The Murder Of Julie Jensen Staged As A Suicide By Her Husband Mark Jensen

March 20, 2002
Mark Jensen Arrested For The 1998 Poisoning Death Of His Wife Julie


A nearly four-year investigation into the death of a Pleasant Prairie, Wis., woman has ended with the arrest of her husband.
Police arrested the 42-year-old stockbroker Wednesday morning at his Kenosha home. He was charged Wednesday afternoon with first-degree intentional homicide.

Friends and neighbors described Julie Jensen as a stay-at-home mom devoted to family, but according to a criminal complaint, she told friends her marriage to Mark Jensen was in trouble, and she was worried he'd poison her.

Toxicology reports that could prove Julie Jensen was poisoned finally all came together earlier this week.

"It was information we needed from the city crime lab. It was information we needed from pathologists. It was information we needed from the toxicologists. All of this information has filtered into our office the past several months, and it all came together earlier this week," Kenosha County District Attorney Robert Jambois said.

Police said Mark Jensen poisoned his wife with a chemical commonly used in antifreeze.

According to the criminal complaint, Julie Jensen was worried her husband would hurt her and reportedly told several friends.

Defense attorneys said this case is based strictly on circumstantial evidence.

Cash bail has been set for Jensen at $500,000.

Read more: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


January 2, 2008
Jury Selection Begins In Trial Of Husband Accused Of Poisoning Death Of Wife


January 8, 2008
Pathologist Says Jensen Died From Suffocation, Not Antifreeze

The prosecution in the trial of a man accused of poisoning his wife changed its theory on the cause of death on Tuesday, one day after the case was interrupted by severe weather that passed through the area.
The medical examiner who conducted the original autopsy on Julie Jensen changed his opinion on the cause of her death, saying new information from a jailhouse snitch, in combination with hemorrhaging in the lung and heart area noticed during the autopsy, suggest she died of asphyxia. A jailhouse snitch told prosecutors Mark Jensen told him that Jensen sat on his wife and shoved her head in a pillow to suffocate her because she wasn’t dying quickly enough.
The jailhouse snitch who told police about the suffocation is expected to take the stand on Friday. The defense is expected to argue the witness is making up the story in order to get a sentence reduction in his criminal case.
Chambliss said he found no obvious cause of death during the original autopsy. Toxicology testing later revealed the presence of ethylene glycol, the main ingredient in antifreeze.
"A contributing factor could be ethylene glycol, but suffocation was the cause of death, because if that had not occurred, she may not have died," forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Chambliss told the court.
On cross-examination Tuesday morning, Jensen's attorney, Craig Albee, tried to show that the amount of antifreeze in Julie Jensen's stomach was quite small. The prosecution has long claimed that Julie Jensen died after two separate doses of antifreeze. The first dose would have occurred 12 to 24 hours before her death, as demonstrated by crystals indicative of antifreeze poisoning found in Julie Jensen’s kidneys. Prosecutors said the second dose would have occurred shortly before death. They said Julie Jensen would have been so sick at that point that she would not have been able to ingest the antifreeze without help, and then clean up afterward. Prosecutors said there was no antifreeze found at the Jensen home. The defense argues that investigators never looked for antifreeze at the home.
Prosecutors believe Julie Jensen's husband, Mark Jensen, killed her so he could be with his mistress. Mark Jensen's attorney argues that a despondent Julie Jensen killed herself after she learned her husband was having an affair with a co-work, and that a letter she wrote, pointing the finger at her husband, was revenge for for his infidelity.
Also taking the stand on Tuesday was a witness the prosecution introduced last summer during an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the aforementioned letter could be submitted as evidence. Edward Klug is a former colleague of Mark Jensen and said Jensen told him that he planned to murder his wife a full month before her death.
"Mark told me if you wanted to get rid of a wife, you could go to Web sites on how to use poison that's not detectable -- benadryl and antifreeze -- that would not be detectable," Klug testified.
Klug told jurors that he and Mark Jensen were drinking after a training conference in St. Louis when Jensen revealed his plan to poison his wife. In the nine years since Julie's death, Klug never contacted police; prosecutors learned about him from another colleague.
The prosecution brought up Klug's lapse before the defense had an opportunity to do so in an attempt to deflate the issue.
"He (Mark Jensen) was my boss. If he was capable of killing his wife, what would he do to me?" Klug said when asked why he never told authorities about the conversation he'd had with Mark Jensen.
The trial, moved to Walworth County to gather jurors not tainted by pretrial publicity, is expected to run nearly eight weeks.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


