My mother was murdered in November of 2008.
There was no big mystery, her husband admitted to killing her the following day. They were married in the summer of 2003. She filed for divorce in September 2008. The divorce would've been finalized the week she died. They lived in a townhouse in Minnesota.
I'll try now to paint a picture of this townhouse. (I have included a small gallery of photos at the end of this section that I found on Zillow.)
There was a small covered porch step out front. Next to their attached 2 car garage. As you walk into the front entryway and the front door is behind you there is a large window on your right-hand side and the door to the garage is on your left. After the garage door, there was a set of stairs that went down to the basement. The basement was a large living area with a half bath, laundry closet & and storage closet. Standing back upstairs at the main entrance area there was another set of stairs that went up to the kitchen and the main living room. As you went up the stairs the kitchen bar area or island greeted you. To the left of you, there's another set of stairs that go to the two bedrooms.
Standing on the landing at the top of the second set of stairs…
You are now standing where my mother would lay and die.
Behind you is the living room with a half wall that looks down to the entranceway the living room has vaulted ceilings with large windows. There's a lot of natural light in this room. If you go up the third set of stairs the bedrooms were side-by-side. My mother and her estranged husband were going through a divorce but living in this house together. At the top of the 3rd set of stairs on your left-hand side is a guest bath that my mother was using as her bathroom. Directly next to that bathroom is the room that she was sleeping in. The bed in that room is the bed that she had in her bedroom in our house in Indiana.
It was gold and reminded me of the movie Bednobs and Broomsticks.
She had a bookshelf from my childhood room and there was a closet that she kept full of gifts for anyone who might need one. (She was thoughtful and giving to her friends.) Her soon-to-be ex-husband was staying in the master bedroom. This was a decent-sized room with a large walk-in closet, bookshelves along the wall, and the crates where they kept their two large pit balls and the master bathroom.
As promised, here are the photos of the townhouse for a visual reference. These photos were downloaded from Zillow. The interior decor is that of the owner at the time of the photos not of my mother.
In the story that was told during the court case, her husband claims that they got into an argument after he got home from work and she attempted to attack him with a tiny screwdriver and a knife. He claims this happened at the top of the 3rd set of stairs and she fell back down the stairs to where she died. I hadn’t been around her for a while, but I felt like I knew my mother at her core and knew what she was capable of. I know myself and how argumentative I can be. But his story is so ridiculous, that I find it hard to believe.
Over the past 15 years, I've played the night my mother was murdered over and over in my head. It's like a bad rerun that comes on late at night. I can see my mom being beaten to death, and I can see my stepdad beating her. I can see him in the house scrambling to cover it up on a cold fall day. It's like I'm there. I put myself there. (I thank God that I wasn't there!)
So the story goes… (According to court documents and what has been reported on the Internet.) The attornies claim that my mom was threatening to "blackmail" her husband with information she found about him on the Internet. It's interesting to me that this information was supposed to be shocking. Like, as if she was surprised by her husband’s infidelity or his interest in men. Apparently, the emails that she had were “proof of his sexuality”. It is strange to me that he would claim that she would think that this was leverage against him, because everybody who knew him, already knew he was gay or “bisexual”. This wasn't a shock to anyone. After my mom married him I was talking to a man that grew up in the same town that they did. My stepdad was his neighbor as a kid. When I told him who my mother had married he responded, "I thought he was gay?" So, saying that mom could've used these emails as "shocking information" to tell his parents, was just silly. I do however wonder if perhaps she had additional information. Everything that I know about people who are addicted to pornography or deviant sexual behavior leads me to believe that perhaps he had gone further. Immediately when I heard about these emails I thought, “Oh my gosh, he was pursuing children!” But the content of the emails was never released and I do not know this to be true. However, I had been in their home when I was 16 years old. I was staying there after my mom picked me up during my dad's emergency brain surgery. During the summer that I stayed there, I saw and learned some disturbing things. There was a laptop computer that he kept on a card table in front of the couch in the basement living room. He was always in chatrooms. It was the dark web, for sure.
My mom met this guy at her 20th high school reunion. She went to the reunion with another man. The man she attended with she'd been dating for 2 or 3 years. (I loved him! He was the best guy she had been with since my dad.) She was in the best shape of her life at this point. I remember she was so concerned about going to this event. She had been working out, tanning, getting her hair done, and she bought a new outfit for the event! I was truly shocked to learn that she had met someone and moved on. In a matter of THREE MONTHS, after she went to the reunion, she was packing up her home in Indiana, leaving her job as a reporter of 16 years, putting her house on the market, saying goodbye to her only child, and leaving her long-term boyfriend.
People were shocked.
... I was shocked.
Just like that, she was gone.
I often wonder what he promised her. How or why was he so exciting?
