Post by Graveyardbride on Feb 15, 2015 3:59:20 GMT -5
Roses and a Bullet for Valentine’s Day
On the morning of Thursday, February 14, 2013, Nathan Leuthold (above left), a Baptist missionary, presented roses to his wife Denise (right) as a Valentine’s Day gift. At approximately 3:30 that afternoon, police in Peoria, Illinois, responded to a call at 700 West Mossville Road and just inside the door of the home on the country-like highway in the northern part of town, found the body of 39-year-old Denise Leuthold, dead from a single gunshot wound to the head. Mrs. Leuthold was the mother of three children, Seth, age 12, Julia, 10, and Jenelle, 4.
Nathan Leuthold, 37, told police he left the home of his in-laws, where he and his wife were staying, around 11:15 or 11:30 that morning. When his wife failed to pick up Jenelle from preschool and she wasn’t responding to calls or text messages, he contacted family members, but no one had heard from her. After picking up his daughter, Leuthold said he pulled into the driveway at approximately 3 p.m. and noticed the garage door open and empty. He got out, walked into the garage and saw a broken window, but instead of going inside, he returned to his car, backed into a neighbor’s driveway and called police. After the body was removed, Leuthold went through the house and confirmed several items, in addition to Mrs. Leuthold’s vehicle, were missing, including two rings, a laptop computer, digital camera and two handguns – a .40 caliber Glock and a .22.
Police initially investigated the case as a break-in, believing Mrs. Leuthold had likely walked in on a burglary in progress and the perpetrator, or perpetrators, had panicked and shot the lady execution-style.
When Leuthold was questioned later that evening, he recalled seeing a strange car in the neighborhood a few days previous. The vehicle, he claimed, pulled into the driveway and turned off the headlights. “They were on in the road, but when they turned in, they turned them off,” he said. “You know, this is kinda weird. ... I immediately go through into the – into the – by the front door and flip the outside lights on. The car leaves.” On the day of the murder, he reported seeing the same car again, but this time, it pulled into a neighbor’s driveway.
The houses along this particular stretch of Mossville Road had big yards and views were obscured by trees and bushes, but Diane Parrish – who did not know Nathan Leuthold – said she saw a man wearing a black hoodie, with the hood pulled up, walking along Mossville Road at approximately 12:20 p.m. on Valentine’s Day. “I will never forget the look on that man’s face,” she said. “He was very agitated. I knew immediately something was wrong with him.” Another neighbor reported hearing a gunshot around 12:30 or 12:45 the same day.
The missing car was soon located in a nearby parking lot and Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard found this strange. “It’s odd that the victim’s car would go from the house to, I don’t know what that is, a quarter of a mile maybe down Mossville,” he observed, “and be parked in a parking lot with no reasonable explanation as to how it got there or why and there are a couple of possibilities that we are considering.”
The break-in and murder had people scared and a few days later, Ms. Parrish telephoned police to report she had seen the same man in the neighborhood again, but this time, he was driving a grey SUV. The man in question turned out to be Nathan Leuthold.
Investigators had already decided to take a closer look at the grieving widower and soon learned there was another woman. Aina Dobilaite was a young lady the Leutholds met while doing missionary work in Lithuania and brought back to the United States so she could continue her study of music. When she first arrived, she lived in the Leuthold home, where she worked as a nanny and taught piano. She then enrolled at Florida Christian College from which (according to Detective Jason Leigh), she was “kicked out” ... for “an inappropriate relationship with Nathan Leuthold.” At the time of the murder, she was living in Chicago, 165 miles from Peoria, but she and Leuthold shared a bank account and, again, according to Leigh, Leuthold paid 90 percent of her expenses.