January 9, 2008
Defense Questions Man Who Waited 9 Years To Speak Up In Slaying

A defense attorney tried Wednesday to undermine the credibility of a man who broke a nine-year silence to say the defendant confided in him about a plan to kill his wife the month before she died.

Former co-worker Ed Klug testified for the first time last summer that Mark Jensen told him in November 1998 that he wanted to poison his wife. Jensen's wife, Julie Jensen, 40, died in her Pleasant Prairie home in December 1998.
Mark Jensen, 48, went on trial Monday on a charge of first-degree intentional homicide. The trial was moved from Kenosha County to Walworth County because of pretrial publicity in the Kenosha area.
Klug said he didn't come forward sooner because he feared Jensen, who had been his boss for about six months.
Klug testified Tuesday that about a month ago he found handwritten notes he made in 2002 with an outline of a conversation he claimed he had with Mark Jensen at a stockbroker work conference in November 1998.
Klug said he made the notes around the time he left a voice mail message for the district attorney's office, telling them they should check Jensen's work computer. No one ever responded, Klug said.
According to the notes, Jensen kept saying his wife was unstable, he was unhappy in his marriage and he planned to kill her.
On Wednesday, defense attorney Craig Albee asked Klug, whom he described in opening statements as an attention-seeker, why some of the notes seemed out of place.
"Mr. Klug, 'He talked about killing his wife,' that had to be squeezed in because you added that to your notes later on, right?" Albee asked Klug.
"No," Klug said, adding later he wrote nearly all the notes at the same time.
"All right, because if you took out those indented portions of things, there's nothing in your notes that says anything about killing, correct?" Albee said.
"That's correct," Klug said.
Klug also testified that he remembered Jensen mentioning that the effects of a chemical in Benedryl "would slowly crystallize you from the inside out."
Upon questioning from Albee, Klug admitted he read some newspaper stories and the criminal complaint against Jensen that mentions crystallization. But Klug said Jensen was the first to mention that. Klug also later admitted he didn't remember Mark Jensen using the words antifreeze or the chemical in it, ethylene glycol.
Klug's wife, JoAnne, testified that her husband talked to her about the alleged conversation he had with Jensen the night it happened, including how Jensen wanted to kill his wife.
Former co-worker Ronald Wruck said Klug came to his door looking disheveled the morning after Klug and Jensen allegedly talked. Klug told him that he and Jensen discussed ways of killing their wives, Wruck said.
"(He) looked kind of ragged. He says, 'I’ve been up all night. Me and Mark, we up planning to kill our wives.' I thought it was a joke. He had a history of talking that way," Wruch told the jury.
Wruck said, however, that Klug never said anything about Jensen plotting to poison his wife with antifreeze. In fact, he said Klug told him that Jensen was worried about his wife's mental health.
"He said, 'She’s trying to kill herself. She's depressed and she’s taking a lot of Benadryl,'" Wruck testified.
Wruck also said the publicity from the summer hearing seemed to give Klug an ego boost. He said he considered him generally a truthful person, although Klug had been untruthful to him previously.
An American Family Insurance employee testified that Mark Jensen tried to cash in two insurance policies worth $100,000 on his wife the same month she died, but they have not been paid.
Former co-worker and friend David Nehring testified Jensen looked up drug interactions on the Internet daily before his wife died because she was sickly. Prosecutors have alleged that in the months before the death, Jensen looked up ways to poison her on the Internet.
Nehring also said Jensen started an affair about four or five months before his wife died, and after she died Jensen asked him whether it was a good idea to allow his girlfriend to stay at his home or invite her to the funeral. Nehring said he said it wasn't a good idea and didn't recall whether the woman went to the funeral.
Jensen and the woman have since married.
Nehring said Jensen mentioned that police seized his home computer and Nehring responded that it was funny the police didn't take his work computer. A few days later Jensen said his computer's hard drive was "fried," Nehring said.
In other testimony, the pathologist who did the initial autopsy said Tuesday he believed Julie Jensen was suffocated. He had said Monday that he couldn't say for sure how she died or whether she was poisoned to death by ethylene glycol, although he said hemorrhaging on the body would be consistent with asphyxiation.
Special prosecutor Robert Jambois said in opening statements that Jensen planned the killing for months, poisoned his wife and finally suffocated her with a pillow.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


