Lorenz and found him in Sioux City, Iowa, where he was jailed for stealing a car. Lorenz, who had left the Buffalo area, was the killer. Lorenz - led the investigation in another direction: She said that Mr. Pugh who had a passing acquaintance with Mr. He maintained his innocence and had an alibi: The day of the killing, he was at Taco Bell, getting fired after being accused of sexually harassing his staff.Īnd days after the murder, a confidential informant - Nancy Hummingbird, a friend of Mr. Meindl also had a $50,000 insurance policy on his wife. Bentley noted handcuffs and other items found in the home that were used for “sexual bondage.” In the initial police report written during the initial investigation, Mr. He kept photos of her, scantily clad, in his wallet, according to trial testimony. Meindl was seeing a 17-year-old girl who worked for him. The Meindls had an open marriage, and Mr. Meindl - who did not respond to requests for an interview - insisted later, during the 1994 murder trial, that he was joking and denied any plot to kill his wife. “It should be made to look like a robbery,” the friend recalled, according to a police report cited by the defense. Meindl confided in his friend, discussing the idea of hiring someone to kill his wife, according to the transcripts of Mr. He had a friend who worked at Sicilian Delight, a pizza shop in the food court near the Taco Bell. Meindl, then 33 and a manager at a Taco Bell at a local mall. Bentley and his team of officers quickly focused their investigation on Mr. One of the building’s tenants at the time was Mr. Bentley’s son-in-law, Pat Rank, who was also a Tonawanda police officer, according to the notes compiled by the two prosecutors from Erie County. Two blocks from the Meindl house was an apartment building owned by a cousin of Mr. Just north of the Buffalo city limits, the Tonawanda neighborhood where the Meindls lived was a collection of modest homes, a quiet enclave just off the Niagara River. Bentley wrote that the crime was probably too violent for it to be a burglary gone wrong. Bentley said it “had to be someone strong to do what they did,” and later, in his police report that night, Mr. Then, walking closer, the officer asked about what was inside. Her purple backpack lay on the floor and was visible on Mr. And just after 3 p.m., Jessica came home from school to find her mother’s body. Meindl arrived home, according to the police. A postal worker heard someone inside when she delivered the mail the dog, Taffy, usually a noisy menace, didn’t bark. But that day, a neighbor spotted a young man walking down the family’s driveway. Meindl and the girls had left for school that morning, and Mr. Bentley said in a recent interview, “one of the least likely houses you would think someone from Buffalo would burglarize.” The Meindls - Deborah her husband, Donald and their two daughters, Jessica, 10, and Lisa, 7 - lived in a small house with two entrances, one on a narrow front porch and the other at the back, surrounded by other homes. ![]() Meindl, repeatedly stabbed, her hands cuffed behind her back, and strangled by her husband’s necktie, still looped around her neck. Chairs were overturned, drawers rifled through. Blood was also left on a dog toy, a recipe book, a gravy boat. ![]() Some things were knocked out of the china cabinet, there’s a ring on the victim’s hand, a trail of blood running this way, into the dining room.”Ī five-inch steak knife with blood on the handle and blade was jammed in a kitchen drawer. “The blood spatter is all here on the floor. “The living room, that’s the dining room, and the victim, obviously,” he said, evenly. ![]() The camera swept across a gruesome spectacle. “This is the front door, this is the blanket the daughter Jessica found covering the door, partially blocking her entrance when she came in the front door today,” he said, directing the camera toward a brown and yellow stitched blanket. He went inside and calmly detailed what he saw. Bentley did not react to the continuing screams as he walked up the five steps to the porch and opened the storm door. From somewhere behind him, there was a female voice howling the background. He was carrying a video camera and recording as he and a technician cataloged the evidence. Bentley, a veteran officer with a reputation for closing cases, crunched through a few inches of snow still visible on the ground.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |