Lake of the Ozarks neighbors recall missing Kansas Citian who lived secret life next door

Khristine Bechard was the kind neighbor along Lake Road in Camdenton, Missouri, who would share fruit and vegetables from her big garden.

Over the years she’d give snacks to some of the kids who lived near her and would wave and smile as she worked in the yard.

But she never shared much about her life, few details of where she’d been before she moved there in the early 1990s with her husband Robert Bechard, who many called Bob. Neighbors knew Khristine was transgender and many years younger than Bob, but little more than that. The couple didn’t talk about themselves.

It wasn’t until Tuesday, when authorities identified Khristine as the woman whose body was found in a burning car last month in nearby Lebanon, that her former neighbors realized the extent of the secrets she carried.

Identifying her body solved the mystery of who was inside the burning 1979 Chrysler New Yorker parked outside an abandoned budget motel in the early morning hours of March 19. But it also answered the 32-year-old question in Kansas City about whatever happened to Stephen E. Winn, who disappeared in August 1991.

Former neighbors who lived near Bechard for decades say they were stunned about her death and never knew she had a previous life in Kansas City as Winn, a father of seven boys and husband of Khristine Winn. Authorities say when Stephen left his life in KC, Stephen began living under the name Khristine.

According to Bob Bechard’s 2012 obituary, he and Khristine married on October 18, 1993, in Miami, Oklahoma.

“We just figured they kept to themselves because of the lifestyle,” said Kyle Arnold, 39, who was in the second or third grade when Khristine and Bob moved next door. “That wasn’t common in the early ’90s, especially in the Ozarks. You just didn’t see that. … We didn’t care. She was just Khristine who lived next door.”

Authorities believe that Bechard’s death was self-inflicted, though they are still waiting on formal autopsy results. She was found in the front passenger seat of her prized New Yorker, which Arnold said she’d kept “pristine” during his childhood. Police did locate a handgun, magazine and a spent casing in the vehicle.

“I feel a little sad because I think, to me, it seems like the walls were kind of closing in on her,” Arnold said. “I don’t think she had anywhere else to go. I really feel sorry that she really had nothing left in her last days.”

DNA confirmed body was Stephen Winn

Police and fire crews in Lebanon responded to the car fire just before 2:30 a.m. March 19. The Chrysler had pulled into the parking lot behind the abandoned Mary’s Budget Inn around 1:30 a.m., authorities learned later.

Initially, the police had little to go on. The fire, which police said appeared to have been started in the back seat, burned much of what could have been helpful in identifying the person inside.

Lebanon Detective Sgt. Kacie Springer said early on they didn’t know who the vehicle belonged to because the VIN numbers had been removed. But they did find a charred piece of paper with the words “Property of Khristine Bechard” and lots of women’s clothing.

From there, Springer said Wednesday, she located a woman by that name who owned a 1979 Chrysler New Yorker who lived in Camdenton, about 25 north of Lebanon.

Authorities then went to the two-bedroom home along Lake Road. And soon after, they discovered that four days before the fire, Bechard had sold the home where she and Bob had built their lives as a couple.

After more investigation, Springer would learn that Bechard previously went by “Khristine Winn.” And after talking with a relative, she realized that Khristine Winn had died in 2018 in Arizona.

Winn’s granddaughter called Springer. And at one point in the conversation Springer asked if her grandmother had any friends who cross dressed or were transgender. That’s when the detective sergeant learned about Stephen Winn, the grandfather who “went missing 30 plus years ago” and “used to cross dress.”

Stephen Winn “essentially left” Kansas City in 1991, Springer said.

“He told family members that he was leaving,” Springer said. “He told his sister that he was leaving. He had mentioned to his eldest son that he had plans to leave. And then he told one of his other sons that he was going out for cigarettes and he’d be back later and never came back.”

After years of not hearing from Stephen, Springer said Khristine Winn then “obtained a death certificate.”

On Sunday, DNA confirmed that the body found in the Chrysler last month was Stephen E. Winn of Kansas City.

Springer has notified many family members of the identification and she said they are still “processing” the information.

“It’s one of those things that you know, you believe that your father was out there but that he’s possibly dead because there’s a death certificate and now you’re realizing that all of these years he was closer than you would really think and it’s just kind of a sad situation.”

Arnold’s sister, Catrina Butts, said her thoughts go out to Khristine’s relatives.

“I can’t imagine grieving the loss of a husband/father for 32 years to just find out they were 2½ hours away and alive all that time, let alone finding out (Stephen Winn was) using his wife’s identity. … This has to be an emotional roller coaster.”

‘We never asked questions’

Along Lake Road, Khristine would be seen over the years wearing a blonde wig, often a scarf around her neck and nice outfits to go get groceries. Most of the time, she and Bob would be at home together.

But the Arnolds never thought much of it, never judged.

“My parents were always just very accepting,” Kyle Arnold said. “We were just very polite to her. She was very polite back.”

On the Bechards’ first Halloween in the neighborhood, back in the early 1990s, Khristine made the neighbor kids special handouts with candy inside Hershey Kiss-shaped aluminum foil. Arnold also remembers Khristine giving him strawberries from her garden.

“She was just very nice,” Arnold said. “We never asked where she came from or anything like that. We just kind of talked present-day life with her. We had no idea what her past life was, just thought it was intrusive and didn’t really want to bring that up.”

“I think that was probably part of her security. … We never asked questions.”

Butts remembers Khristine as being “very reclusive.”

“I always assumed it was because she was transgender in the early ’90s,” Butts said. “But now I wonder if it was because she didn’t want to be found.”

Inside the home, police found a manila envelope with two letters inside that Bechard had written. One was to her mother, and the second was addressed to one of her boys.

On the outside of the envelope, written in pen, it said: Letters I wrote and will never send.

“In the letter to his son,” Springer said, “he explained what had happened and why he left.”

That son now has the letter, the detective sergeant said.

After Bob Bechard died in 2012, Arnold said he thinks Khristine was “truly, truly lonely.”

And then when Arnold’s parents moved in 2020, he said Khristine pleaded with them not to.

In the days since finding out about Khristine’s death and her previous life, former neighbors are recalling their times with her and empathizing with what they think she must have been going through.

They’re also trying to process what happened in the early morning hours of March 19 in the back parking lot of the abandoned budget motel.

“I also wonder if the reason she set the car on fire prior to the self-inflicted wound was in hopes they may not be able to identify the body,” Butts said. “This definitely raises so many questions. It just goes to show you may never know who really lives next door to you. Because we would have never guessed she was a missing person with a wife and kids.”