He was living in a 2 bedroom apartment with another man when she met him. I went to visit her while they were living there. It. Was. Gross. There was one bathroom shared between the two men. Total bachelor pad with leather furniture, tray tables, milk crates, very dark and dingy decor. Beer signs, baseball stuff, brown carpet… Quite the change from her cozy little yellow house with country decor. The apartment showed no signs of her. All of her belongings were in storage and these 40-year-olds were acting like newlyweds in their 20s. Bizarre. He was working for an airline company that I had never heard of before. He was a job hopper and she left behind a career. Mom had a college degree. She was book-smart and friendly, she could make friends anywhere. When she arrived in Minnesota she knew no one and got a job working at Kohls.
Sometimes I have dreams about shopping at Kohl's. I am wandering the store and I see her putting items back on the racks but she can't see or hear me. She never looks at me. I feel these dreams are the perfect representation of our relationship. I was never enough. Nothing I could do or say would direct her attention and love back to me.
Eventually, she got a job as a journalist again. She was back in her element and made new friends. She worked at a couple of different newspapers while she was there. However, she had to keep her 2nd job at Kohl's to support her husband. He was a part-time umpire for a while for a women's softball team. But eventually, he was nothing more than a bartender. He didn’t have to work, she did. They moved out of the dingy apartment early on and bought the townhouse. She also bought a new car, a Subaru Outback with rubber flooring in the trunk to haul her dogs. She volunteered at a pitbull rescue and adopted 2 dogs, “Quincy and Roxxi”. (These dogs would be the death of her!) When she moved she went with the 2 pets that she had when she lived with me, Shyanne the German Shepherd and Mosquito (formally known as Ruby) who was a fat tabby cat. When Shyanne died she lost another piece of who she was. I was there when her sister was once. Her sister did Reiki over the dog’s hip dysplasia. Mom loved that dog, a lot. She kept the ashes on her dresser. Her new dogs were everything to her. They seemed to fill the void of losing Shyanne. Friends, boyfriends, and pets were always more important to my mother than I was.
My mom was never great to me, but she still had rules. Like, no drinking for me. Some of my last visits with her proved to me how much she was changing. She was depressed and giving up. We went to see a movie during one of my visits. She pulled a pint of rum out of her bag and poured it into our cherry Cokes. During that same visit, her bartender husband mixed me an “Incredible Hulk” in their kitchen. At a later visit in February of the following year, she had a work party to attend. At this party she got drunk and I had to drive her home. Mind you, we were in the city of Minnesota, it was dark, and the highways were busy and icy. I was a young teen and had only driven in rural Indiana. She was drunk, yelling and laughing trying to give me directions back to her house. How we made it back to her house safely is beyond me. But it was clear that she was losing herself.
She and her murderer didn’t have much in common. But, my mom was a very sexual person and so was he. My parent’s marriage had ended 8 years before this new marriage because my dad found her in bed with another man. There were a series of men in and out of her life after that. I’m sure that her marriage to this man stemmed from a sexual connection as well, but (once again) it wasn’t enough to keep them together. He stated in court documents that “she had gained weight and he was no longer attracted to her”. They were both dating other people and living in the same house. (weird) She was always using men to try and fill a void that she could never fill. They didn’t go into this marriage for the right reasons and it was falling apart. Ironically, she called him her “K.I.S.S.” She said that he was her “Knight In Shining Armor” as if he was rescuing her. I don't know what the last S in KISS stood for as the abbreviation doesn't follow what she told me that meant. He said she was his princess. In hindsight, I have to wonder if this was just another sexual fantasy or something they were playing out. (Ew.) Well, 5 years later he would put the dead body of his so-called “princess” face down in a trash can and drag her from the pool of blood she was lying in, down the 2nd set of stairs, and into the garage. He flopped her lifeless body in the garage where it would lay for the next day while he masqueraded around Minnesota in her clothing.
Why these two were still living in the same house still puzzles me. Was she really that stubborn? For years I have thought about this. She had a friend who lived across the street who had to identify her dead body. I wonder why she did not go to stay with this friend? She had friends that she worked with who immediately knew something was wrong after her boss received a text message saying she wasn't coming to work. She trusted them with the information about her marriage and divorce. I wonder why she didn’t go stay with one of them? One of the women that she worked with she was talking to the day before she died about her divorce and using her husband's emails as “leverage” so that she could keep her 2 dogs. According to the reports, the reason she stayed in the house was because they both wanted their 2 dogs. I have found myself disgusted by pit bulls these days. How anyone could put their life on the line for a stupid dog is beyond me. Don't get me wrong, I love animals. But I do not love animals more than people. I do not value possession of an animal over my life. I would not risk my life for a dog. Perhaps she has soured me on this, but she made some truly poor choices. This series of poor choices began when I was a little girl. But her ability to make good choices drastically declined when she met him. She left everything she had and moved three states away with a man she had only been dating for three months. It was a downward spiral after he entered the picture. So it is no wonder that I immediately knew she was dead and he had killed her when I heard she was reported missing.