February 4, 2008
Pornographic Pictures At Center Of Jensen Trial Monday

Thousands of pornographic photos took center stage at the trial of a Kenosha County man accused of poisoning his wife with antifreeze.
The trial is now in its fifth week.

The defense doesn't want jurors to see the photos.
Prosecutors want to present the photos to jurors, saying they are key evidence to show Mark Jensen's motive for killing his wife.
Prosecutors said they found more than 5,000 pornographic photos on Mark Jensen's computer -- the same type of photos Jensen claimed his wife's former lover was leaving around the house after she broke up their affair.
But prosecutors argued it was actually Mark Jensen who left those photos behind to humiliate Julie for her infidelity.
"That other acts evidence demonstrates this defendant's hatred of his wife, his torturing of his wife because she had that one weekend affair in 1990 and 1991, and he could never let it go. No wonder Julie Jensen was unhappy. She was married to a man who hated her and who tortured her," Special Prosecutor Robert Jambois said.
But the defense argued against showing the jury the pictures, saying the photos prove nothing and would unfairly prejudice the jury against Mark Jensen.
"I think this is a smear campaign. (What) he (Jambois) tries to paint is weirder, stranger and stranger. The court at first initially used the word deviant and then changed. A lot of people think that," defense attorney Craig Albee said.
The judge questioned that argument.
"With all the lurid material that has already been spread on this record, I find it hard to believe that some stored or printed pornographic pictures are going to push the jury over the edge, I don't see it," Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder said.
The ongoing argument ultimately tapped the judge's patience. He still hasn't decided which, if any, of the thousands of photos, jurors will see.
"People who think you can try a case off a script. They ought to read this transcript, I never had one like this in my life," Schroeder said.
Monday morning, it was discovered the sister of a juror was writing on a Web forum about the case. The judge called her to the stand to make sure her brother wasn't talking about the case.
While she wrote that she thought Jensen was guilty, she told the judge her brother had made no such comment.
She said his only comments were about how long the trial was going and how much work he was missing.
For now, the juror will stay on the jury.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

February 11, 2008
Defense Witness Describes Julie Jensen As Depressed, Distraught

