Due to coverage prep for the Paris Olympics taking precedence, NBC’s “Dateline” is reairing previous episodes over the next few weeks, per NBC.
New episodes should resume airing sometime in August.
Friday’s replay is “The Trouble at Dill Creek Farm,” which explores the murder of Wisconsin pharmacist and farmer Ken Juedes.
Who was Ken Juedes?
Ken Juedes was a wealthy pharmacist and farmer. Life for him and his wife, Cindy Schulz-Juedes, was beatific — on the surface, at least, per Wausau Pilot and Review.
They were married in Las Vegas in 2004. Two years later, they lived on a 30-acre piece of farmland in Hull, Wisconsin, and co-owned Monster Hall Raceway and Campground. They fostered children together, according to The Wausonian.
Behind-the-scenes, life was a little less glamorous for the couple. Within a year of their marriage, Schulz-Juedes had accumulated around $75,000 in credit card debt, per Oxygen. Nevertheless, no one knew of any notable tension between the couple.
The family’s good reputation is why investigators were initially at a loss when Schulz-Juedes reported to them, in August 2006, that she had found her husband lying naked and dead in his bed, per NBC News. Two close-range gunshots had pierced his chest.
Close by, a knife had been stabbed through his pillow.
Who killed Ken Juedes?
Suspicion immediately fell on Schulz-Juedes, but she deflected it, per WSAW 7. Investigators wondered why she hadn’t heard the crime taking place, but she explained that she had slept outside in the couple’s camping trailer because she hadn’t been feeling well.
She told detectives that when she woke up after sleeping in the trailer, she went inside and found her husband’s body.
“I’ll never forget it, it was horrible,” she said to the media, per WSAW 7.
A lie detector test indicated she was being truthful when she said she didn’t fire the killing shot at Juedes. She put up a $25,000 reward for information about the murder, the article said.
But despite her insistence that she had nothing to do with her husband’s death, investigators were skeptical. Schulz-Juedes had claimed a lack of motive, but authorities determined that Juedes’ estate was worth nearly $1 million, according to Wausau Pilot & Review.
Physical evidence did not link Shulz-Juedes to the murder. The case went cold for four years until a handwriting expert determined that Juedes’ signature on his will was likely forged, per the Wausau Daily Herald.
Shulz-Juedes was then charged. In 2021, she was convicted of murder and then sentenced to life in prison the next year, per Oxygen.
Schulz-Juedes was imprisoned in Taycheedah Correctional Institution, where she maintained her innocence, according to the Wausau Daily Herald. She even started to appeal her conviction, but the process was cut off when she was found unresponsive in her cell in July 2023.
A fellow inmate has been accused of killing Schulz-Juedes, per WSAW 7.
Where to watch ‘Dateline’ this week
This Friday, July 19, NBC will replay “The Trouble at Dill Creek Farm” at 7 p.m. MDT.