MURDER KIDNAPPING: Levin’s Bond Set

Bond has been set for the western Iowa man charged with murder and kidnapping.

In a court hearing on Tuesday, 21-year-old Kirk Levin’s bond was set at $1 million.

He is accused of choking and fatally stabbing his mother, 45-year-old Marilyn Schmitt, at her home in Early.

Authorities discovered Schmitt’s body when they were investigating the abduction of a 21-year-old woman, who escaped from Levin.

Levin was released from a Wisconsin prison just a few days before the murder and abduction took place.  He served two years of a five-year sentence for burglary.

Prison officials say they were required to release Levin under a Wisconsin state law that routinely cuts inmates’ sentences in half.