Anastasia Nicolazzi
speaker
1,398 appearances
24 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Jun 2025
Anastasia Nicolazzi’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Safe to say if she wasn't a person of interest before, she certainly was now. But soon enough, Mary Jo is able to compose herself and an excuse for her strange behavior.
In that answer, it directly contradicted what Yvonne's kids had told police. Remember, her daughters had overheard Mary Jo and their mom talking at the door.
So this is a small town, and Jack Owen and Mary Jo Luntzman are both in the horse business and have known each other for years. It's not unthinkable that they would have interacted in the days before Yvonne's murder. But given the rumors about their ongoing relationship and the tension between Jack and Yvonne, it did raise suspicions that Mary Jo could be hiding something.
Which is more than a little creepy because it kind of suggests that she was either watching them or somehow knew when Jack and Yvonne had plans to go out. And according to investigators, these mysterious phone calls to Yvonne's house were backed up by phone records.
So let's just talk for a beat about alibis. In this case, Mary Jo did provide details of where she was during the time of the murder. She said she was at home doing chores. But from an investigator's perspective, a solid alibi is one that can be verified, either by a witness or even digital evidence like a cell phone ping or credit card activity.
And in this case, Mary Jo provided none of that, just her word.
And on top of that, Mary Jo also admitted to police that she owned a gun that matched the caliber of the bullets that killed Yvonne.
Investigators asked Mary Jo's permission if they could collect the boots and have them analyzed.
It's not great, but if I'm part of the defense, I'd quickly point out that Mary Jo is surely not the only person in the world that owns that particular brand of snow boots, and I'm sure the investigators in this case knew that too.
But as Holly pointed out, there was another way they could narrow that down. Because remember, those prints, they were really, really small.
But as the investigation went on, Yvonne's family became more and more convinced that Mary Jo must have had something to do with this homicide. And all those calls and rumors that once seemed harmless, they now seemed more like warning signs of a coming disaster.
Julie thought the call sounded like it came from a payphone, another bit of lost technology from the past. But unfortunately, that would make tracing the call in 1985 nearly impossible.
And unfortunately, that singular focus on finding the murder weapon, it had a devastating impact on the investigation.
And without the gun or a witness who could ID, not to mention DNA or other strong physical evidence, prosecutors in 1985 were just not convinced that they had enough to charge Mary Jo Lundsman with Yvonne's murder.
Despite their persistence in urging law enforcement to keep working on their mom's case and their strong suspicions that they knew who killed her, Yvonne's children were forced to carry on with their lives knowing their mother's killer had gone unpunished.
At least in their day-to-day, as best they could. But the loss of their mom and the unresolved questions surrounding her murder would have a deep and lasting impact on their family.
For nearly 40 years, the 1985 unsolved murder of Yvonne Menke hung like a dark cloud over St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, and Yvonne's family.
Incredibly, Mary Jo Luntzman was still living in the area. So imagine Mary Jo Luntzman's surprise when investigators phoned her at home. Here's a portion of that call.
And you never know, right? Shake the tree and see if anything new falls out. But it was clear that the now 80-year-old Mary Jo was not ready to change her tune.
Thank you.
Showing 461–480 of 1,398 · page 24 of 70
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