With psychological testimony, the defense in the Mark Jensen trial bolstered its argument that Julie Jensen committed suicide.
The defense called the Jensen family doctor, who said a crying, distraught Julie Jensen came to his office just two days before she died.
Dr. Richard Borman reviewed the notes he made after his appointment with Julie Jensen shortly before she died.
He said she told him she was miserable, depressed and thought her marriage was ending.
"You're seeing tears; yes, she was highly upset," Borman said. "The image was burned into my memory. She was; I'd never seen her look like that, and I've taken care of her for a number of years on a variety of visits."
Borman told jurors Julie Jensen appeared frantic and had lost more than 8 pounds in the eight weeks since he'd last seen her. The defense argued Julie Jensen killed herself and framed her husband after learning he was having an affair with a co-worker.
"She did relate her mom's problems with alcohol and her tragic death. (I) don't remember the details of that, but she was very concerned about going down the same path as her mother," Borman said. "She was very concerned that if she was labeled as crazy she would lose her children."
Borman said he gave Julie Jensen an anti-depressant. The next day, Mark Jensen appeared at the doctor's office saying he was worried about the side effects of that anti-depressant -- that he thought his wife would feel better if she could get some sleep.
The doctor prescribed the sleep aid Ambien. The prosecution seized that opportunity to promote its argument that Mark Jensen poisoned his wife so he could be with his mistress.
"So if you are looking for a way to poison spouse… one good way to lessen her awareness of what she's ingesting is to get her a prescription for Ambien, right?" Special Prosecutor Robert Jambois said.
Last week, jurors heard that Julie Jensen had been treated for depression on at least other two occasions as well.
This is important testimony for the jury.
What's especially interesting is that during jury selection, several of them said they had dealt with mental health issues in their own families, 12 News reporter Colleen Henry said.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


February 13, 2008
Psychiatrist Considers Julie Jensen Suicidal

A forensic psychiatrist said the antifreeze poisoning death of a Kenosha County woman was more likely suicide than homicide.
Prosecutors said Mark Jensen killed his wife so he could be with his mistress.
A defense expert testified on Wednesday that Julie Jensen's history made her a suicide risk. He said that she had an abusive childhood, a brother who attempted suicide and that she had been treated for repeated bouts of depression.
He mentioned the fact that Julie Jensen told witnesses that she feared her husband was trying to kill her, she didn't call for help when she began to get sick.
"The person is clear and obviously was making phone calls and had an open line available, and didn't call the police, didn't call a neighbor, didn't call her brother, didn't call 911. Why wouldn't she if she thought she was about to be murdered," forensic psychiatrist Dr. Herzl Spiro said.
Prosecutors argued the psychiatrist based his opinions on information he learned from Mark Jensen's family members who were prone to lie to protect him.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


February 21, 2008
Husband guilty of murder in 'letter from grave' case

A jury in Wisconsin found Mark Jensen guilty of first-degree murder Thursday in the 1998 poisoning death of his wife after a trial that included what prosecutors said was a haunting letter from the grave.
The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for nearly 32 hours over three days.
Jensen sat stonefaced at the defense table as the jury was polled. He showed little emotion during the six-week trial.
His bail was immediately revoked. Attorneys will return to court Friday to set a date for sentencing.
The conviction carries a mandatory life prison sentence. Whether Jensen may some day be eligible for parole will be decided at the sentencing hearing.
The jury's verdict came nearly a decade after Julie Jensen was found dead in her bed. The cause of death: Poisoning by ethylene glycol, the main ingredient in antifreeze.
"I think what Mark Jensen did is the most unspeakable offense I can truly recall," prosecutor Robert Jambois said after the verdict. "That's one of the reasons it took so long to bring this case to justice. It took a long time to uncover the lies and the machinations of Mark Jensen."
Julie Jensen, the victim, had given a neighbor a letter pointing an accusing finger at her husband should anything happen to her.
She also made foreboding comments to police and to her son's teacher, saying she suspected that her husband was trying to kill her.
Her letter, read aloud in court, said in part: "I pray I'm wrong + nothing happens ... but I am suspicious of Mark's suspicious behaviors + fear for my early demise," the letter says. " Read the letter

The following is the text of a letter Julie Jensen wrote and gave to a neighbor indicating that she believed her husband was trying to kill her. According to prosecutors, the "list" of which Jensen wrote was a recipe for poison.
Jensen wrote the letter on Nov. 21, 1998 and was found dead in her home on Dec. 3, 1998.

