Lenexa Police allege that Ethan Quinn McFee, 26, fatally shot his newlywed wife before wounding himself in February 2025.
The incident happened inside the couple’s apartment in the 7600 block of Halsey Street, at The Meadows Apartments. The apartment complex is immediately south of Trailridge Middle School, at 75th Street and Quivira Road.
According to a newly released affidavit requested by the Post, police were called to the apartment complex parking lot at about 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025, following reports of a man who was covered in blood.
Arriving officers spoke to the man, who identified himself as “Quinn.”
The affidavit says McFee shook his head “no” when asked if he remembered what happened and when asked if he had shot himself.
Johnson County Med-Act paramedics and Lenexa firefighters determined that McFee had been shot in the head.
“The wound had black coloring around it as if the muzzle of the firearm had been in contact with the skin when the gun was fired,” police said in the affidavit. “Staff at the hospital found an additional gunshot wound to McFee’s left thigh.”
Sadie “Cayden” Riedel later found dead in apartment
As McFee was being treated, apartment complex staff informed police that McFee was known to live with a woman in a lower-level apartment.
The affidavit says officers went to that apartment to conduct a welfare check and arrived to find a bullet hole in a bedroom window, the back sliding door standing open and blood on the patio.
Officers entered the apartment where they found the woman, later identified as 22-year-old Sadie “Cayden” Riedel, shot to death in the master bedroom.
According to the affidavit, police obtained a search warrant for the apartment before processing the scene with the assistance of the Johnson County Crime Lab.
“Inside the master bedroom, the investigators located multiple fired cartridge cases and bullet holes,” police said in the affidavit. “They located six bullet holes in the bedroom walls and window.”
While tracing the trajectory of one of the rounds, investigators determined that at least one bullet went through a privacy fence surrounding the apartment’s patio and impacted the back of an apartment building.
The affidavit states that four handguns, a rifle and a shotgun were recovered from the bedroom.
A Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm handgun was found on the bed, with investigators noting the gun “appeared to have jammed while being fired.”
“Police recovered that 9mm handgun as well as a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, a rifle, and a shotgun,” the affidavit said.
The revolver was found in a nightstand, the shotgun was under the bed and the rifle was in a closet. The third and fourth handguns were found in a case on the floor next to the bed.
Court records: McFee and Riedel were recently married
The affidavit says Sadie Riedel and Ethan McFee became engaged in December 2024.
Online court records show they received a marriage license on Jan. 29, 2025.
According to the affidavit, they married at the courthouse at some point before February 26.
“Witness interviews revealed ongoing relationship conflict, including financial stress and tension related to wedding planning,” police said in the affidavit.
Friends of McFee told police that he had become “increasingly stressed and emotionally unstable” in the weeks before the murder, noting that there was no known history of domestic violence in the relationship.
After an autopsy and review of evidence from the scene, the Johnson County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that Sadie Riedel had been shot in the face while sitting on the bed.
Ethan Quinn McFee was arrested and booked into the Johnson County Adult Detention Center on Friday, June 5, 2026, more than a year after the shooting.
He has been charged with intentional and premeditated first-degree murder.
Online booking logs listed McFee as a resident of Mesquite, Nevada, approximately 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
He made his first court appearance on Monday, June 8, where his bond was reduced from $1 million to $300,000.
The lowered bond was posted later that afternoon, and McFee was released from custody to be on house arrest with GPS monitoring until his next court appearance.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled to take place over Zoom on Thursday, July 23, at 11 a.m.