Aina Dobilaite at trial
Additionally, police discovered a note in Denise Leuthold’s day planner, which she apparently intended to give to her husband, accusing him of humiliating her by “running around with a 20-year-old.” The missive covered two sides of a piece of note paper and she wrote:
What on earth could you possibly be thinking? I can’t imagine anything you could tell me that would hurt worse than what you were doing to me now – every day. I really don’t think there is anything that I have done or not done that would cause me to deserve this. I have tried to please you for seventeen years and never succeeded. I’ve never been good enough. Never done enough. I know that you want me dead. I’m not stupid. I suppose it will confirm my worthlessness to you when I write that I am not brave enough to do that job for you. And now all of a sudden, you are taking me with you places. What is that all about? Maybe you think I don’t feel bad enough. You act like you are somehow noble because you won’t tell me why you are doing this. It makes me sick. I have been willing at any time to fall in love with you again, but you reject me every time. I wish I could hate you. I’ve tried to hate you because I thought it would make it easier. I thought it wouldn’t hurt so bad. Of course, I couldn’t do it, so I have failed at that, too. I have been without pride. I have humiliated myself to try to win something that belongs to me. You defraud me, and you don’t seem to care. Well, I quit. I’m not going to try to please you anymore. I will do what I have to do, but no more of that game. You want to humiliate me by running around with a 20 year old? Fine. I won’t grovel. If I haven’t pleased you in seventeen years, nothing I do now will please you. And I refuse to leave my children just because you have decided to do this to me. You are the only person who thinks I am a bad mother. Complete strangers compliment me on them, so I will not join you in your obsession with perfection. I am the same person that I’ve always been. I am not weaker and in many ways stronger. I refuse to play to your perfectionism in that, too. I have borne neglect and criticism and kept going. But now this. How long? How long are you going to do this to me? Oh, yeah until I break. That’s what you said, isn’t it? Well, happy waiting.
Leuthold’s wife wasn’t the only one aware he was “running around” with Ms. Dobilaite. Pastor David Sexton of LaMarsh Baptist Church in Mapleton, where both Nathan and Denise were missionaries, reprimanded Leuthold for his association with the young Lithuanian student. Saxton later testified at trial that he informed Leuthold his actions, which included “driving around town with Aina Dobilaite ... were detrimental both to his and the church’s character.”
More damaging evidence was discovered when Leuthold’s computer was examined by forensic technicians. The hard drive revealed someone had conducted searches on how to kill a person by insulin injection and electrocuting them in a bathtub. There were other searches on how to silence a .40-caliber Glock.
On March 6, 2013, just three weeks after the murder of his wife, Nathan Leuthold was arrested. “We believe the husband committed this murder. We believe he staged it to appear to be a burglary,” Chief Settingsgaard announced. “There were indications early on that he may have been involved. It wasn’t clear at the time of the offense or at the time that we were on the scene, but there were things that led us to start to believe that it was possible that he could be the suspect. We’ve got information forwarded to us about issues related to the relationship between the husband and wife and some other things.”
After several delays, Nathan Leuthold’s trial began Monday, July 14, 2014, and in her opening statement, Assistant State’s Attorney Jodi Hoos wasted no time citing Aina Dobilaite as the motivating factor in Denise Leuthold’s murder. “She was his real Valentine,” the prosecutor charged. ... I believe the evidence will show that before the murder and after the murder, the relationship that he had with Aina was much more than just a sponsored student.”
Throughout the investigation, both Leuthold and Ms. Dobilaite denied they were anything more than friends, even in the face of damaging emails. In one such email sent January 18, 2013, Leuthold vowed to work harder at their relationship, writing: “I let you down. ... From now on, I want to do all that I can for you and this relationship ... I am so blessed to have you in my life.” Under pressure, Ms. Dobilaite admitted Leuthold visited her in Chicago and the two got a hotel room “less than 20 times,” but still insisted there was no physical relationship, even though he bought her clothing and paid the majority of her expenses.
When she appeared at trial, Ms. Dobilaite had pulled back her dark hair and fastened it in a tight bun and, wearing little makeup, appeared to be a virtuous young woman, certainly not the mistress of a married man. And despite intense questioning by the prosecutor, she never admitted having an affair with Leuthold.
But even without Ms. Dobilaite’s confirmation of an affair, the jury found Nathan Leuthold guilty and in September 2014, Judge Kevin Lyons addressed the defendant, saying: “I have to give you credit. You have led a law-abiding life, and for many years, you did good things. But you have poisoned it all.” He then sentenced Leuthold to 80 years in prison for the murder of his wife. Leuthold did not move or flinch and remained expressionless.
Author: Graveyardbride.
Sources: Andy Kravetz, The Peoria Journal-Star; ABC News; The Pekin Daily Times; The People of the State of Illinois v. Nathan Andrew Leuthold; Ashley McNamee, CI NewsNow, and WMBD News.
