It was a bitterly cold night on Saturday, January 31, 2004 in Racine, Wisconsin. It was the type of frigid air that made even breathing painful. A 911 call came through earlier that day & the dispatcher heard a woman say that her ex-husband was trying to kill her. The woman had placed the call from inside a garbage can that had been filled with snow while she was being held prisoner in her ex-husband’s truck as he drove her to an unknown location.
The dispatcher asked if he had her handcuffed & the caller indicated that he had used masking tape. The dispatcher then asked the woman how she was holding the phone if her hands were bound. Based on the tone of conversation, it was clear that the dispatcher believed that the call may be a prank.
The caller struggled to breathe as the dispatcher asked, “You wanna talk to me or you just wanna deep breathe?” The woman explained that her ex-husband was David Larsen & that he lived at 26841 Oakridge Drive.
The call came through at 10:57 am to the Racine County Sheriff’s Department & two officers were dispatched to the scene. On arrival, they attempted to make contact with someone inside the home & began ringing the doorbell & knocking on the doors & windows. For twenty minutes this continued without success. When dispatch called the phone number listed for the home, the answering machine picked up. The officers verified the address with the dispatcher who informed officers that the residence belonged to Larsen. At this point, they made the decision to break a window in order to gain entry into the home.
As officers searched the entirety of the home for the woman who had made the 911 call, they announced their presence, but found it empty. Officers & responders conducted a second search & again, they didn’t find anyone or evidence to suggest that the house was a crime scene.
When it was concluded that the house was empty, officers secured the door, cleaned up the broken glass & returned to the police department. Back at the station, officer Thomas Sweet, who had responded to David Larsen’s home, received a phone call from Nick Nicolai who said he was concerned about his wife, Teri Jendusa-Nicolai & her two young children.
Nick informed Officer Sweet that his wife had gone to pick her children up from her ex-husband’s home on Oakridge Drive & should have been back by that point. He elaborated that Teri & her ex-husband, David Larsen, had a very contentious relationship & because of a previous assault, she refused to enter the home. Nick said he spoke with a neighbor of David’s who reported seeing Teri’s car outside the home.
During this conversation, Sweet began to realize that Nick was referring to the same house that the 911 call referred to. At this point, Sweet suspected that a crime may have occurred & returned to David’s home with Officer Anderson. They arrived for a second time at 12:30 pm & confirmed that the house remained secured as they’d previously left it. They began to speak with neighbors for any potential additional information.
During their 15-20 minutes of canvassing the neighborhood, they learned from a neighbor that they had seen David loading Teri’s car onto a trailer. Sweet spoke to Nick Nicolai a second time & was informed that he had received a brief call from his wife who told him that she was in the back of David Larsen’s truck & she was in distress.
Sweet also learned that the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office had received a 911 call from Teri who told them that she was bound & under a tarp in the back of the pickup truck driven by David, but she was unaware of her location.
Because of all of the information he’d received, Sweet was concerned there was an on-going crime happening & requested additional assistance in the case. At 1:14 pm, he updated an earlier “attempt to locate” bulletin so that it listed Teri as “missing & endangered.” A formal Amber Alert was instructed to be issued at 1:45 pm since Teri’s two young daughters were also unaccounted for.
Investigators spoke with friends of David’s who said that he worked as an air traffic controller at Palwaukee Municipal Airport (which is now Chicago Executive Airport) in Wheeling, Illinois, he owned a gun & had property in Milwaukee as well as rural Racine county. This led investigators to another home that belonged to David at 3:18 pm. As they entered the home, they noticed a large bloodstain, measuring about 2 feet in diameter, on the carpet by the dining table where an overturned chair sat nearby. There was an empty handgun case & a baseball bat was seen resting against the wall near the table. Duct tape & bloodstained clothing was located in a garbage can in the kitchen, but Teri as well as her two children, were nowhere to be found. The clothing included black sweatpants that matched the description of what Nick indicated Teri had been wearing that day & duct tape was found wrapped around the pants.
Investigators began to ping David’s cell phone, but eventually lost signal. Officers found documents with the listings of Larsen’s three Milwaukee properties & places in various suburbs of Illinois. Police agencies connected to those locations were contacted so these addresses could also be investigated. The search continued until about 9:30 pm as officers scoured David’s homes in hopes of finding Teri & the children. By this point, authorities had located David & he was being held & questioned at a station in Wheeling, Illinois & thankfully, both children had been found alive & well at a home in Elmwood Park, Illinois.
