Denise Frei: Curtis thought that he had been invited to participate in his ultimate sexual fantasy. Instead, he’d been lured to a terrible death.
Amy Bosley: On the surface, they were a golden couple. But Bob Bosley had financial problems and he was cheating on his wife. People have been killed for less.
Pamela Lanier: Dorian Lanier is dead, sent to an early grave with arsenic, delivered by his wife. Now for the real shocker. She’s done this before.
Korena Roberts: A Craigslist ad lures an expectant mother into a deadly trap. The woman who placed it is desperate to have a baby…by any means possible.
Lianne Smith: Her pedophile husband is in custody, finally brought to book for his many crimes. His arrest sends Lianne into a tailspin. What she does next is beyond evil.
Katie Coursey: A wheelchair-bound rapper is abandoned to a particularly cruel fate along a country road. His killer? The woman who claimed to love him.
Michelle Willard: Forced to rein in her spending when her husband loses his job, Michelle casts around for a new source of funds. A $250,000 insurance policy will do nicely.
Miriam Helmick: The first murder scheme was stolen from the plot of a Hollywood blockbuster. The second was far simpler – a bullet to the back of the head.
Denise Frei
This picture-perfect relationship, however, had one fatal blemish. It came in the form of Denise’s bone-idle 18-year-old son, Jacob Hilgendorf. Jacob also had a room at Curtis Bailey’s house, where he wasted away his days watching TV, playing video games, and listening to music. He also ate his host out of house and home and helped himself to his beers. As might be expected, this led to clashes between the two men in the household, with Denise always coming down on the side of her son.
Curtis Bailey was a “salt of the earth” kind of guy. He worked long hours and liked nothing better than to kick back with a few beers at the end of a hard day. He was also easygoing, and so he let much of Jacob’s gold-bricking behavior slide. But what Curtis would not tolerate was theft. One day in 2009, he noticed that $200 was missing from his wallet and asked Denise if she had taken it. When she said no, he rounded on Jacob, accusing him of stealing the money. Denise, of course, stood up for her son, but Curtis had finally reached his breaking point. He ordered Jacob to pack up his things and leave. He also barred the teenager from visiting his mother at the café.
The war between her son and her lover put Denise Frei in a difficult situation. Her natural inclination was to side with Jacob, but Denise was no fool. She knew where her bread was buttered. Life with Curtis was easy street, and she wasn’t about to give that up. Besides, Curtis held the lease on her business. Ticking him off might see her out on the street.
And so, Denise played both sides of the fence. At home, she remained the devoted partner; at work, she’d regularly slip Jacob a few dollars from the till or give him a free meal when he visited the café in defiance of Curtis’s ban. Jacob also had another reason for visiting the eatery, Denise’s pretty waitress, Jessica Dayton. The two had known each other since high school and had enjoyed an on-again-off-again, friends with benefits kind of relationship. Now, things got more serious, and they started dating.
Denise’s game of double bluff would continue for several weeks, enduring a couple of close calls along the way. In one incident, she had to sneak Jacob out of the back of the café when Curtis paid a surprise visit. That narrow escape got her thinking about her current situation and how she might resolve it. And those musings led her to a surprise conclusion. She realized that she no longer loved Curtis. She was sticking with him out of habit and for the financial security the relationship offered. But what if she could have it both ways? What if she could have the security without the man?
Curtis Bailey made good money in construction. And he was a thrifty man, a man of simple tastes who had a sizeable nest egg put away. He also had a $100k insurance policy, which named Denise as the sole beneficiary. Denise knew all of these things because Curtis had shown her his bank statements and policy documents. Now, suddenly, she realized that he was worth more to her dead than alive. From that moment on, Curtis Bailey’s life was effectively over.
Denise’s first two attempts at ending her lover’s life were clumsy science experiments. First, she spiked his beer with insulin, hoping to elevate his sugar level and cause a seizure. Curtis downed the drink and then several more before passing out. He showed no ill effects other than a hangover. Then, Jessica upped the ante and the dosage. This time, the drug did cause a reaction. Curtis woke clutching his chest and said that he was having a heart attack. He told Denise to call an ambulance, but she managed to calm him down, and his symptoms eventually subsided. Clearly, insulin poisoning was not going to work.
It wasn’t the only murderous plan that Denise had up her sleeve, though. She now devised a new strategy, one that would require the help of Jacob and Jessica. To get the teenagers on board, Denise told them that Curtis had been physically, sexually, and emotionally abusing her for years and that the abuse had escalated since Jacob had been evicted from the house. She would leave, she said, but Curtis had threatened to kill her if she tried. Her only option was to strike first, killing him before he could make good on his threat. Jacob and Jessica almost immediately agreed to participate in the murder. Denise then sweetened the pot by promising them $5,000 each for their help.
