Detectives rule out ex-husband, boyfriend in triple slaying
(Published Wednesday, January 17, 2007 01:20:57 PM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
By Todd Richmond Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. - The ex-husband of a Janesville woman who was murdered along with her two children had nothing to do with the killings, Rock County Sheriff Bob Spoden said Wednesday.
Detectives also have cleared the boyfriend of the woman's slain daughter, Spoden said.
A family member discovered 38-year-old Danyetta Lentz and her children, 17-year-old Nicole Lentz and 14-year-old Scott Lentz, dead in the mobile home they shared on the outskirts of the city Friday morning. Authorities have said they died of "complex homicidal violence."
Spoden said Lentz's ex-husband works as a countertop maker in Texas. FBI investigators interviewed him and determined he was at work Thursday and Friday. Lentz didn't show up for work on Friday, prompting the visit that led to the discovery of the bodies.
Her ex-husband couldn't have made a trip to Wisconsin and back to Texas in that time, the sheriff said.
"Short of him being able to beam into Janesville from the Enterprise, there was no physical way," Spoden said. "His alibi checks out."
Nicole Lentz's boyfriend was at driver's education Thursday night, Spoden said. He declined to elaborate, saying only "we are very confident he is not a suspect."
Analysts at the state crime lab began processing evidence from the trailer home Wednesday, searching for DNA and bodily fluids, Spoden said.
Meanwhile, detectives are trying to reconstruct the family's lives, questioning acquaintances, scouring cell phone records and going though Nicole Lentz's MySpace Web site with an eye toward new acquaintances. Detectives are trying to find out if they were "sensing fear" in their daily lives, Spoden said.
Asked if drugs may have been involved in the slayings, Spoden said the family lived a very ordinary lifestyle and the teens were good kids.
Authorities have not provided details on how the three were killed, but Spoden said Wednesday there could have been multiple causes of death.
The Sheriff's Department is setting up counseling for the first emergency workers who responded to the scene, Spoden said.
He called the killer - or killers - "evil."
"No decent human being would do this to another human being," he said. "This is my community, too. I want to make sure whoever did this is put away."