Teri & David Larsen, who had gotten married in 1996, had once been happy together. They began to build their lives together & welcomed their two daughters, Amanda & Holly, into the world. Soon, a darker side of David began to emerge & he was quick to anger. He often had outbursts & yelled at Teri for the smallest things to the point that she was walking on eggshells in her own home. If the towels weren’t folded as he preferred or the curtains were out of place, he would rant & rave. He insisted that Teri shower or use the restroom with the bathroom door open. If Teri accidentally broke a glass, she was forced to hide the evidence of her mistake inside a neighbor’s garbage to avoid an explosive outburst. He would also physically abuse her & hit her head against the door. He always tried to convince Teri that when he was angered it was her fault & if she behaved in the correct way, he wouldn’t get upset.
Teri will never forget one evening when a fight began over spaghetti. Teri was in the process of making dinner & had her necessary ingredients out on the counter when David demanded that she put the package of dried pasta away before they “went bad.” Teri pushed back & asked, “Do you want to eat dinner or not? They’re dry noodles.” He responded that it didn’t matter if he made sense or not, she was to do as he said. During the argument, David pushed Teri as she held their two-month old infant.
The argument escalated to a point that Teri found herself rushing down the basement stairs. She had no other place to flee to since David had installed locks on the inside of the doors which only his keys could open. She remembers thinking, I’m 30-years-old, sitting in a box in my basement, hiding from my husband. What the hell am I doing?
This incident was the push that Teri needed to get herself out of the controlling relationship & leave David. She knew that it was only a matter of time until he began turning his abuse onto their young daughters as well. She & the children moved out & went to a shelter & Teri recalls that she was fearful for her life.
On the day of their divorce in 2001, David sat, crying in the courtroom & as they walked out he threatened, “You’re going to regret this.”
Three years later, Teri found herself in a wonderful place in life; she had met & married a wonderful man in 2003, Nick Nicolai. He was a loving & devoted step father to her two young daughters & treated them as if they were his own. It was only the night before that they had learned that Teri was pregnant & she couldn’t wait to share the news with 6-year-old Holly & 4-year-old Amanda that they would be big sisters.
David had told Teri that she would regret that day that she married Nick because in God’s eyes, they were still married & because of this, she had gone against God’s will.
Teri was in the process of trying to obtain full custody of the girls, arguing that David was violent toward her & should not be alone with their children. However, the court was impressed with the fact that a father would want to spend time with his children & he was allowed to see the girls. On each occasion that the girls were exchanged, he would continue to verbally & physically assault her. It got to the point that Teri insisted they meet in a public space such as a hardware store or McDonald’s.
After their divorce, police were contacted twice & Teri filed a restraining order against David. The order barred him from possessing weapons, however, Teri was aware of the fact that firearms remained in the home. However, without a search warrant, police could not prove this fact.
Despite the restraining order, when David asked Teri to retrieve the girls from his home, she agreed. She felt that each & every time she needed to pick them up or drop them off, she couldn’t expect a friend or family member to accompany her. In fact, Nick had offered to come with her that day, but because she feared that it would only make the situation worse, she decided to go alone. David remained in the home they shared while married, in conditions that resembled hoarding. He held onto all the mementos from their wedding & would show the girls their wedding video, pointing out, “Mommy doesn’t keep her promises.”
Teri noticed that on the fateful day of Saturday, January 31, 2004, David was uncharacteristically calm when she went to pick the girls up at 10 am. It had been three years to the date that they were divorced, a fact that was not lost on Teri. David told Teri that their 4 & 6-year-old daughters were playing hide-and-seek & they wanted Teri to find them. Her gut instinct was telling her not to listen, but because she did not want to disappoint her children, she entered the home.
It was hours later that the dispatcher received the breathless 911 call from Teri as well as the call from Nick that his wife had yet to return from picking up her girls. The search for Teri ended up continuing for 26 hours.
When the Amber Alert returned nothing, police waited for David to report to his position as an air traffic controller & when he arrived, there was no sign of Teri or the girls. He was brought to the station & questioned for six-and-a-half hours. He initially presented as a concerned ex-husband who was shocked to hear that Teri was missing & said he would do anything to help find her. He told officers that he was home all morning & Teri hadn’t arrived to get the girls that day so he dropped them off at his babysitter’s house before heading to work. This was when authorities thankfully found Amanda & Holly safely at this location. When police spoke with both girls they said that they had not seen their mom that day.
