James Radford is now being charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the death of his wife, Sabrina Radford, in 2016.
One month after the preliminary hearing for the case in which he was charged with reckless homicide, the Shawano-Menominee County District Attorney’s Office upped the charge. The intentional homicide charge also has a domestic abuse modifier.
The death occurred in the Town of Fairbanks on April 11, 2016. James Radford was taken into custody in April 2025 by Waukesha County and then transferred to the Shawano County Jail, where he is being held on a cash bond of $800,000.
Assistant District Attorney Brent DeBord said the reckless homicide charges were filed before he became part of the district attorney’s office, and he was recently assigned the case. He looked at the evidence, he said, and he felt that it pointed to intentional homicide and not reckless.
DeBord asked for the bond to be set at $1 million cash, noting the huge incentive to flee, because the crime comes with a sentence of life imprisonment if convicted, as well as the threat of violence to the public.
That received an objection from defense attorney John Swimmer, who noted that his client has been in jail since the initial arrest. He asked for the cash bond to become a signature bond, noting James Radford’s ties to Shawano County and claiming there have been no missed court appearances or bail jumping.
“Raising the bond from $800,000 to $1 million is arbitrary and capricious,” Swimmer said. “The state has the exact same evidence. There is not one iota of evidence that is different. There is not one new fact. Every fact is identical.”
Judge Gregory Huber ruled that the bond would remain what it has been.
Swimmer also objected to proceeding with the current case even though the previous homicide case has not been dismissed. DeBord told the judge he was in the process of getting the case dismissed.
In the latest criminal complaint, it is alleged that James Radford found out his wife had been cheating on him that night and found a scarf with semen on it and claimed similar fluids were on the couch, although investigators found no evidence of semen on the couch. The defendant allegedly left the house for a while and returned at 3 a.m. April 11, where talk of him divorcing his wife came up.
The defendant claimed Sabrina Radford came back with James’ gun and allegedly said she wasn’t going to live without him. The Wisconsin Crime Lab reported one chamber of the .44 caliber gun was empty, one round had been fired and four bullets were still in the gun. Evidence indicates the incident wasn’t a suicide, as James Radford had claimed, due to no blood or other blowback materials on the gun that would be there if the victim had put the gun to her chest and fired.
The criminal complaint also claims that there was a text message on Sabrina Radford’s phone claiming James Radford was threatening her if she saw another man. The text was on Feb. 18, 2016.
A preliminary hearing has been set in this case for 11:45 a.m. Aug. 28.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
