his mom, Diana, was gunned down in front of her infant daughter was suburban mom of two and realtor until

Marshals arrested Heckert last week at home in Smithville, Missouri to the shock of her husband and neighbors

Faces life imprisonment, possibly death penalty 

Suspect in two cold-case homicides, Carolyn Heckert has been arrested. Hhe is facing life in prison for the 1989 stabbing death of Sarah DeLeon and possible shooting death of young mother, Diana Ault, in 1994

Shocked neighbours watched  as heavily armed US Marshals marched into an upscale suburban family home in Missouri on October 19 and arrested the lady of the house, in connection with a murder in Kansas, 27 years ago.
Successful business woman Carolyn J Heckert, a high-flying realtor and devoted mother had been implicated by DNA evidence in the 1989 murder of teenage college student, Sarah DeLeon in Kansas City, Kansas. 
Married for the past 18 years to husband Michael Ault, 49,  business associates and friends marvelled at the ease with which she juggled a demanding but successful career in real estate with the challenges of raising a 14-year-old high-school freshman and a six-year-old first grader
Always well-groomed, her neighbors recount how the respectable wife and proud mother with a high-powered job as a property dealer would walk their quiet rural street with her daughters and the family’s dog. Still their impression is that she was not the most approachable and that she had erected a “no trespassing sign” on her property the week before her arrest. Colleagues say she can be quite ‘bossy’.
After her dramatic arrest last week , Heckert is now remanded in Wyandotte County Detention Center, Kansas, accused of murdering Sarah DeLeon, 18 – and suspected of a second killing in 1994, the brutal murder of a young mother home alone with her baby daughter and four-year-old son.

Heckert’s second victim, Diana Ault, was murdered in 1994 when she was at home with her 4-year-old son Josh and baby daughter Katie,  just six months old. The intruder[s] took only the murder weapon, her husband’s handgun.

The chronology of her alleged crimes paints the picture of a jealous vixen who always got rid of her love rivals, permanently.
The rap sheet states that in 1989, the 21-year-old Carolyn Heckert, a US Postal Service worker murdered her former boyfriend’s new girl, Sarah DeLeon. College student Sarah DeLeon, 18, was dating Matt Utland, Heckert’s ex.
Five years later Heckert, allegedly disposed of yet another love rival. The second victim, Diana Ault, was murdered in 1994 when she was at home with her son Josh, then four, and infant daughter, Katie. Josh was locked in a closet and Diana was shot dead with her husband’s handgun. Diana  was the wife of her married lover, Timothy Ault who also worked at USPS.

Back in 1989, just a few days after Christmas, freshman college student Sarah DeLeon was last seen leaving her boyfriend Matt Utland’s home in Kansas City about 1 a.m., on December 29. A few hours later, her lifeless, bloodied body was discovered close to train tracks at the intersection of the I-495 highway and Wolcott Drive, by a crew of railway workers. She had a head wound and was stabbed multiple times.
At the time of her murder, police said DeLeon’s Ford Mustang car had been discovered close by, earlier that morning. The car was found with the door open and the flashers on, about a mile from her home. No blood or evidence of a struggle was seen around her car and there was no indication that a sexual assault had taken place. 

Sarah DeLeon, 18, (left) was murdered on 29 December 1989 by then 21-year-old postal worker, Carolyn Coon. Today the alleged murderer is a succesful Missouri  business woman,Carolyn Heckert (right)

Kansas City cop, Jeff Cheek, among the first to arrive on the murder scene back in 1989 has been part of the cold case team whose work led to the break and arrest. He described the scene as ‘pure evil’.
‘It just looked like pure evil met pure innocence,’ he said. ‘This was just a little girl fresh out of high school.
‘It just made absolute zero sense and the manner, the fashion , it just looked like pure evilness.’
Sarah’s mom Gail Elieson, describes the murder of her daughter as particularly senseless because she was a ‘total sweetheart’ who had no enemies, just the one.
‘The only person I knew who had a beef with her was Carolyn [Heckert],’ said Elieson.
‘She came to the house once but I don’t think Sarah was there. She threatened to cut her hair. Basically, I think she was just jealous.’
apparently Sarah had started seeing Heckert’s ex-boyfriend  20-year-old Matt Utland who also worked at USPS at the time. Matt had briefly dated Carolyn Coon (now Heckert). He ended the relationship after a few months before he started dating Sarah DeLeon. 

Diana Ault, 26, was killed as she was putting Josh, 4, and her six-month-old baby daughter Katie to bed. Her husband Timothy, got home later that night, to discover his wife lying dead on the floor, his children crying and Josh locked in a closet. The intruders had taken nothing other than Timothy’s handgun which turned out to be the murder weapon. Police later found her car and the murder weapon at a nearby church.
Diana Ault and her husband had told police they had received several threatening phone calls, mostly from a woman. Police did identify a suspect but did not have enough evidence for prosecution.
Speaking recently to local TV station KMBC, Timothy Ault, 49, said at the time he had moved out of the home he shared with Diana  to live with an un-named co-worker. Timothy, a staff of US Postal Service, had just broken off that relationship and returned to his family shortly before his wife’s death.
Both the Ault and DeLeon families had been in contact and have held joint commemorative ceremonies for the women. The families said previously that DeLeon and Ault were the victims of harassment or bullying before their deaths.
By May, Kansas City police had identified a female suspect: ‘The investigation has revealed that the suspect and an accomplice have been involved in other incidents involving the harassment and intimidation of romantic rivals,’ however, they did not reveal the identity of the suspect at the time.

College freshman Sarah, had only recently graduated from high school

The circumstances of both murders are eerily similar and although Heckert not been charged with Ault’s murder, she is known to be under investigation for the crime.
When Sarah Deleon crossed her by taking up with her former lover, Matt Utland, she wound up dead and Carolyn Coon moved out of town.
In Kansas city she was having an affair with another co-worker,Timothy before the killing. Days after Timothy left Carolyn Coon to return to his wife, Diana Ault was dead.
In keeping with the pattern Carolyn moved again, this time to Tucson, Arizona, where she lived briefly between 1995 and 1996. She moved back to the Kansas City area in 1997. A year later, she married husband Michael Heckert with whom she has two daughters.

Gail Elieson said her daughter (pictured) was a sweet person who had only one enemy – Carolyn Coon. Carolyn had come to the family house to harass Sarah before her death

Gail Elieson, 68,  describing the modus operandi of her daughter’s alleged killer said:
‘Sarah was harassed by Carolyn before her death, although what she did to her was less than what she did to Diana’.
‘The extent of the harassment she did to Diana… It just escalated with her. Carolyn just escalated.
‘It was jealousy again. Carolyn is just a jealous type of person.’
Diana’s father told local tv station, KCTV, he had suspected Carolyn Coon of being behind the crime and conveyed his suspicions to the  Ault family, at the time.
‘I said no, it wasn’t a robbery. It’s the b**** your son’s been with,” Laskey said. “I think it’s Carol.’
The Ault family are hoping that the forensic breakthrough that nailed Heckert in DeLeon’s killing will produce similar results in Diana’s death.