Officers were fully aware of the fact that David was lying in regards to Teri & they knew they were running out of time if there was any hope of finding her alive. He continued to maintain that he hadn’t seen Teri & claimed to have been home at 11:30 am. At this point police informed him that they knew for a fact that this was not true as officers were at the house at 11:03 am & had forced their entry into the home in search of Teri. It was during this conversation when David learned that Teri managed to call 911 while she was captive in the back of his truck.
Detectives pointed out bloodstains that were visible on David’s clothing as he spoke with them & when he was faced with the information that police had found Teri’s bloodied clothing inside his house, he began to get emotional & changed his story. He claimed that Teri had been the one to attack him which caused him to react in self-defense. He explained that while he placed papers into his daughter’s backpacks, Teri had entered his home, unbeknownst to him. When he turned around, he claimed that Teri held a hammer in her hand which was raised above her head & she had her sweatpants down around her ankles.
David indicated that the rest had been a “blur”, he grabbed a baseball bat that just happened to be sitting next to the trash can & struck Teri in the face. He said he grabbed duct tape, but he wasn’t sure why. By this point, authorities had enough evidence to detain him & they continued to question him, knowing they needed to get to the bottom of where Teri was. His personal belongings were confiscated which included a wallet filled with receipts & business cards. It was here that they came across a card for a storage facility near the town of where David owned a property. A phone call to the location confirmed that David did own a storage unit which he’d visited the previous day.
It was at the storage facility where investigators finally located Teri. She was in the corner of the unit inside a trash can that had been filled with snow & had a core temperature of under 84 degrees F. Doctors later determined that she was approximately one hour from dying at the time she was found. David had inflicted a crushing injury to Teri’s skull & authorities feared that if she tried to move Teri out of the garbage can, they would only cause further damage so they waited for paramedics to arrive.
As investigators entered the darkened storage unit, they began to call out to Teri & noticed a two-toned baseball bat with dried blood on it. As Teri was drifting in & out of consciousness, she recalled hearing a sound & feared that David had come back to kill her & stayed silent in hopes he would leave when she suddenly heard the paramedics announce their arrival.
As authorities waited, they made a chilling realization that David could see the very storage unit where they stood, from his post as air traffic controller. David had been so confident that he would be able to get away with murder that he failed to check if Teri had her cellphone on her before he forced her into the garbage can.
When Teri arrived to pick her girls up the previous morning, Holly & Amanda were locked in a back bedroom of the house, crying with hunger & no longer distracted by the movie their father had turned on for them. Teri was brutally assaulted by a baseball bat when she was tricked into playing hide-and-seek after she entered the home. She recalls the feeling of being smashed in the head & the next thing she knew, she was face down on the living room floor & she felt as if her whole body was paralyzed. Before she could even wrap her head around what was happening, David began to wrap her in duct tape.
David then attempted to suffocate Teri but she managed to fight him off, repeatedly turning her head to the side. He restrained her arms & legs with duct tape & threw her body into an empty garbage can which he filled with snow & sealed it closed with tape. David moved the can to the back of his pick-up truck, covered it with a tarp & drove away. Once in the truck David drove Teri first to Milwaukee where he towed & abandoned her car & then to Wheeling, Illinois, a 70 mile distance to the storage facility he’d rented years earlier.
All Teri could think about at this time was the safety of Amanda & Holly & realized that if he murdered her & got away with it, he could get sole custody of the girls. As David drove, Teri remembered that she had her cell phone in her coat pocket & managed to reach down & make the 911 call. She then called Nick who had already been in contact with authorities. Nick wasn’t sure how much battery Teri had left on her cell & didn’t want to talk too long in case they could use her phone as a tool used to find her. He told her he loved her & as he ended the call, he felt panicked, wondering if this would be the last time he would ever hear his wife’s voice.
As Teri struggled to save herself, David looked through his rearview mirror & noticed that she’d had gotten her hand free & stuck it out of the garbage can, attempting to flag down other drivers. He stopped the truck to refasten her restraints. Before he went back to the driver’s seat, he heard Teri’s phone ring & immediately confiscated it. As they set off again, she suddenly heard the sound of police sirens & felt hope that they had noticed David’s truck & she would be saved, but they passed them by, on their way to David’s home.
