Beaten and Left for Dead: The Story of Teri Jendusa-Nicolai

by Dave Alfvin

  She started by renting an adequate apartment in nearby Waterford, large enough for her and the two girls to start a normal, abuse-free life. The place wasn’t anything fancy, but it was hers, and for once, no one was constantly looking over her shoulder to complain about her mistakes.

  Holly was still a baby and Amanda was four years old, but even so, taking care of the kids on her own was much easier than it had been with David’s so-called “help.” Teri didn’t expect life to be a walk in the park, but the important thing was that she was now fully in control of herself. After three-and-a-half years of fighting and enduring the punishments of a nightmarish marriage, she had won her life back.

  Teri decided she didn’t really need a man in her life at the moment. Her girls, a modest career, and a happy life were everything she needed to be happy, especially after what she’d been through.

  Just before leaving David for the final time, Teri joined the Bel Canto Chorus, a Milwaukee-based choir of volunteer singers with a wide repertoire of musical styles from classical to modern. It was while Teri was with the chorus that she met Nick. He admired Teri from afar, but Teri was going through a divorce with David, so he kept a respectful distance. However, once Teri was divorced, Nick asked her if she would like to go out on a casual date.

  Teri declined, not because she didn’t like Nick; the timing was dreadful. Her mind was still clouded by the divorce and everything that led up to it. The thought of dating someone new overwhelmed her. Teri desperately needed space in every sense of the word. Nick was disappointed, but being a gentleman he backed off, yet kept the friendship alive. Finally, nearly a year later, Teri agreed to go to a hockey game with Nick on a casual first date. They had fun together, and Teri still laughs about going to a hockey game as their “first real date.” And so, the new romance began, though slowly. Teri had no plans to remarry: “Been there; done that!” she says with a laugh, when talking about the period immediately after her divorce. Nick, on the other hand, was ready to settle down and get married, and it wasn’t long before he proposed. But Teri said no…again, at least for now. The timing was still wrong. Her emotional ecosystem was not ready for the change marriage would bring. Nick was hurt, but he didn’t give up. Unlike Teri’s former husband, Nick was perceptive enough to understand that this drama really wasn’t “about him” (making him the lucky 1%). If Nick wanted Teri, he would have to follow Teri’s game plan—and that was okay with him. She was worth it.

  Nick’s patience finally paid off, and Teri agreed to marry. The couple had an outdoor marriage in October in magnificent weather with nearly 150 guests. It was an incredibly joyous occasion, and Teri was ready to begin a new life—a happy life, in a home filled with love.

  Saturday Morning Abduction

  It was Saturday, January 30, 2004, at about nine fifty-five a.m. when I called David’s house, saying I would be there in about five minutes. I wanted the girls to be ready to leave (he almost never had the girls ready). So this was just a message that I didn’t want to stand in the cold and wait for them. At this point in our “relationship,” I would not enter David’s house in fear that he would do something to me. I always waited outside.

  I was wearing sweat pants, a sweatshirt, tennis shoes, and a ski jacket. I hopped in the car and drove to David’s at ten o’clock, like I said. I rang the doorbell and David came to the door. He said, “The girls aren’t ready yet. Why don’t you stand inside?” I never stand inside his house because I don’t trust him. I said, “No, that’s okay; I’ll wait out here. Hurry up.”

  After a couple minutes, I went back to my car, which was still running. I turned the heat on for a few minutes and warmed up, but my car was running out of gas (like it usually was!), so I turned off the engine and sat for a few minutes. It started getting cold in the car, so I got out and started pacing up and down the driveway. Another fifteen minutes had passed, and I was getting tired of this…and colder by the minute. David finally opened the door and was acting all put out. He said, “The girls are hiding, and they want you to come find them.”

  My first gut feeling was, “No way am I going inside,” but it was getting later, I was cold, I wanted to go home, and I didn’t want to disappoint the girls. I knew they loved playing party games (so did David), and I didn’t want to be a party pooper. I figured I would quickly find Amanda and Holly, grab the coats, and leave. So I went through the front door saying, “Oooo, I wonder where they can be!”