Pleasant Prairie Police Department, Ron Kosman or Detective Ratzenburg-
I took this picture + am writing this on Saturday 11-21-98 at 7AM. This "list" was in my husband's business daily planner -- not meant for me to see. I don't know what it means, but if anything happens to me, he would be my first suspect. Our relationship has deteriorated to the polite superficial. I know he's never forgiven me for the brief affair I had with that creep seven years ago. Mark lives for work + the kids; he's an avid surfer of the Internet...
Anyway -- I do not smoke or drink. My mother was an alcoholic, so I limit my drinking to one or two a week. Mark wants me to drink more with him in the evenings. I don't. I would never take my life because of my kids -- they are everything to me! I regularly take Tylenol + multi-vitamins; occassionally [sic] take OTC stuff for colds; Zantac, or Immodium; have one prescrption for migraine tablets, which more use more than I.
I pray I'm wrong + nothing happens... but I am suspicious of Mark's suspicious behaviors + fear for my early demise. However I will not leave [edited] + [edited]. My life's greatest love, accomplishment and wish: "My 3 D's -- Daddy (Mark), [edited] + [edited].
Julie C. Jensen

After the verdict, jurors told reporters that the letter gave them "a clear road map" to conviction, as one female juror phrased it.
Another female juror said he believed Mark Jensen was trying to push his wife over the edge. "He tortured Julie hoping she could be classically diagnosed as a nutcase," she said.Watch jurors discuss 'road map to murder'
"Julie's letter, we took it as a mandate, and we passed that mandate on to the people of Wisconsin," said Julie Jensen's brother, Larry Griffin, after the verdict.
Mark Jensen, 48, was charged in 2002 with first-degree murder in the December 1998 death of his 40-year-old wife.
Prosecutors alleged that Jensen was having an affair and poisoned his wife so he could be free of her. The defense says Julie Jensen was despondent about the affair, killed herself and tried to frame her husband.
The testimony during the six-week trial has been dramatic. It included evidence of his-and-hers flings, X-rated e-mail exchanges and Internet searches for poisons. Prosecutors also presented testimony from Jensen's new wife, Kelly, and from a jailhouse snitch who said Jensen had made incriminating remarks behind bars.
The drama lasted up to the final moment of testimony, when a prosecution forensics expert dipped her fingers into a Styrofoam cup of antifreeze, tasted it and described the flavor as "sweet."
Jensen did not take the stand, and his defense relied primarily on testimony from forensic and mental health experts.
Legal wrangling over the letter and Julie Jensen's statements delayed the trial for years.
Using such evidence in court has for years been blocked by strict hearsay rules giving criminal defendants the right to confront their accusers.
But the Wisconsin Supreme Court, guided by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, created a hearsay exception that permitted the use of Julie Jensen's letter and statements as a dying declaration -- evidence of her state of mind at the time of her death.
For years, authorities said Julie Jensen had died of multiple doses of ethylene glycol, commonly used as antifreeze. But testimony during the trial also indicated that she might have been smothered with her pillow.
Jurors said they could not decide whether or not Julie Jensen suffocated, but concluded she had died from ethylene glycol poisoning.
Inmate Aaron Dilliard, an admitted con man, testified that Mark Jensen indicated to him that he suffocated his wife when the poison did not appear to be working fast enough.
Dillard testified that Jensen said he sat on Julie's back and pushed her face into the pillow. Crime scene photos show Julie's nose and mouth pushed to the left side. Her face was found deep in the pillow, according to testimony.
Another inmate, bank robber David Thompson, testified that Jensen told him last year that he killed his wife and asked him to help kidnap and "sit on" a witness until after the trial.
The conversation was overheard by a third inmate, Bernard Bush. Bush said he heard a total figure of $100,000 being discussed, with $50,000 up front and $50,000 at the completion of the abduction.
The would-be target was Ed Klug, Jensen's former co-worker. He testified that Jensen told him he thought about poisoning his wife. During a night of drinking in November 1998, Klug said, Jensen revealed that he was researching ways to do away with her.
Prosecutor Robert Jambois called experts who say they found evidence of suffocation. The defense experts disagreed.
Defense attorney Craig Albee called his own poison expert to say Julie Jensen could have taken repeated doses of poison herself, contradicting the prosecution's poison expert.
The defense also called to the stand the Jensen family doctor, who said he saw Julie Jensen a few days before her death and who described her as depressed and frantic.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