On the night of July 18, 2009, Curtis and Denise were in bed together when Denise rolled over and whispered something in his ear. Curtis was shocked at what she had to say. Denise was suggesting a threesome with her pretty waitress, Jessica. “Is this a trick?” he asked skeptically. “No, no trick,” Denise responded. “I just want to do something special for you. What do you say?”
What Curtis said was “yes,” of course. The following day, he could barely concentrate on his work, thinking about what was to come later that evening. At one point, his boss asked what he was grinning about, and Curtis just could not keep the secret to himself. He revealed what he had planned for that evening, much to the envy of the other man.
The night of July 19, 2009, was warm and clear in Marengo. In his tidy bungalow, Curtis Bailey sat sprawled on the couch, a beer in his hand, a bottle of tequila and a shot glass on the table in front of him. A few feet away, Denise and the 18-year-old Jessica were engaged in a suggestive dance. “Now you know the rules of the game,” Denise giggled. “Every time we do something sexy, you have to down a shot.” Curtis eagerly nodded his understanding. “Well, what are you waiting for, then?” Denise said as she drew Jessica in for a kiss.
And so it continued. For every touch and kiss and caress, Curtis was encouraged to take a shot of tequila. Usually, these were washed down with a swig of beer, and it wasn’t long before Curtis was listing heavily to starboard. Soon, his eyes glazed over, and he slid down on the couch and started snoring gently. Now, the conspirators swung quickly into action. While Denise ran to the kitchen, Jessica was on her phone, sending a text that would summon Jacob to the house. Then Denise was back, holding a roll of Saran wrap. Moments later, Jacob arrived, and the three of them were standing together in the lounge, looking down at their sleeping prey.
Denise’s plan was clever in theory. She was going to pull the Saran wrap tightly around Curtis’s head, closing off his air passages and suffocating him. She’d then report that he’d suffered a heart attack, a story that would probably be accepted since there would be no marks on the body to suggest any other cause. With a little luck, there’d be no autopsy. She’d be rid of Curtis, her son would be back in her life, and she’d be a whole lot richer into the bargain.
What Denise didn’t account for was how a person reacts when their air is suddenly cut off. Curtis came instantly awake and started thrashing around, trying to break free. Jacob and Jessica tried to pin him down, but Curtis was just too strong. They were not going to be able to hold him. It was at this point that Denise entered the fray, picking up a heavy glass ashtray and crashing it down on her lover’s head. Now, the battle became a free-for-all, with all three of the perpetrators raining down blows with anything that they could get their hands on. Curtis was struck with a candy jar, a rock from a nearby pot plant, a piece of ornamental driftwood. He was battered into submission, suffering as many as thirty head injuries. Eventually, the cumulative effect of these blows took their toll, and he stopped struggling and lay still.
Curtis Bailey was dead, but now Denise had a problem. This wasn’t the clean kill she had planned on. A new strategy would be required. Thinking on her feet, Denise believed that she had it. She ordered Jacob and Jessica from the house, admonishing them to say nothing of the murder if they wanted to stay out of prison. She then waited until 1:50 a.m. before eventually working up the courage to make the 911 call. “My boyfriend’s been murdered!” she wailed down the line.
The story that Denise Frei told the responding officers was this. She said that she’d been woken by angry voices and had heard sounds of a struggle coming from the lounge. She’d been too afraid to check, she said, and had remained hidden in the bedroom until she heard the front door slam and a car start up. She’d then snuck down the hallway and found her boyfriend beaten to death. She suspected that this might have been a drug deal gone wrong.
Unfortunately for Denise, there was one glaring problem with her story. The victim’s blood had already begun to congeal, indicating that he had been dead for considerably longer than Denise was claiming. She was therefore arrested on suspicion and taken into custody. Soon, her two co-conspirators were also brought in.
Denise’s initial strategy was to hang tough and deny everything. But that plan went out of the window when Jacob Hilgendorf decided to confess. According to Jacob, he alone was responsible for Curtis’s death. His mother and Jessica had nothing to do with it. Once Denise heard of this, she offered her own confession, taking sole responsibility and absolving Jacob and Jessica.
Denise would offer a variation on this same argument at her trial in September 2011. The intervening months had given her the opportunity to come up with a justification for her actions, and she played it to the hilt, claiming “battered wife syndrome.” That defense might have worked had Denise been able to back it up. But the defense could not put forward a single witness who had a bad word to say about Curtis Bailey. Neither could Denise offer evidence of injuries suffered or of complaints lodged with the police. Ultimately, the jury found her story unconvincing.
Found guilty of first-degree murder, Denise Frei was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Her two co-accused subsequently received the same verdict and the same sentence.
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