I sent him a text message during the day that he was covering up her murder. I asked him where she was and if he had hurt her. He responded and told me that he “definitely did not hurt her” and that she was “leaving town for a few days”. Well, he was right, she would leave town… She came home to Indiana a week later, in a body bag! But he had indeed hurt her, badly.
During the autopsy, the medical examiner discovered the head injuries included at least four areas of bleeding and bruising under the scalp and some on the surface of the brain. Bruises were also recorded across her upper chest above and below the collarbone. The internal examination found bleeding and bruising in her chest cavity and a broken rib. There were bruises and scrapes on both of her feet, legs, hands, and upper arms. She had lacerations inside of her mouth and above her left eyebrow. She had a significant amount of blood coming from her nose and mouth. The medical examiner said, “It was really surprising that there was so much blood”. The hyoid bone and the thyroid cartilage in my mother’s neck had been fractured. “Both injuries are unusual and typically seen only in cases of strangulation or motor vehicle crashes since the fractures take a significant amount of force to cause.” They ruled her death as “blunt force trauma to the head and neck”, but there was no evidence of manual strangulation. My mother did not die in his hands. (I think.) The murderer claims that right after he put his hands on my mom's throat she stopped moving, but the blow that killed her was from the edge of the door. The medical examiner showed photos of my mother’s severely damaged dead body. She had “multiple scrapes and abrasions on her neck from her chin to below the adams apple.” The photos showed that “she had three diagonal roughly parallel lines that were created by an implement or an object.”
Later, during the court case, the prosecuting attorney stood in the middle of the courtroom with the bedroom door in his hands. I will never forget that moment. He stood with a hand on either side of the door picked it up and slammed it on the floor. BAM! BAM! BAM! In that moment it was clear to everyone in the room what he had done. My mother’s husband murdered her with the bedroom door. The prosecutor would continue this show of evidence by laying out the blood-soaked tent, sleeping bag, and towels used to wrap her body. I will never forget this.
Medical experts testified to the evidence showing that my mother died a “violent death”. They say what finally killed her was the crushing force to her neck that caused her to struggle for 3 to 4 minutes before she died. He stood over top of his wife and repeatedly slammed the bedroom door on her throat. The visual that this prosecuting attorney painted is what transports me into their home in my nightmares. The autopsy reported that the injuries on her neck were consistent with being hit by the edge of the door.
Of course, in his defense, he claims that in a fit of anger, he kicked the door and it flew off the hinges down the third set of stairs to the landing by the kitchen island/living room area and fell with such force directly on her throat… that it killed her. He also claims that this was self-defense. I told you, his story does not make much sense. It is very clear what happened here. In a fit of rage, he killed her.
These two should have not been living together. They had already started dating other people, her stuff was already packed in the garage, and they should have parted ways. They hated each other. My mother was not a stupid person. But she made very stupid choices. Why she continued to live with this man still boggles my mind. She was 5'3" tall and 153 pounds. He was a Navy vet, trained to defend our country, and he snapped. I am positive that she aggravated him to no end. I know that she was persistent in her arguments. But no decent human deserves to die a violent and painful death like this. No matter how argumentative, annoying, or frustrating. My mother’s husband tossed her around like a ragdoll as he killed her. My mom's spine was fractured between the C6 and C7 vertebrae. They think it is possible that this happened by an “act of whiplash”. I have to wonder how hard you have to experience whiplash for your vertebrae to break. It is reported that my mother’s spinal cord was intact, but it was bleeding. They also recorded that none of her injuries were “instantly fatal”. This statement makes me sad. She suffered. She did not die a quick and painless death. She had to lay there and suffer. He made her suffer.
The medical examiner stated, “There was no evidence of blood in her lungs indicating that she was unable to breathe. The brain can only last for 3 to 5 minutes without oxygen. If she wasn’t able to breathe, her death would’ve been in a matter of minutes.” But, she was breathing. He beat her terribly and he made her suffer. They say that her murder took place late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. November 10, 2008, was a Monday. My mother was a newspaper reporter. She took her job very seriously. She had a deadline to meet and my mother never missed a deadline. Her bartender husband had been out that night. He came home after work and I have to wonder, was she already asleep? They were sleeping in separate rooms. Did he go into her room and drag her out? Did he plan to kill her? Did she sleep with the door locked? Did he kick the door off the hinges to gain access to her? What could she have possibly said or done on a Monday night that would have infuriated him so badly? I have a hard time believing that she would have initiated some late-night argument knowing that she had to go to work the next day… did he have too much to drink that night at work?
