A 26-year-old man with a criminal record stretching back years was arrested in the Labor Day stabbing death of a 62-year-old Texas engineer on a park bench, a man Fox News hosts now remember as a generous friend who did things for people simply because he enjoyed it.
Andrew James Wimsatt, a civil engineer from Austin, had just visited his mother at a nearby nursing home in Round Rock, Texas, on September 7 when he sat down on a park bench around 11 a.m. Minutes later, Benedict Chinedu Ogbodiegwu allegedly grabbed Wimsatt from behind and repeatedly drove a knife into his neck, Fox News Digital reported. A witness called 911 after finding Wimsatt on the ground. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.
Authorities described the attack as random. Surveillance video captured the entire sequence, the stabbing, the victim's struggle to push his attacker away, and the suspect wiping blood off on his shirt before walking out of view. Williamson County deputies arrested Ogbodiegwu on murder and theft charges and set his bond at $1 million.
The killing drew public statements from three Fox News personalities who knew Wimsatt personally, not as a celebrity acquaintance, but as a loyal fan who had become a genuine friend over years of correspondence, live events, and shared meals.
The suspect's history in Williamson County is not short. Ogbodiegwu's criminal record there goes back to at least 2017, when he was charged with stealing. This year alone, he had been arrested twice on charges involving theft and carrying fake identification. He was incarcerated in the county jail from January through April, released, and then jailed again before his most recent release on June 9, less than three months before the killing.
A probable cause affidavit obtained by Fox 7 Austin described how investigators retraced Ogbodiegwu's steps after the attack and allegedly recovered fingerprints, bloody clothes, and the suspected murder weapon. When confronted with the surveillance footage, Ogbodiegwu allegedly claimed he had a twin brother, but could not provide the brother's name.
His next court date is set for October 8 at 1:30 p.m. for a pre-indictment docket call, meaning a grand jury has not yet formally charged him. No defense statement has been publicly reported.
The pattern is familiar: a suspect cycles through the jail system on lower-level charges, walks free, and then is accused of something far worse. It is the kind of violent random attack that leaves families demanding answers about how a known offender was on the street in the first place.
Wimsatt was no ordinary viewer. He held a Ph.D. in civil engineering and worked for the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, first full-time and then part-time after retiring. He is credited on IMDB as an executive producer of Penn Jillette's horror-comedy film "Director's Cut." His Instagram featured photos of wildlife, vintage storefronts, and city landscapes.
He was also a devoted fan of Fox News programming going back to the late-night show "Red Eye," and he attended Greg Gutfeld's live events for years. That fandom turned into real friendship.
Gutfeld spoke to Fox News Digital about the loss. He was candid about his initial skepticism when Wimsatt first reached out:
"At first, I was suspicious, because I always assume people do things because they want things. I was wrong with Andrew. He did stuff for people, lots of people, because he enjoyed being of service, and promoting stuff that he genuinely enjoys and believes in."
Gutfeld did not hold back about the crime itself or the system that left Ogbodiegwu free to commit it:
"He was a kind, generous man, nearly beheaded in a park on a sunny morning, for no reason, just because. I believe everyone who allowed the person who killed him to roam free like that, deserve severe accountability."
That demand for accountability points to a question the affidavit and arrest record raise but do not answer: why was a man with multiple arrests this year, including a jail stay that ended barely three months earlier, free to sit in a public park on a holiday morning?
Fox News contributor Kat Timpf described Wimsatt as "a fan who became a friend." The two had spoken once a week or more for years, and she had lunch with him in Fort Worth in June. She was expecting to see him at a show in Nevada later in the month when she learned he had been killed.
Timpf told Fox News Digital that Wimsatt's kindness stood out even in the noise of public life, where Fox News personalities often face intense scrutiny and online hostility:
"He was so kind and generous it almost seems impossible. He always supported me... whether that was sending me clips I wanted to post or offering truly helpful words of encouragement during the times throughout my career that the internet was piling on me."
She added a thought that captured what Wimsatt meant to the people around him:
"Whenever the rest of the internet was making me feel hopeless about the state of the world, I could always count on a message from Andrew to remind me of the good that's out there, too."
Fox News personality Tyrus, whose standup shows Wimsatt attended, issued his own statement. He remembered a man who took care of his mother, stayed positive, and had what Tyrus called "a monster laugh."
"I was honored to know him I was honored he cared so much and honored that my jokes and thoughts brought him joy."
The details of September 7 are stark. Wimsatt drove to Round Rock to see his mother in a nursing home. He walked to a nearby park. He sat on a bench at 11 a.m. on a sunny holiday morning. Within minutes, he was dead, stabbed repeatedly in the neck by a stranger, in an attack authorities say was entirely random.
The man accused of killing him had been in and out of the Williamson County jail system for years. He had been arrested twice already in 2024. He had been released from custody on June 9. None of that stopped what happened next.
Incidents like this one are not isolated. Across the country, random stabbings in public spaces have forced communities to confront the consequences of a criminal justice system that returns known offenders to the streets. Wimsatt's case adds another name to that ledger.
As the details of Wimsatt's life have come into focus, the engineering career, the film credit, the friendships with people he admired on television, the weekly calls, the lunches, the care for his aging mother, so has the contrast with the man accused of ending it all. Ogbodiegwu offered investigators a story about a twin brother he could not name. The surveillance camera told a different story.
Gutfeld framed the stakes plainly: accountability for the people and the systems that let a repeat offender walk free. That is not a radical demand. It is the minimum a civilized society owes a 62-year-old man who sat down on a park bench to enjoy a holiday morning and never stood up again.
When the system keeps cycling offenders through revolving doors, it is not the offenders who pay the price. It is the Andrew Wimsatts, the quiet, generous people who followed every rule and never saw it coming.
