efforts in the u-haul and the kitchen left the police struggling to find concrete, physical evidence of the murder. when you re dealing with that many states, that many miles, that many witnesses to talk to, it take is along time. figuring out who actually did it became more complicated because fruge agreed to take the fall. dennis talked me into writing a letter saying that i killed timothy wicks in self-defense, because he tried to rape me. did you sign the letter? yes. is that true? no. fruge later said she agreed to that plan out of love for gaede and never had anything to do with timothy wicks murder. but while serving more than six months in jail interfering with child custody laws she told a public defender she committed the murder in self-defense. even after he was in custody and she had gone to jail, she bought into his story for a while? you know if she did it it was self-defense, she probably
to let her know what he was going do with the apartment, and he left a phone number with her saying if you need me for some reason, here s a phone number. though the cell phone number was eventually traced to fargo, north dakota, it did not lead to tim wicks. but when schoonover called the fargo police department he got a lucky break. tim wicks was a name they already knew, same birthday, same social security number, except in fargo, north dakota, timothy wicks was not known for his drumming. i told detective schoonover that mr. wicks was a suspect in an embezzlement case i was currently working on and that later that afternoon i had an interview with him at the police station. you may be solving a missing person s case this afternoon? that s what i thought. could it be the easy-going drummer family and friends in the milwaukee area describe had an alter ego and was now passing himself off as an accountant in fargo? true, tim wicks run his own painting business and kept his o
i don t know. when you re in a situation like that, you just you don t think clearly. right after tim wicks was killed, when your husband goes to get the backhoe to bury the body, you could have grabbed your son and left then. why not? where was i going to go? back to milwaukee, back to your mom. i think i was just in a state of shock then. i just closed up. i totally clammed up. though dennis gaede went to prison for embezzlement and diane fruge spent six months in jail for violating her child custody order, it took almost five years for anyone to be charged with timothy wicks murder. coming up dennis gaede goes on trial. [ jody ] four course feast. man it s great. the guests love it. [ male announcer ] red lobster s four course seafood feast is back. get soup, salad, cheddar bay biscuits, dessert and choose one of 7 entrees. four courses for only $15. offer ends soon. i m jody gonzalez, red lobster manager and i sea food differently.
that purchase was made, tim wicks was dead. in milwaukee, the case was beginning to receive media attention. descriptions of gaede and fruge broadcast, which helped detective schoonover uncovers even more leads. such as what happened to the car tim wicks drove to fargo. and so we called up the dealership where he bought it, and when we talked to them they said, we have the car here. okay. what happened? he said that a couple of days ago a lady came in to the teal areship, gave the keys to the car to a salesman and said my husband can t make the payments anymore and gives him the keys, hops in the car and takes off. he was also chasing a money trail. after news broke of tim wicks death his bank called to report unusual transactions. we found out that someone called and identified himself as timothy wicks and went to their
very lucky. very lucky. compared to the victim s teeth. it was a match. that s timothy wicks head, and dna testing between the head and torso matched him. but you re still not sure exactly what happened? no. why not? here we have a nice guy, and he was a victim at the hands of a very bad person. with the positive i.d. of timothy wicks, detective schoonover made an urgent call to break the news to fargo detective tammy lynx who was about to execute a search warrant at gaede s house. in the embezzlement case. this goes from a white collar crime to cold-blooded murder. yes. this is as cold-blooded as it gets. i was told that when the body was found both the head and hands had been removed from the body. what does that tell you about