June 25, 2008
Supreme Court Decision Could Reopen Kenosha Poisoning Case

A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court could mean a break for a Kenosha man convicted of poisoning.
A jury convicted Mark Jensen in February.
A ruling by Wisconsin's Supreme Court allowed prosecutors to show jurors a letter left behind by Jensen's wife saying she suspected her husband was plotting to kill her.
In Wednesday's decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said the use of similar evidence in a California case violated the constitution's guarantee that defendants have the right to cross-examine their accusers.
Jensen's lawyer made the same argument and Wednesday’s decision could reopen his case.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

In fact, he said Klug told him that Jensen was worried about his wife's mental health.
"He said, 'She’s trying to kill herself. She's depressed and she’s taking a lot of Benadryl,'"

Nehring also said Jensen started an affair about four or five months before his wife died, and after she died Jensen asked him whether it was a good idea to allow his girlfriend to stay at his home.

Wow!! Thanks so much for posting this horrific case!!

The similarities between this case and Faith's are eerie!!

December 19, 2013

A federal judge has overturned a Wisconsin man's conviction for first-degree intentional homicide in the 1998 poisoning death of his wife.

Chief U.S. District Judge William Griesbach ordered that Mark Jensen be released from prison within 90 days, according to the Kenosha News.

Jensen, of Pleasant Prairie, was charged in 2002 with poisoning his wife, Julie Jensen, with antifreeze four years earlier. Jensen appealed his case in state court, then at the federal level. Griesbach found Jensen's constitutional rights were violated during the trial.

The case was unusual because Julie Jensen told neighbors and a doctor she believed her husband had never forgiven her for an affair she had years earlier, and that she suspected he wanted to kill her. She told police he was researching poisons on his computer, and she left a letter with a neighbor saying that if she died her husband should be the primary suspect.

A fierce legal debate ensued over whether the letter and statements could be used in court. Jensen's attorneys argued that if the letter and statements were admitted, it would violate Jensen's right to confront his accuser.

The state Supreme Court said a defendant loses the right to confrontation if the defendant has done something to make the witness unavailable to testify. If prosecutors could prove Jensen caused his wife's absence in court, he would lose his right to confrontation and the letter and statements were fair game, it said.

Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce E. Schroeder decided the evidence showed Jensen had thus forfeited his right to confrontation. A jury convicted Jensen of first-degree intentional homicide in 2008 and he was sentenced to life in prison.

But the case took another turn months after his conviction when the U.S. Supreme Court clarified how a defendant forfeits the right to confrontation. The high court said a defendant must act with the express intent to keep a witness from testifying — a narrower interpretation than the Wisconsin Supreme Court's view.

Jensen argued on appeal that the U.S. Supreme Court's approach trumps the state, making the letter and statements inadmissible.

The appeals court didn't analyze whether the letter and statements were admissible. The court instead assumed they were wrongly admitted into evidence but ruled the mistake was harmless. Prosecutors had plenty of other evidence to back up the accusations in both the letter and statements, the court ruled.

For instance, Jensen sent emails to his mistress discussing how they could clean up their lives; Jensen's home computer showed a history of Internet searches about poisons; he was bitter about his wife's affair; and he told a co-worker about websites on undetectable poisons, the court said.

Rose, Jensen's attorney, argued the letter was anything but harmless, saying it swayed the jury to convict his client.

"That's what led this case to even be charged," he said. "For the court of appeals to assume the jury paid no heed to the letter defies common sense."

The state has yet to decide if the case will be retried or appealed to a federal court.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]