When Teri felt the truck stop, she could hear the sounds of Amanda & Holly playing outside. She wanted to scream out to her children, but feared this could put their lives at risk so she stayed silent & felt David moving the trash can. She then heard something come down on the top of the lid; soon the sound of her children’s laughter was gone & she was alone. Before he left Teri alone to die, David had pulled the garbage can with Teri inside, into his storage unit, stacking three heavy boxes on top which amounted to 106#. He also propped a board against the garbage bin to prevent it from tipping over.
Teri fought to free herself with everything she had but the items David placed on top of the can were far too heavy to move. At this point, she had been in the trash can for six hours & her body’s temperature was quickly dropping. There was a gash on her head from the baseball bat that continued to bleed & her eyes were nearly swollen shut. She began to scream for help, but no one could hear her.
Teri remembers the feeling of her hands & feet which were freezing & she desperately tried to cup her feet in her hands to warm them, but was unable to reach. Her eyelids began to grow heavy as she fought sleep, knowing that sleep would be a death sentence. The one thing that kept her alive was thoughts of her daughters.
When authorities found Teri on Sunday, February 1, 2004, she was curled into a fetal position, barely able to move or speak. She was rushed to the hospital where she spent nearly seven weeks recovering & underwent ten different surgeries. Frostbite had claimed all of her toes which had to be amputated. When Teri initially presented to the hospital, investigators feared that they would have to amputate her arms at the location of her elbows & her legs. She had been struck many times with the baseball bat by David.
Sadly, Nick & Teri soon learned that their baby was not viable.
Teri was wheel-chair bound for several weeks after returning home & felt frustrated & angry that she wasn’t able to do her normal activities like jogging or going upstairs to tuck her girls into bed at night. She was, however, exceptionally grateful that she was alive & would never have to see David again. Teri found it ironic that the person who attempted to take her life ended up losing any semblance of his own. The person who fought control of every situation & every person in his life would now be told when he could eat, sleep & leave his cell.
Teri was forced to face David at his trial & relive the horrors she had survived. Despite the immense evidence against David, his defense team fought to get a plea deal. They also questioned Teri’s pregnancy history & speculated that it was her health history that may have caused her miscarriage, rather than the trauma & stress she was forced to endure at the hands of David.
On August 16, 2005, David Larsen was sentenced to 35 years in prison for attempted first-degree homicide. During his sentencing, he glared at Teri as if what he was facing was because of what she had done to him & not the other way around.
In 2008, David’s case was seen by the federal court & he was charged with kidnapping & interstate domestic violence & given a life sentence. Even behind bars, David continued to attempt to assert control over Teri, demanding visits from their daughters & he even tried to escape. Teri refuses to allow him to control her any longer; she knows that she is not a victim, but a survivor.
In the years that followed her attack, Teri went on to be a key factor in helping draft laws that protect domestic violence victims, such as Wisconsin’s SAFE Act that removes guns from the hands of abusers. It gives more authority to sheriff’s deputies, who could not previously take an abuser’s firearms without a warrant.
Teri has also gone on to speak to the public about her ordeal in hopes of educating men & women about domestic violence. She discusses the key signs & manipulative behaviors that are often overlooked as the main tactic of an abuser such as control & isolation. She also focuses on self-esteem because as an abuser wittles their victim’s self-esteem, they are more easily able to gain control. She suggests that victims write down five good things about themselves in order to validate & empower which then makes it really hard for an abuser to break a person down.
Teri noticed that at the start of her speaking engagements, the majority of her audience were females & as time went on, it became half & half. She feels this is important as it’s not just a woman’s issue, but also a social issue. It’s important for everyone to get involved in identifying instances of domestic abuse in order to support those around us who are in that situation.
A few years after her attempted murder, she & Nick welcomed a son who became the little brother to Holly & Amanda. When asked how she found the will to live through her harrowing 26 hour ordeal, Teri quoted Nancy Reagan & said, “A woman is like a teabag, only in hot water do you realize how strong she is.”
References:
- Woman’s Day: My ex-husband thought he could get away with murdering me
- Medium: Mom survives freezing torture from her abusive ex-husband
- Dakota Student: Woman left for dead shares story with UND
- Facebook: 911: How are you calling if your hands are tied?
- U.S. v. Larsen
- FindLaw: State v. Larsen (2007)
