Ex-husband of mother who is accused of killing AJ Freund tells of her prescription pill addiction | Daily Mail Online
'Our marriage started off well and it was like a switch flipped in her head,' when she started abusing the pills, Craig Summerkamp said.
'She was a decent person,' Summerkamp added. 'But then she got hooked on pills and it all went downhill superfast.'
Summerkamp said he and Cunningham were together for five years. They married on May 30, 2009 and he filed for divorce on January 28, 2012.
He said at the time she was nothing like the gaunt, stone-faced woman whose mugshot has been seen around the United States.
'She was beautiful— but then the drugs took hold,' he said.
Summerkamp said his ex-wife started complaining that her 'body hurt everywhere' and began taking painkillers shortly before their marriage.
'One doctor she was seeing even quit prescribing them to her and said if she wanted to keep getting these pills, she had to see a pain management person.
'We were only married a year or so before things started going south,' he said. 'At that stage I was out of there.'
JoAnn accused him of assaulting her — without any foundation he insists — and took him to court to get an order of protection. It was then that she met Freund, who went on to father AJ and another boy, Parker, who is now 4. Cunningham is currently seven months pregnant with her third child by Freund.
'She had the cops called on me for supposedly beating on her and at that point I was like 'I'm outta here.'
Summerkamp said he was shocked but not surprised to hear his ex had been charged with murder.
'I knew she wasn't all there in the head but I never thought she would go this far. I figured she'd end up in jail or something but I never thought this would happen. It was the path she was on with the pills and then I heard later on that she had switched to harder stuff and that was it.
'I just thank God we never had any kids together.'
Both Cunningham and attorney Freund were jailed for contempt of court during the divorce for removing items from the home in McHenry, Illinois, where she lived with Summerkamp.
Summerkamp said he allowed his wife to stay in the house after they split so her son, who was born when she was 17, and a boy they were fostering would not have to change schools.
'But she never got out, so that was another thing we had to go to court for, and Andrew Freund was staying there as well.
'One of the things in our agreement was she had to keep the house in good order but she totally destroyed it.'
During a court hearing in 2012, a neighbor described the McHenry house as 'pretty well trashed.'
'There was a hole in the wall in the laundry room, the washer had clothes in it — moldy clothes. The dishwasher looked like it had a fire in it, the stove had a fire in it too, lots of moldy food in there, very strong stench,' said Kathy Hayes.
Summerkamp got into the house through a window and 'bug bombed' it. 'There were maggots and fleas and all sorts of bugs everywhere,' he told a judge.
During one court hearing, Summerkamp said, the judge interrupted the case because Cunningham, who left home when she was 15, was 'obviously high' and sent her for a drug test.
'I could just see the downward spiral,' her ex told DailyMail.com.
After Freund was released but while Cunningham was still in jail, Summerkamp said he took her possessions to Freund's house. He said the attorney was marching around in an army uniform.
'I knew he had never been in the army but he was in dress uniform with medals and badges and everything. I can't remember whether it was a major's or a lieutenant colonel's but it was a high-ranking officer.'
Summerkamp filed for divorce alleging his wife was guilty of extreme and repeated acts of physical and mental cruelty. But Cunningham responded: 'I did slap him, which was wrong, but it is not extreme and repeated incidents.
'I am a very good person to everyone,' she added. 'And I have been to Craig too.'
'I'm just really happy that her mom got custody,' said Summerkamp who works for an air conditioning company. 'She did real good by him. She made sure he did very good in school. He was on the honor roll and was all-state for some sports. His football team made it to the state finals, he made it to the states for wrestling and she made sure he went off to college.'
Despite living three miles from his ex in a city of just 40,000 people, Summerkamp said he hasn't seen or talked to her since their last day in court.
'Through my lawyer she asked for my phone number because I switched phones and I was like: 'Oh hell no.'
