Trial opens in Juedes homicide

By Kevin O’Brien

Depending on which opening statement you listened to on Tuesday, Cindy Schulz-Juedes was either the cold-blooded mastermind of a murder-for-money plot against her husband or she’s an innocent widow taking the blame for the real perpetrators.

The homicide trial of Schulz-Juedes got underway in Marathon County Circuit Court this week, more than 15 years after pharmacist Ken Juedes was found murdered in his house near Unity.

District attorney Theresa Wetzsteon and defense attorney Earl Gray spent about an hour Tuesday afternoon in front of a jury of 11 men and four women, each drawing a drastically different picture of the defendant.

Wetzsteon implied that Schulz-Juedes had been planning to murder her husband for financial gain ever since they eloped to Las Vegas in October of 2004.

“The defendant had found herself the goose that laid the golden egg,” she said.

The DA detailed all of the assets Ken brought into their marriage, including a four-bedroom house in the countryside and a cottage he co-owned with his siblings. She said Schulz-Juedes quickly gained Ken’s trust, signing important documents and checks in his name.

Wetzsteon said just seven months after they got married, the defendant con- vinced Ken to refinance his home so she could pay off over $75,000 in credit card debt. The defendant also made several changes to Ken’s life insurance policies, making herself the sole beneficiary.

“Upon Ken’s death, the defendant was now the designated beneficiary of $973,000,” she said. “The defendant was very well aware of Ken’s insurance policies and the beneficiary designations.”

Even though Ken provided the defendant with a beautiful home, took on her debt and held a good-paying job, Wetzsteon said Schulz-Juedes grew “impatient.”

“She knew the golden egg’s real wealth – $1.2 million — wasn’t hers until Ken was dead,” she said, referring to the combined value of his assets and insurance.

Several events surrounding Ken’s death on Aug. 29, 2006, raised suspicions about his wife’s involvement, the DA said. She said Schulz-Juedes made sure there were no foster children at the home that week and turned off a video surveillance system that was installed just a few months earlier. All of the doors to the house were left unlocked, which was unusual, Wetzsteon said.

Ken was also found to be drunk the night of his murder, with his blood-alcohol level at over two times the legal limit for driving.

“Something caused him to drink to excess that night,” she said.

Schulz-Juedes slept in a camper outside the house that night, but Wetzsteon said she was the only one who could have known that her husband was laying naked in bed, intoxicated and defenseless.

Ken was killed by two shotgun blasts, both at close range, while laying down.

The morning Ken’s body was discovered, Wetzsteon said Schulz-Juedes was wearing a “pristine white robe” and pajamas when she drove to two different neighbors and asked them to dial 911.

“She leaves her husband lying there, untouched, unassisted, uncomforted,” Wetzsteon said.

The DA pointed out that Schulz-Juedes never returned to her house and instead fell asleep at her neighbor’s home.

Wetzsteon said Schulz-Juedes never called Ken’s mother, Margaret, leaving it up to police to inform her of her son’s murder.

“Almost 12 hours after the calls to 911, Margaret had no idea that her son was dead,” the DA said.

Schulz-Juedes refused to answer phone calls from Margaret after the murder, but she did call an insurance company to file claim on behalf of Ken’s father, Wetzsteon said.

Following the murder, Schulz-Juedes filed claims on five life insurance policies and sold his house and some hunting land that had been given to him by his family.

Ever since the murder, Wetzsteon said Schulz-Juedes has done everything she can to “distract and deceive law enforcement,” including her claim that a shotgun she owned “went missing” shortly before the murder.

The DA noted that Schulz-Juedes has been charged as “a party to a crime.”

“The defendant either directly committed the homicide, assisted or was ready and willing to assist in the murder of Ken,” she said.

The defense makes its case

Gray responded to Wetzsteon’s opening argument by telling the jury that “half of what she said will not be proven” by the evidence.

Instead of a greedy opportunist looking to profit from her husband’s death, Gray said his client was a loving wife who had nothing to do with his murder.

“My client was in love with Ken Juedes; he was in love with her,” he said.

According to Gray, the true perpetrators were a group of men involved in the Monster Hall race track that Ken had invested in before he married Cindy.

Gray said Ken and another pharmacist were the victims of fraud by the owner of the race track, Randall Landwehr, who convinced them to invest in the track. He said the Wisconsin Department of Commerce found probable cause that Landwehr had committed fraud.

Regarding the night of the murder, Gray said his client was suffering from serious migraines and was under the influence of Tylenol PM and Vicodin, which were given to her by Ken.

Gray also said that Ken wanted his wife to stay in the camper, just as she had the night before.

“He had something to do that night and he didn’t want her involved,” Gray said.

The defense attorney said his client slept through the entire night of her husband’s murder and didn’t hear anything. He said she didn’t realize was wrong until she noticed he hadn’t gone to work the next morning.

“She then goes into the bedroom, and in the bedroom is the husband that she loved, bare naked, laying on his back, with blood all over,” he said.

Gray said she tried calling 911 from her house, but the landlines were not working, so that’s why she went to her neighbors to get help. He also noted that she was told not to return to her house by a 911 dispatcher.

Schulz-Juedes told police about the problems they were having with Landwehr and that they were suing him over the money they invested in the race track — close to $300,000, according to Gray.

When police went to question Landwehr a few days after the murder, he immediately got a lawyer involved, Gray noted.

“The evidence will show that they didn’t do anymore investigation on Landwehr,” he said.

In 2007, Gray said police got a tip that a man named Brian Demler was telling people that he was the getaway driver for a group of men who killed Juedes. Demler reportedly named Gary Upton, Jerry Gentry and Butch Patrick Lilley as the men he drove to Juedes’ house.

“He didn’t tell that one time. He told that to numerous people,” he said.

(None of the alleged perpetrators have been charged with a crime in this case).

Gray said the perpetrators were all involved in drugs and regularly brought cocaine to the race track.

“They all would take eight balls of cocaine, bring them to the Monster Hall bar and raceway, and get high and get drunk, day in and day out,” he said.

Gray also noted that Upton, Gentry and Lilley, who played Eddie Munster on TV, were investors in a brewery that Landwehr was looking to establish.

However, when questioned by police about his statements, Demler denied ever saying anything.

“After that, the investigation went back to Cindy,” he said Gray said investigators put a tracker on his client’s car and tapped her phone, but found nothing incriminating. He also said that the forensics team at the Juedes home found no evidence of a cleanup.

In 2014, Gray said police interviewed Upton, who also denied involvement. However, according to Gray, Upton told his wife that “we did ask Lilley if he could hire a hitman.”

It wasn’t until 2019 that a new set of investigators asked to speak to Schulz-Juedes at her home in Chippewa Falls.

“They questioned her for seven and a half hours,” he said. “They accused her of killing her husband and she adamantly denied it time and time again.”

A few weeks later, she was arrested for first-degree murder, and once she was taken to jail, police continued unsuccessfully to get a confession from her.

“Keep in mind, they have the burden of proof,” Gray told the jury.