There was a delivery truck driver who testified against the defense. The driver stated that one day when he was making a delivery to the bar the defendant worked for, he told him he wanted to kill my mom. He said that in talking to the defendant he had made a statement saying he was “thinking about killing his wife”. Sometimes people use harsh words. I get that. But in this case, he truly meant to do just this. This statement and testimony alone were not enough to upgrade the charges to premeditated murder. There unfortunately was not enough evidence showing that he intended to kill his wife. He was charged with second-degree murder in the liberal state of Minnesota.
For years I had wondered what these beloved dogs of hers were doing while she was being beaten to death. These pit bulls that she claimed were so loving and protective. I mean, she stayed in the home in hopes of “gaining custody of the dogs”. I would've hoped they would come to her defense. It was later revealed that he had locked the dogs in their cages. That to me reveals his intent. He knew he was going to kill her. Why else would you lock up the dogs? I have tried to insert myself into that night. What did it sound like? Were the dogs barking like crazy? Where was the cat hiding? What was my mother saying? What was the look in his eyes? Was she trying to make her way to the door? Is that why she went down those stairs? Was she trying to fight or was she trying to get away? She was the one who filed for divorce. She wanted out of the marriage. What was the final straw that pushed him over the edge? Why didn’t he stop beating her? I will never know the full truth of that night, but I do have his testimony. I don’t take it as God’s honest truth because the murderer is not an honest man. He’s a murderer. But, it’s something.
During his testimony, he showed no emotions. Nothing. He did not express sadness, anger, or surprise. No tears. Obviously, in this situation, you would expect him to be emotional. He wasn’t. He spoke matter-of-factly throughout his testimony. He said he was afraid and scared when he realized my mom was dead. Let’s be honest, he was afraid for himself. He was scared of getting caught. He had NO FEELINGS about losing his (almost) ex-wife. In his testimony, he said he came home shortly after midnight Nov. 11 to find mom awake and agitated. He said that she began yelling at him about going through some boxes, but he “recalled the argument didn't seem to have much of a point”. He said he got tired of arguing, so he took the dogs into his bedroom and locked the door. He claims that my mom “picked the lock and was standing in the threshold, holding a butcher knife in her left hand and a small screwdriver in the right.” He said, "She just looked in a rage. I didn't know what she was going to do.”
This is where I roll my eyes.
The knife wasn’t in the initial evidence. The murderer had NO INJURIES aside from a scratch on his nose.
I cannot fathom my mother taking a butcher knife to go fight him. But, he had to put that in his story to corroborate his self-defense story.
He said his first instinct was to charge Mom to get her to drop the knife. He says that he kicked the door shut, but Mom was standing in the way and went tumbling down the steps… hmmm… The distance from the master bedroom door to the top of the stairs was at least 6 feet. I mean, you could lie down there. Remember the dog my aunt did Reiki on? My mother, her sister, and I were sitting right there at this spot, that he claims she tumbled backward down. We were all 3 there with the German Shepherd that had hip dysplasia, the large dog was lying down, and all three of us were sitting around the dog. The probability of that door, forcing her to tumble down the stairs is extremely slim. Mind you, he did kick the door hard enough that it broke the door jam. But this was an inward opening door to the bedroom. So, it did have to have come off with extreme force. He says she was standing on the outside of the door, so it would have to fly off in the opposite direction for it to cause her to tumble backward 6 feet and then down the stairs. It just simply doesn’t make any sense.
In my mind, I have to wonder if she was the one locked in the room with the dogs and he kicked it open. I don’t know. The door jam was broken, so maybe not. (These are the details I wonder about, but won’t ever know..)
So, at this point, he says she had tumbled down the stairs and he was unable to see Mom. He told the court that he took the door, “which was hanging off its hinges”, and chucked it down the stairs toward her to get a clearer view of her.
STOP IT RIGHT NOW…!!! Is that not an insane statement?? I couldn’t see my 5’3” wife so I through a 7-foot tall door in the direction she was in so I could see her better?! (Excuse me while I giggle… What a stupid thing to say.) He continued, “That's when she moved out from under it and started to stand up with the knife still in her left hand.” Seriously? You’ve thrown A DOOR at a small woman and she’s now crawling out from under it like a ninja in a movie to come kill you with a butcher knife? This fabrication is just ridiculous. The evidence did not reflect any of this. My mother did not have any cuts or injuries on her hands to show that she had been holding a knife. The knife in evidence was a kitchen knife that they found… wait for it… AFTER the defense had collected it… IN. THE. KITCHEN! Shocker. (Again.. all these years later… I can chuckle.)
