Nathan and Denise Leuthold were childhood sweethearts, their religious beliefs stopped them from dating at school they were good friends and spent a lot of time together Nathan practically lived at Denise’s house. Once Denise graduated, she headed off to college in Minnesota and Nathan soon followed her and pretty quickly the pair were married in July 1995 and settled down in their hometown.
A while after though Nathan felt a calling and convinced Denise to leave her life behind and become a Missionary in Lithuania for a year, once the year was up they came back home and had 2 children While Denise would have preferred to stay settled with family around to help during this time Nathan was keen to go back to Lithuania his calling was very strong so Denise agreed her and Nathan packed their life up again and headed back. Denise dove in headfirst and began sharing her love of music with people during their many trips out there and as such they got close to many local families including a young teen Aina Dobilite. Aina shared Denise’s love of music and often babysat for the couple's children. 2010 rolls around and the and the family headed back to the USA and decided to sponsor Aina so that she could attend college in Florida.
3 years later On Valentines Day 2013 Denise was shot dead as she walked into her home that was shared with her parents, she had just got home from dropping her youngest child at daycare, she4 had barely stepped inside when she was shot once in the head. Nathan arrived home with the youngest that he had picked up from daycare he noticed that there was some broken glass near a door, so he took the child to a neighbour's and then called 911 he calmly told 911 “We’ve got a break-in".
The police arrived quickly and found Denise inside shot in the head by a .40cal handgun. It was first thought that Denise must have interrupted a burglary but upon seeing a number of valuables that had not been taken looking closer they began to suspect someone close to her as she4 was found lying on her car keys but someone had found the spare set and then took her car to a nearby park and dumped it and the keys there. Also, Diane whose jewellery was stolen states that she only has 3 valuable rings, and they were the only ones taken which is odd how did they know which ones were worth something. Detectives grew more suspicious after learning about the unusual relationship between Nathan and Aina they both denied there being any sexual aspect to their relationship but her school had asked her to leave due the inappropriate relationship between her and her sponsor including overnight stays at a hotel and while the police were checking Nathans alibi that he was buying a voucher at a spa for his wife's present the owner informed the police that he regularly accompanied Aina to her waxing appointments and payee for them. While being interviewed Aina declined to answer many questions about her relationship with Nathan and just glared at the police.
Three weeks after the murder Nathan was arrested and during the trial one of Nathan's fellow inmates testified that Nathan had told him he killed his wife as a Valentines Day present to Aina.
He was found guilty of first-degree murder in just 90mins and was sentenced to 80 years in prison.