  Suddenly I was hit in the back of the head by something blunt and heavy. For a split second, I thought I might have crashed into the chandelier in the living room, but the next thing I knew, I was crashing to the floor on my stomach. I tried to look up, but David leaped on top of me, and he was also on his stomach. I could see a black wooden baseball bat in his right hand and realized I was in serious trouble. “Be quiet,” he snarled. “I don’t want them to hear you.”

  I noticed the girls’ coats hanging over a chair, so I knew they were in the house somewhere. My next thought was, He’s doing this stuff while the girls are here? I remember asking him, “They’re here?”

  He said,“Shut up. I don’t want them to hear you.”

  I tried to get up, but he hit me on the head at least six more times with the bat. I’ll never forget the dull sound of the bat each time it struck my head…the thumping sound of my own head. The force of his strikes brought stars to my eyes, but somehow, he didn’t knock me out. I kept thinking, How do I get out of this? How do I get out of this? Where are my girls?

  David hissed profanities in Teri’s ear as he raised the bat above her. “You’re not going to take my girls. You’ll never take my girls.” He swung down again and again, dealing six more vicious blows to her head. With no way to defend herself, all she could do was lie there and pray for the beating to stop. When it finally did, Teri, then stunned and dizzy from pain, instinctively reached up and touched the back of her head. Her skull had been crushed.

  My hand was dripping with my own blood, and I could hear a crackling in my ears. I knew my life was in grave danger; survival was my only goal. “I promise, I promise, I’ll drop everything!” I pleaded with him. I knew I was begging for my life.

  “Your promises don’t mean anything,” he replied, and kept swinging at me with the bat. I kept dodging most of them. I’m sure David expected to knock me out with one or two swings, but that’s not the way it happened. I did my best to deflect the blows and turn my head to avoid his direct hits.

  By then, Teri was lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. David sat panting on the carpet nearby, completely winded from the assault. His would-be victim was putting up an unexpectedly strong resistance, and he hadn’t expected the process of beating someone with a baseball bat to be as strenuous as it actually was. Teri had taken dozens of blows, but she still wasn’t going down. It was only then that David decided to try an alternate, much more personal method of execution.

  David jumped back on top of Teri again and covered her nose and mouth with his hands. He pushed down as she struggled, in an attempt to suffocate her as quickly as he could. Fighting for breath, Teri remembered a scene from a movie she’d seen a long time ago, in which a defense instructor was teaching a woman to turn her head away if someone was trying to choke her, thus making it harder for the assailant to cover her face. Incredibly, the method worked, and Teri was rewarded by a few precious breaths before David realized what was happening.

  Their struggle had reached a stalemate of sorts. While David furiously tried to cut off her air, Teri was turning her head back and forth to avoid his hands. Several terrifying minutes ticked by as Teri, driven by sheer panic, fought for her life. David, on the other hand, was utterly frustrated that Teri wouldn’t just give up and die.

  “Just stop breathing…just go to sleep…just stop breathing,” he whispered through gritted teeth.

  But Teri once again refused to submit. Not only was she far more damage-resistant than David had anticipated, but she was actually holding her own ag
ainst his onslaught in spite of multiple head injuries, trauma, and fatigue. Her heroic defense was taking its toll as well; David’s energy was quickly running out. Desperate to end the conflict for good, he grabbed some nearby rags and shoved them into her mouth. Teri immediately countered by spitting them out. By then, David was trying anything and everything he could to either kill her, knock her out, or impede her movement.

  He took off my socks and shoes (he was probably thinking it would be harder to run away from him, especially since it was freezing outside). David then started stuffing anything he could find in my mouth: my socks, towels, whatever. My nylon sweatpants were starting to slide down my legs, halfway to my knees. Unbelievably, he said to me, “Don’t make this look like something it’s not.”

