Widow says five men murdered Juedes in 2006 as part of cover-up, not her
TRIBUNE PHONOGRAPH
Five men were responsible for the murder of Ken Juedes in 2006 as part of an effort to cover up financial crimes at a local race track. That’s the version of events as portrayed in a motion filed late last month by an attorney representing the only person who has been charged with the 14-year-old homicide.
Cindy Schulz-Juedes, who is awaiting trial for the murder of her husband, has put forth an alternative theory of the crime via her attorney, Earl Gray, who filed a notice of a third-party perpetrator on Dec. 30 in Marathon County Circuit Court.
Police and prosecutors believe Schulz-Juedes shot her husband to death in order to cash in on various life insurance policies and to benefit financially from a will that may have been forged.
The motion filed by Gray alleges that four men drove to the Juedes residence on Aug. 29, 2006, and three of them went inside, with the driver later telling people that he heard gunshots coming from inside the residence.
According to his theory, the four men were hired by the owner of the Monster Hall racetrack and campground, who was allegedly trying to cover acts of securities fraud committed against Juedes and another investor in the racetrack.
Gray’s motion includes statements from multiple individuals who told police that the driver of the getaway car confessed to the crime at various times since the murder. One of the witnesses said the driver “called her, crying and frightened, expressing a worry that he would be killed by confederates in the Ken Juedes murder.”
In a 2017 interview with one of the detectives working the case, a pair of witnesses said the alleged driver told them that after he heard gunshots, the other three men got back in the car and said “let’s go, let’s go” and “we have to get out of here.”
The defense attorney claims that one of the alleged perpetrators fled to Georgia after the murder, another went to California and the three others remained in the area. The motion also suggests that the murder weapon, a shotgun, may have been buried under some concrete that was poured by two of the perpetrators a couple days after the murder.
In discussing a possible motive for the murder, Gray points out that his client and her husband were in the middle of a contentious lawsuit filed against the alleged ringleader of the murder plot. This person had allegedly stolen $300,000 from the race track and was facing possible charges of security fraud due to Juedes’ allegations, the motion states.
All of these allegations are documented by court proceedings that occurred shortly before the murder, but Gray’s motions also includes an allegation involving Juedes’ alleged involvement with a “substantial amount of drug dealing in the area of Marathon County with these five men.”
Juedes was never charged with a drug-related crime, and police have never publicly said anything about that being a possible motive.
A motion hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 19 in Wausau for Judge Mike Moran to consider the admissibility of the third-party perpetrator defense, as well as other issues raised the prosecution and defense.
