to be tim wicks is really dennis gaede. a search of wicks apartment turns up a tax return that is signed at the bottom by the preparer, dennis gaede. my gut is telling me that tim is dead, but we can t prove it, we don t have a body, we don t know. then the police tell it, wrapped out the details of a grisly discovery on the side of the road. on the upper michigan side, the detective had a feeling. gene maxwell and jeff paridon, who knew dennis gaede as tim wicks, mentioned that he said his family had a cabin up there. and the generalities of the body description met the very general description and size of timothy wicks. of course, lots of people can match that description. plus, the head which was found on the wisconsin side of the river with a single bullet hole in it was badly decomposed. we need dental records. and now we have to figure out who timothy wicks dentist was. and then one of our officer s remembers seeing an appointment card in the apartment. so they go bac
parade organized by two men. i m alex witt with. more news in an hour. timothy wicks, a 48-year-old house painter and part-time drummer left mill walk ney 2001 telling friends he was headed to canada for a full-time nighttime gig. when nobody heard from wicks police opened a missing persons case. soon they discovered another man was living under timothy wicks name in fargo, north dakota and that man was wanted for embezzlement. the problem is police couldn t find him either. back in wisconsin, detective ben schoonover had a hunch. the fargo embezzler pretending
came forward to give heyitness happened on december 28, 2001. did you ask him why he did it? because we were going to lose everything, he was afraid they were going to track him. she also told police dennis gaede shot timothy wicks in the head suffocated him, and dismembers him in the back of a u-haul while she and her young son sat in the front seat. together, they dumped the body off the side of the road near the border of michigan and wisconsin. so you dumped it out by yourself? no. no. it was heavy. i just helped him lift the box and push him, that s it. i went and jumped back in the truck. gaede later disposed of wicks head and hands alone. when fruge came forward, gaede was serving out of a four-year sentence for embezzling from
convicting gaede wouldn t be easy since fruge told me she committed the murder. with fruge changing her story, her involvement and helping gaede dispose of wicks body, and a lack of physical evidence proving gaede murdered wicks the defense s strategy was straightforward. they would argue the prosecution had no solid evidence and that fruge could not be trusted. the trial lasted five days, and it took just four hours for the jury to reach its verdict. dennis james gaede, guilty. they found dennis gaede guilty of intentionally killing timothy wicks and the judge sentenced him to life, without parole. premeditated murder, cold and calculated as one will ever find. gaede never spoke during his trial except for this during his sentencing, he clearly showed a change of heart when it came to his now-ex-wife. i just fell in love with the
photographs proof of address that would convince a jury gaede was responsible for the murder. he planned to prove gaede new timothy wicks and lived in cass county, north dakota at the time and had stolen his identity which dennis gaede says wicks gave to him so he could start a new life. are you telling me that timothy wicks gave you his i.d. to disappear, is that what you re tell me? is that what you re telling me. i didn t steel that i didn t. timothy gave it to you? yes. fruge s testimony was key. because authorities were able to confirm what she said happened during that night in 2001 and the days that followed, fruge was prosecuted for the cover-up. april 3, 2006, dennis gaede was put on trial. how do you plead? not guilty. if the husband tells the wife i shot this guy, can she testify about that? in our state, you may have problems getting communication between the two of them in. but she was able to testify about what she saw. what did you do on friday th