I always wondered what she was saying during this. I will never know for sure, but he said that she said something about him going to jail or hell. In response to her making this statement, he said he then charged down the stairs and pushed her backward so that her body landed between the recliner and living room half-wall. Evidence does show this part of his statement to be true. I was in the house and saw that a large piece of blood-stained carpet had been cut out of this exact spot. He says he jumped on her, using his knee to pin down her hand with the knife when her body went limp. Evidence shows he must have been beating her severely. When I was in the house I saw the blood splatter from the spot where she lay and died. The blood splatter was thrown all over the half wall that divided the living room and the main entryway. There was blood on both sides of the wall. There was blood all over the pictures on top of the half wall. Some of the framed photos that we grabbed to take with us still had blood on them. I have a photo in a frame in a box in my attic that has little dots of blood on it. The crime scene crew had to circle every single little dot of blood. There were a LOT of tiny circles.
He says that he had one knee on her chest and his hands around her neck when she died in the early morning hours of Nov. 11, 2008. The date of the event has always been a question for me. A wave of darkness usually enters my life at the beginning of November and shadows my life for the rest of the month. He said he was laying prostrate atop her body. He said he was “distraught and pounding his fists.” (I do find distraught hard to believe. Perhaps, distraught over what he had done because of how it would affect him, but not distraught over the fact that she was gone.) To create this much blood splatter he would have to be pounding his fists… HARD!
The murderer claims he didn’t clearly remember the events that followed my mom’s death. He said he dragged my mom’s dead body down the 2nd set of stairs before sliding it into a plastic garbage bin. He then made a list of things to do, which included getting rid of evidence and cleaning up the blood. He said, “The only thing I remember, what seemed in a very short time, she just stopped, like a rush of air came out of her,"
I’ve sat with two other family members as they’ve died. The rush of air leaving the body is truth. The lungs will empty themselves after the muscles relax and do their final exhale. So, I believe his statement about the air in her body leaving. I’ve witnessed this firsthand at death. However, I wish it didn’t have to get to that point before he realized he was making a mistake. After she died he said he panicked. The rouge to cover it up is slightly hysterical. He demonstrated to the world what a buffoon he is. The series of insane behavior is what made this story even more interesting for reporters. He definitely proved my Mom right .. like - LOOK AT THIS .. he’s nuts! How she ever fell for this guy, I’ll never know. He never called the police. When asked why, he said, "I don't know. It was like I knew they couldn't do anything for her. I knew she couldn't be saved.” So - instead of calling for help he decided to cover it up.
He started his cover-up by attempting to scrub the crime scene. He dressed in my mother’s clothing and drove to the airport in her vehicle to make it appear as though she had left the state. My mother’s car was found at the airport on November 14. At that point, they were able to backtrack his steps and find him on surveillance cameras. He was seen in the Mall of America at the Sears store purchasing a suitcase spackle and a spackle knife on the day that he killed her. (The police report stated that the wall had been damaged where the door flew off and smashed into the sheetrock wall.) He was also spotted on cameras at Walgreens purchasing a razor and shaving cream.
All the while my mother's dead body was lying in the garage. He drove Mom’s car to the Walgreens at 12:42 PM on November 11 and then entered the airport parking garage at 1:36 PM. He was wearing sunglasses, a women's black and white coat, a black hat, slacks, women's shoes, and gloves and pulling the rolling suitcase that he had purchased at Sears. He took the elevator to the lowest level of the airport. While he was in the elevator he looked up directly at the elevator camera. The police said that they watched the cameras for an hour but the person in the black and white coat never reappeared. Instead, a person wearing a white baseball cap, black and Blue winter jacket, and jeans carrying the roller suitcase gets on the airport tram at 2:01 PM. He then purchased a ticket for the light rail train. The police detective reported, “It is very odd for an individual to enter the airport in one apparel and leave in another without any other business at the airport.” The Mall of America security department was able to survey him wearing the same clothes walking through the transit hub 20 minutes later. He left my mom's car at the airport. Inside her car, he left a note that he wrote pretending to be her saying she was leaving. How bizarre! No one leaves a note in their vehicle when they go to the airport to fly somewhere. Who is he leaving the note for? What a dumb thing to do.
When the police arrived at the house his pickup truck was backed up to the garage of the townhouse. Inside next to my mother’s dead body that was wrapped in towels, a sleeping bag, and a tent were the supplies to burn her body. He never admitted to planning to burn her body, but she was wrapped up next to kerosene. My family and I all believe that he planned to load her up come sundown and take her out to be burned.
I am grateful that this did not happen and the police were able to recover her body. The police and detectives in this case worked diligently and handled things in a timely matter. I will forever be grateful for that. Thinking back on all of this it just gives me the willies for obvious reasons but also to think that at any point in time, you can be at the mall or Walgreens or riding the bus or walking through the airport next to a murderer who just killed.
