GUILTY MN - Heidi Firkus, 25, fatally shot, St. Paul, 25 Apr 2010 *husband arrested 2021*

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Snoods said:
I was just trying to remember that guy's name! He downloaded the Guns and Roses song "I used to love her but had to kill her" the night he killed her. I believe it was on their anniversary. Words escape me for this guy.
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Was it Justin Barber? Convicted for the 2002 murder of his wife on a Florida beach/boardwalk.
 
So this guy goes to confront the intruder, gets in a struggle, the wife gets shot, he gets shot and the guy that didn't have a gun in the first place gets away unhurt. Suuuure.

:banghead:
 
I can't believe this case is still just sitting there with all of the evidence...From what I read, it seemed that LE was pretty suspicious of the husband but still haven't arrested him. So sad. I wish a journalist would pick up in this story again to try to put some pressure on LE or the DA...
 
This is from 2011, but may make some posters more hopeful! Not much, but somewhat?

fran
:(


Husband Not Ruled Out In Unsolved St. Paul Murder

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/tag/heidi-firkus/



.........................................................................

St. Paul man who said his wife was slain by an intruder is now a possible suspect in year-long cas

In the year since Heidi Firkus was killed in her St. Paul home, after her husband said he struggled with an intruder and a shotgun went off, the police department's focus has expanded to include Nicholas Firkus as a potential suspect.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_17920972
 
So he's allegedly struggling with the perp and Heidi turns her back on the two fighting over the gun and gets shot in the back and dies?

Really?:facepalm:

No way, pfffttt

:(
fran
 
snowboots said:
I can't believe this case is still just sitting there with all of the evidence...From what I read, it seemed that LE was pretty suspicious of the husband but still haven't arrested him. So sad. I wish a journalist would pick up in this story again to try to put some pressure on LE or the DA...
Click to expand...

I really wonder why this case hasn't received more attention. It's ridiculous!

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk 2
 
fran said:
So he's allegedly struggling with the perp and Heidi turns her back on the two fighting over the gun and gets shot in the back and dies?

Really?:facepalm:

No way, pfffttt

:(
fran
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. I'm trying to piece together what happened that night. All of the following is based on information taken directly from articles previously linked on this thread, and if needed, I will gladly source any of these articles again. Anything else is strictly my opinion only.

It's around 6:30 AM. Heidi and husband are upstairs when they hear someone downstairs, and both of them go to check it out. According to the search affidavit, (mentioned in only one article: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_15155144?nclick_check=1):

The Ramsey County Emergency Communications Center received a call April 25 from a woman reporting someone was breaking into the home. The line disconnected.
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Allegedly, they met the intruder as he enters via the front door of the home.

(Searching for the address provided in one of the articles, I was able to find websites providing pictures of the inside of the home. Trulia, Zillow, and a realtor's website all had pictures of the address/interior available to the public. I used these pictures to draw out a basic floor plan, so that I could see how the house was set up. Please let me know if I need to provide links for anyone else who is curious!)

The front door comes after a screen door leading up to their porch. With no obvious signs of forced entry found, this means both the screen door and the front door would have to have been left unlocked, in order to fit the husband's story. The stairs do indeed lead to the front door.

Here's where things get a bit hard to piece together: Heidi was found dead in the kitchen.

The kitchen (unless I'm mistaken in my estimations of how the house is set up) is not readily available from the front door or the stairs. The front door opens to a hallway which leads directly to the living room. The living room leads to the dining room, which connects to the kitchen. The kitchen then has an exit leading to what appears to be a guest bathroom and the back door.

So, upon meeting at the front door, a struggle ensued over the shotgun... all the way to the kitchen..?

Since the husband has control of the gun to begin with, would this mean that the intruder leapt for it the moment he saw it? This random intruder, this "6 foot, 220 pound, 40-60 year old man" was SO deft and SO quick on his feet- quicker than the 25 and 27 year old couple, mind you!- that he was able to instantly grab for the shotgun that he wouldn't have even known the couple would have? In order for the husband's story to fit, the intruder must have begun fighting for the gun at the very second he laid eyes on it, right?

Because if the intruder didn't grab the gun immediately after the paths crossed, then the question remains: Why didn't the husband shoot the intruder before the intruder could get to him?

Heidi died of a gunshot would to her back. I can only think of two plausible scenarios: the first being that the two men would have to be struggling in front of her, near the front door.. and she would have to be running past them; into her living room, into her dining room, into her kitchen... her back is turned... and as she reaches the kitchen (where the back door is located!) the gun goes off in the midst of the struggle.

That would mean the two men managed to fight over the gun all the way to the kitchen, through at least two rooms, since the set up of the house appears to be so that a discharged bullet could only fatally strike Heidi if the struggle was in close enough range behind her. If so, why didn't the gun discharge onto either the husband or the intruder first, rather than Heidi?!

Another scenario is that Heidi was shot in the vicinity of the front door, as soon as she fled past her husband as he confronted the intruder. This would mean she crawled her way to the kitchen.

I am having trouble believing Heidi had enough strength to crawl from the area near the front door all the way into the kitchen where she died. If she died shortly after the gunshot firing, I would think her death occurred in the same place she had been shot.

Police are already on their way after the initial, disconnected 911 call. Heidi was pronounced dead at the scene. This is a very small window of time, meaning that Heidi's injuries from the "discharged" gunshot were very quick to cause her death.

A second shot is fired, although it is unclear (due to inconsistencies between articles) whether this shot was also a discharged, accidental shot or purposefully fired by the intruder. This shot goes into the husband's leg, and the wound is so "superficial" that the husband is in and out of the hospital on the same day.

How is it that one discharged bullet would be almost instantly fatal, and the other is so non-life threatening? If the husband was the one fighting the intruder off, wouldn't you think the severity of wounds would be reversed?

Now, allegedly, the intruder does not fire any more shots, even though (to his knowledge) the couple could easily both identify him in a lineup. He leaves the murder weapon behind. He flees, and although neighbors reported hearing gunshots and other noises, no one in the neighborhood reported a man fleeing the scene.

The husband uses Heidi's cell phone to make a second 911 call to report the gunshots.

He does not remember what the intruder really looks like. He does not remember, in fact, until after hiring his criminal defense attorney.

-------

Sorry for the long post, everyone, but this case has really bugged me since 2010 when I was only a lurker. I saw it was bumped up again today and had to finally voice my thoughts over the matter. I needed to "think out loud" with all of you and try to figure out why my "hinky meter" was going off about all this since 2010. In my personal opinion, the evidence and stories provided are just not adding up. :twocents:

Praying for justice for Heidi in the near future. :heartbeat:
 
BUMP and a vent: It is very hard to see pictures of Nick with his new baby. I know how badly Heidi wanted to be a mother one day and she will never get that chance. Will the person responsible for her death ever be held accountable?
 
Is nothing going on with this? I just don't understand.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk 2
 
His family has money. They got him lawyered up. Police backed off. Case was put on the back burner and now seems forgotten. I wish there was a way to get this back in the media. :(
 
From an older article saying Nicholas was a suspect:

Reached by the Pioneer Press last week, Nicholas Firkus said he didn't want to comment because it was a hard time for him, with the death of his wife and recent loss of his grandparents. Ethel Firkus, who died April 10, was one of the first female Ramsey County sheriff's deputies and worked for the department from 1964 to 1986.

I wonder if these ties to the sheriff had helped?

http://www.twincities.com/ci_17920972
 
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