Wisconsin woman who offered $25,000 reward to solve husband's shooting death charged with his murder 13 years later
WAUSAU, WISCONSIN: A Wisconsin woman who had offered a $25,000 reward for information that would lead to the capture of the assailant who murdered her husband has been arrested and charged in connection with his 2006 shooting death.
Police had suspected Cindy Schulz-Juedes, 65, of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, after she said she found her husband Ken Juedes, 58, dead at their home on August 30, 2006, according to WSAW, but could not arrest and charge her due to a lack of evidence.
When questioned by police, she claimed she did not what happened to Juedes because she was sleeping in a camper on the property. She said she was not sleeping inside the home that night because she had a sinus infection.
In early 2007, she offered a $25,000 reward for any information about Juedes' murder, with the Daily Mail reporting that his children from a previous marriage sued her after his death claiming she had a hand in his death.
They sought to recover $280,000 which she had received from an insurance company after his murder, and the case was eventually settled out of court.
This past week, Schulz-Juedes was arrested and appeared in Marathon County Circuit Court for a probable cause hearing, where Department of Justice assistant attorney general Richard Dufour revealed that police had both means and motive in her husband's death.
He pointed out that Juedes had taken out a $1 million life insurance before he died, and that, after his death, he had left his wife $200,000 worth of property as well. He also said Schulz-Juedes and the victim were having problems in their marriage, and that she had the opportunity to commit the crime as she was the only person living with the victim at the time.
Furthermore, Juedes had been killed with a 20-gauge shotgun, the same type of shotgun that Schulz-Juedes conveniently reported missing days after her husband's death.
However, her public defender Trevor Peterson argued that no blood was found on his client's clothes when she reported her husband dead despite significant blood at the scene of the crime. He added that "13 years shows that there was a lot of doubt in what's going on there."
Marathon County Court records show Schulz-Juedes will be charged with first-degree intentional homicide and is currently being held at the Marathon County Jail on a $1 million bond.