During the day following the murder, the police attempted to speak to him about my mother being reported as missing by her coworkers. He would not agree to a missing persons report and he would not allow the police to come inside the house. After a few times going back and forth with him, the police obtained a search warrant and entered the home. They sat him down on the couch and he immediately confessed to the murder. A detective began recording the conversation they were having with him after he said, “I might as well save you some time, you're going to find her body in the garage.”
After this conversation, they did indeed find my mother’s body in the garage. He was taken to the county jail and booked. During booking, they found evidence of his whereabouts in his pockets. He had a bus schedule for the bus that he took to the mall and the receipt from Walgreens. They found the tag from the piece of luggage that he purchased at the mall. They also found a list that he had written. He attempted to crumble up this piece of paper and throw it into the trash when he arrived at the county jail. He listed what he needed to do to cover up the murder. On one side of his to-do list, it said, “Bleach out my sink, bleach out her sink, bleach out my shower, take off molding, get rid of the door, possibly carpeting and towels.” On the other side of this list, it said, “Clorox, makeup, duct tape, and bags. He also wrote the word, “HELP!”
While in the home, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension recovered all of the items that matched the description of what had been witnessed in the surveillance videos. The clothing he wore and the suitcase he purchased were found in the master bedroom closet. All of the evidence was there and there was no reason to believe that he had not committed all of these crimes. After his confession, the police continued with their investigation. The search warrant was obtained for copies of all the text messages and records of phone calls made and received from my mom and her husband's cell phones. My mom's coworkers were who reported her missing because the murderer had texted a message from my mother’s phone to her boss saying that she had a doctor’s appointment that morning. He had also sent a text message from her phone telling her friend that she was “not having a good morning”. These messages were red flags. Her boss knew right away that something was wrong. Her boss knew that she would never send a text message if she weren’t going to work. Mom had been open about the difficulties she was having during the divorce. She had taken a locked steel box to work and showed her coworkers where the keys were telling them that she wanted them to know in case something happened to her. When the box was turned over to the police it contained the “sexually explicit emails” that she was planning to show his family. The emails are what the police think triggered the violence against her. However, the defense attorney told the court that it was the custody of the dogs that caused this to happen.
Not long after my mother died, we were permitted to go into her house. I don’t remember the exact date, but it wasn’t too long after she died. It was after the crime scene team was finished gathering their evidence. The murderer was in jail after his initial arrest. While we were in the home gathering my mom’s belongings and memorabilia from my childhood, the murderer’s family showed up. That whole trip was scary. It was dark and frigid most of the time in late fall in Minnesota. The 4-year-old house was a mess and it didn’t smell new anymore. We couldn’t take too much as we had to have space to drive us all back home but we got some boxes of Christmas ornaments, photos, and childhood toys. The family of the man who killed my mom stayed outside the home yelling and throwing a fit that we were going to go through his personal items. The police had to calm them down and assure them that we didn’t want anything to do with his junk.
Sometimes I think about what would've happened if he had just stopped beating her. First of all, he wouldn't still be sitting in jail. Second of all, perhaps I would have had a mom present in my life. Sometimes I think about getting a call that she was badly beaten and hospitalized. We go to the hospital to visit her and she is on life-support. Perhaps her extensive injuries would've gathered our family together and brought us all closer. Maybe I would've gotten my mom back. Maybe it would've been a wake-up call for her. Maybe she could have found Christ and this would be a huge part of her testimony. Perhaps she could've helped other women in dangerous situations. But none of that is true.
She is gone.
The 401(k) money that they were fighting over is gone.
The dogs that they couldn't part with are gone.
The murderer is in prison. (Not for long enough.) But, he’s gone for now. I don't know if his family is still living or not. But there is so much loss because of this horrific situation. The world did not become a better place because this happened. I am doing my best to try and use this situation to help others. My mom is no longer here, she cannot tell her story, but I can. Well, I can tell what I remember. My aunt, my mother’s older sister (Who will always tell you she is the younger sister.. hehe!) can also tell Mom’s story. I pray that someday she does. I would love to read her perspective. She knows so much more about all of this than I do. She had a sober mind during the 3 years of court trials. She made all the trips back and forth from Indiana to Minnesota while raising two adopted children. She handled a lot of the legal documents after Mom died. She organized the memorial services. I was 19 years old when my mother was murdered. I was heavily addicted to drugs and incapable of properly handling anything. I am forever grateful that she stepped in and took care of me and tied up the loose ends of all of this insanity. She has told me that she has stacks of notes from the legal battle. I am curious to someday sit with her and refresh my memory. I was sober for the final trial in 2011. I got sober in November 2009. A year after she died. So I do remember some of it but the trauma of it all has forced my brain to block out some of the memories. I have fuzzy photos in my mind from some of the evidence. My mom's sisters did not sit in the courtroom on the day that they showed the photos of when the police found her body in the garage. But my uncle and I chose to sit together and witness it. My mom's sisters chose not to see that or put it in their minds. I respect that. She was their sister and best friend. The three amigos. They had lived their entire lives with her. They had years of fun memories together. I was more detached from the situation at that point. I do not regret sitting in on that evidence day. I needed to see what had happened to her. Her murder has hardened me, but it has given me strength. There's not much you can't handle after going through something like this. However, it has caused me to struggle to empathize with death. I do not react to death like others do. I remember as a little girl attending funerals and seeing people weeping and it scared me. But as an adult, I struggle to cry over the loss of life when someone’s parents die. I don’t go to funerals. My mom’s murder broke me. Quite honestly, I needed to be broken, if only it didn't take such a traumatic event to steer me towards the sunlight of the spirit.
