Dateline: Who was Cindy Schulz-Juedes and what do we know about her crimes? Details of the 2006 incident, explored

Dateline featured a chilling case of the 2006 murder of a pharmacist, Kenneth Juedes from Wisconsin. What was even more shocking was that his wife, Cindy Schulz-Juedes, turned out to be the one behind the killing. The case, featured in Dateline: Unforgettable’s episode titled, The Trouble on Dill Creek Farm explores the journey of over a decade to find out the culprit.

In 2004, Cindy and Ken got married and seemed like a happy couple. Two years into the marriage, the husband was found dead, shot two times in the chest. The investigators later discovered a handwritten note at the crime scene, and the staged scene pointed towards the involvement of Cindy in the killing, as explored in the Dateline episode.

Dateline: Who was Cindy Schulz-Juedes, and what do we know about her crimes?

On August 30, 2006, Cindy ran to her neighbour's house, informing them that she had just discovered her husband's lifeless body in bed. She was calling frantically.

“There’s blood all over my husband… He’s just there — lying there with all this blood,” she cried in the 911 call.

The detectives then interviewed her to get a full image of what happened in the night. She told them that she was sleeping outside in the RV because of severe headaches, and Ken had only tucked her in while encouraging her to sleep outside. In the morning, she realized that the house phone wasn't working, and when she entered there she found her husband's body naked and shot twice in the chest. But the scene inside the home raised far more questions than answers.

The investigators found a note in the Crime Scene, as shown on Dateline

The investigators found no signs of forced entry, while the gun was shot from a close range. On the other side of the bed, a knife was lying stabbed through a pillow, pinning a note which reads, "bitch." This was the element that made the detectives feel it was all staged. Recalling, Detective Sean McCarthy stated,

“It definitely got our attention. Like, we hadn’t seen that before.”

All of this staging and evidence pointed towards one thing: that Ken knew his killer, and the murder had been done for personal reasons. This was the point when suspicion grew towards Cindy. Her story was fluctuating from the start. Her sleeping in the hot, un-air-conditioned RV in the month of August is something the detectives found odd. Doors were also left unlocked that night, and the CCTV cameras were off. The couple was also parents to two foster children who were not present that night. All these aspects could only be planned by Cindy, someone who knew the house as well as all the members.

After Ken's death, she was quiet swiftly produced the will with only her name written as the sole heir, excluding his children. Cindy was to gain nearly $1 million on life insurance payouts upon Ken's death.

The investigation lasted for a long time and finally led to Cindy's arrest in 2019, per Dateline.

The investigation into Ken's death, as shown in Dateline, lasted for over a decade as the officials didn't have any substantial evidence against Cindy. Years later, when a new team was assigned, they went through the evidence again and found out that the handwriting on the note was of Ken, as he had a peculiar way of writing the letter "b."

They concluded that the couple did have an argument where Ken wrote this note, which escalated to an extent where Cindy ended up killing him. However, whether she was involved alone in the murder or there was someone else involved remains unknown. In November 2019, Cindy Schulz-Juedes was arrested and charged with being a party to homicide.

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Cindy’s trial took place in 2021, more than 15 years after Ken’s death. She took the stand to deny any involvement, insisting she had loved her husband and had no reason to harm him. However, the jury found her guilty, given the financial motive and the staged crime scene.

In 2022, Cindy was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Even her story ended tragically when she was beaten to death by her cellmate in 2023 inside a Wisconsin correctional facility.

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