I harbored bitterness and anger for many years. Most of it was directed at my mother believe it or not. I was so angry with her for the destructive decisions that she had made. I found myself forgiving her murderer sooner than I forgave her. Eventually, I had to forgive both of them for the sake of my healing. But I think it was easier for me to find forgiveness for him because he was just another guy hooking up with my mom. He wasn't around all that often. I didn't have years of pain and abuse to forgive him for. He committed a heinous crime and I do not condone what happened. But ultimately I know that he will have to answer to God for his actions. I know that he comes from a Christian family. I know that at the end of the trial, his family tried to give me one of their family Bibles. So I am sure that he knows the word. Harboring unforgiveness towards him would not solve anything. Quite frankly, I do not think he would care if I forgave him or not. He was very selfish and my feelings about him never mattered to either of them. Being upset with him is not productive. So I'm just not. My God is bigger than this, I’ve surrendered both of them to the foot of the cross. Someday he will have to face our maker.
In the closing of the court trial, my mother’s friends and family spoke and read letters. My grandmother held a photo of my mom. I sat between them all in the pews. Everyone shared that it was very obvious that he was only sorry for the fact that he got caught. My mom's friend wrote a letter that was read and she said that he was arrogant and charismatic and had shown no remorse or sadness over her death. This friend was someone who went to high school with both of them. She noted that he had defrauded other women in the past and had taken advantage of his loving family. She feared that he would continue to do the same things if he was released on a lighter sentence. My aunt spoke and referred to the web of deceit that he had weaved. She said he created this through his gambling and porn addiction and tax evasion, he cheated on her and ruined her financially. “Yet, that wasn’t enough!” She said, “You purposely and angrily took a precious life — The life of love someone I love very much… All I can hope is for you to live a very long life — all of it behind bars.”
Soon after these letters were read and the speeches were given… We would learn that he would not spend his life behind bars.
He was sentenced to 20 years in prison plus 10 years of probation. The sentence is “seven months shy of the maximum allowed under the Minnesota state sentencing guidelines”. The county attorney’s office had asked for an “upward departure” from the guidelines of up to 40 years because of the cruelty of the crime. I.e.: putting mom's body in a garbage can and the fact that he showed no remorse. “The judge denied the request saying that while the murder was brutal violent and reprehensible he found no basis for an increased sentence.”
The murderer appealed his sentence in 2012. He wanted his charges dropped to a manslaughter conviction. The jail had recorded a conversation between the murderer and his brother. He told his brother that he “just snapped”. He also thought it should be taken into account that he was really sad about the divorce and my mother was angry at him for attempting to gain custody of their dogs and take a part of her 401(k) retirement fund. I, however, am not sure how this is grounds to have his charges dropped to manslaughter.
The county attorney’s office wrote a response to his appeal: “The jury rejected his credibility and did not believe his story that he was attacked by the victim and killed her in self-defense.” The prosecutors wrote that his claim of acting in a heat of passion ignores the extensive bodily injuries covering his wife as well as the fact that he had remarked at work that he was thinking of killing his wife. He had conducted a detailed cover-up of killing his wife and showed a lack of remorse when telling police officers that “she had put up a good fight” and that he “just lost it.”
In the appeal response, the prosecution referenced some text messages that he sent to me saying that he wouldn't let go of Mom and would “keep her at all costs”.
His sentence appeal was denied.
I find it bizarre that someone can take another life and they aren't sentenced to life. But the law is the law and 20 years in prison is what he got. "Justice" here on earth does not make sense. He will be out of prison in a short 7 years from now. The murderer’s anticipated release date is November 25, 2030. He will be a free man completely on November 22, 2040. If he lives to the year 2040 he will be 77 years old. I suppose this is justice.
Every so often… Maybe every three months I receive restitution from the murderer. Myself, my aunts, and my grandmother are all receiving these piddly little checks. I get somewhere between $7 and $13 every 3 to 4 months. This is what they consider to be restitution for killing my mother. In years prior it would pain me to receive these ridiculous checks. Anymore I just deposit them. I've talked to counselors about it and some say well at least you get something and others say at least all of his prison money is being accounted for. I say it means nothing and just drums up the memories. The definition of restitution is, “The restoration of something lost or stolen to its proper owner.” or “To compensate for injury or loss.” Well, I most certainly don't feel compensated for my loss, but I guess it does bring a little bit of comfort to know that he isn't being compensated either. All of his prison money is dispersed between my family members. However, it is much more uncomfortable knowing that I am forever tethered to this person.
Not surprisingly, losing my mother like this has had long-term effects on me. This is not something you just get over, understandably. There are obvious long-term effects like sadness, grief, anxiety, and the gloom of November. It's not like falling and scraping your knee… you don't just stand up and suck it up. Yes, I have forgiven them and yes I have moved on. But here we are 15 years later and I can be going on about my merry little day and suddenly be jolted back to the courtroom. Or all of a sudden I see her swollen and beaten body lying in her casket. I still lose sleep some nights after waking from a nightmare of being trapped in the house while he's killing her. Over the years I've had countless nightmares. At times, I have unfairly compared my husband to the murderer. I fully know, understand, and believe my husband is not that man. However, being subjected to this sort of trauma has caused me to use these events as a reference in my mind when things have gone south in my marriage. I have struggled to trust my husband fully. At the beginning of my marriage, I found myself afraid of my husband because of what my mother went through. On top of my mother’s murder nearly every murder you see on dateline where the wife/mother is killed… It’s always the husband. So, having this happen in real life and not just on TV… I doubted my safety with my husband. I do struggle in communicating with my husband about how I'm feeling and delving into conversations with him trying to paint a picture of my internal darkness. I have often told him that I wish I could just crack open the top of my head so that he could jump into my brain with me and see what I see and feel what I feel.
He usually says, “No thank you. It sounds scary in there!” Oh, how accurate he is! Some days I am glad that people cannot see what is happening in my mind.
On top of the trauma that my mother's murder has caused me, it has also soaked into my oldest daughter. I was in the first trimester of my first pregnancy when I had to take the stand and testify against my mother's murderer as a character witness. Until recently, I had never thought about this causing my child issue. But in the way that my child handles stressful situations, it is evident that she was affected.
According to GoodTherapy.Org “Fetal programming is a term for how the environment outside the womb can affect a fetus. This can have a long-lasting impact on how a child develops later in life. A period of intense grief in pregnancy may translate to a greater chance of neurodevelopment issues for the child.” The Australian Community Services Act says, “As the mother's body is providing the care to the child, any stress the mother experiences can transfer to the child. If the type of stress is particularly bad, this can cause the child trauma.”
No one talked about this before I sat through the trial. No one told me that witnessing everything that I did could cause my unborn child harm. She is 12 years old, and I notice it in big ways. My mother was not a great mom. I suffered through an abusive childhood with her. Even after her death, she was causing me harm. She devoted most of her time to her friends and her social life. I am sure that my mother’s friends have moved on maybe thinking of her occasionally. These people that she devoted so much time to are not living with the long-term consequences of her choices.
But I am. My child is.
My child - who will never know her grandmother - will forever be impacted by her murder.
If you are in an abusive relationship, get help!
If your current circumstances are not safe, get out! If you need help in making these decisions, reach out!
Help is available! The national domestic violence hotline number is 800-799-7233
or TEXT: START to 88788
If you have suffered a loss, it is important to unpack your trauma. I highly recommend talking with a professional counselor. It is also important to build a recovery community. You need two or three people to lean on, talk with regularly, and use as a sounding board.
You do not have to suffer alone.
If you need help finding resources, please feel free to reach out to me.
My email is, hellodear@myyahoo.com
CLING TO HIS TRUTH! 🙏🏼
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
- 2 Corinthians 12:9.
The Bible is FULL of additional verses for strength. But here are a few of my favorites:
Psalm 34:4, Matthew 6:25, Psalm 6:2, Revelation 21:5
This is part 1 of my story about my mother and her murder. The next part will have more intimate details and more of a personal perspective. A lot of the information in this part of the story can be found online.
Thank you for reading this post. 🙏🏼
If you are interested in supporting my blog, there is a link to my merchandise at the end of this post!
Love,
Kelsey
This case and the facts stated in my blog can be found on the Savage Pacer website at www.swnewsmedia.com The Savage Pacer (Shakopee Valley News) is where my mother was employed when she was murdered. I am grateful to her coworkers for their diligence in handling her missing persons report and their detailed coverage of the case in the six years that followed.
Link to my Bonfire shirt shop:
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