  David tore Teri’s sweatpants off and started shoving them into her mouth. Once again, she fought off the suffocation attempt. What was supposed to have been a quick and easy murder had quickly turned into one long string of failures, one after another. No matter how hard Larsen tried, Teri wasn’t about to give up the fight. Unfortunately, he had another ace up his sleeve.

  Snatching up a roll of duct tape, David grabbed Teri’s head and began wrapping it around her in a makeshift suffocation mask, from her eyebrows down to her mouth. Teri was unable to pull the tape loose, and in the span of a minute or two, David had successfully blinded and gagged her.

  I was thinking, Oh God, this is it; I won’t be able to breathe. But somehow, thank God, somehow, I found a small pocket of air as he covered my mouth. I began acting like I wasn’t breathing, ever so shallowly.

  Assuming Teri would soon suffocate to death, David continued on with his murderous plan. He bound her ankles and wrists tightly with duct tape to make sure that she wouldn’t go anywhere, and then he headed for the garage. But despite his many precautions, he still made several major blunders that would later contribute to his own arrest.

  At the moment, however, escape was not an option for poor Teri. Lying on the living room floor covered in duct tape, she could only endure the waves of pain that were washing against her skull and throat. All the while, her thoughts kept drifting back to her daughters. Where were they? What had David done with them? Would she ever see Holly and Amanda again? Did they even know what was happening to their mother?

  Footsteps from the garage heralded the return of her captor. David entered the living room, pushing a large garbage can on wheels. This was the coffin he had chosen to store the corpse of his hated ex-wife—a cheap plastic cylinder meant to carry trash. David grabbed Teri’s beaten and taped body and roughly shoved her into the garbage can, head first. Teri was desperate:

  I remember thinking that I couldn’t go in head first with the way my head was bleeding; I’d bleed to death. So I wriggled around a bit, just enough so I was more upright. Then he took me outside. I could see changes of light, from red to yellow. Then out of nowhere, David started spinning the garbage can around in circles. He knows that I get dizzy easily or sometimes sick from spinning. He was probably trying to disorient me.

  When he was certain Teri was dizzy enough, David began filling the garbage can with snow. Once the makeshift coffin was halfway full, he hoisted it up into the bed of his pickup truck and drew a heavy tarp over the truck bed.

  I was so cold, and the wet snow on my bare legs made everything so much worse. I heard David go back into the house, and I figured he was going to clean up the blood and straighten things up inside. But the girls…yes, he would get the girls, too. I wondered if David’s father was here, maybe taking care of the girls somewhere in another room. I figured I had a couple minutes, so I started scratching away at the duct tape on my wrists. It’s just tape. It’s just tape! It’s got to rip! I thought to myself.

  Finally, miraculously, Teri somehow managed to free her right hand enough to reach into her jacket pocket. After fumbling a few moments, she felt the familiar touch of hard plastic. Dizzy with relief, Teri gingerly clutched her cell phone with two fingers. She couldn’t see anything because of the duct tape, but she could feel the small raised keys of the cell phone enough to correctly dial 9-1-1.

  The dispatcher answered the phone, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to understand me with all the tape over my mouth. I kept saying David’s address over and over, hoping she would understand me. She said, “Are you having trouble breathing?”

  “Yeah,” I said through the tape.

  “Do you need a rescue?”

  “Yeah.” I peeled a little bit of tape from one of my eyes, ended the call, and called my husband Nick and quickly told him David was kidnapping me. Then, I heard a door slam shut. David was coming. I could hear the girls laughing and giggling. David was joking with them. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a siren approaching! I knew they were coming for me. Finally, my ordeal was over!

  But Teri’s hopes were quickly crushed when she heard the sirens moving in a different direction, away from her. “I can’t tell you how horrible that felt—the sound of the sirens moving farther away.” Her spirit was beginning to break, and the weight of her impending death pressed down upon her further and further with each passing minute. Mercifully, she blacked out for a short time.

  When Teri regained consciousness, David’s truck was moving. He had neglected to put the top back on the garbage can when he’d stuffed her inside, so she could see farms and country roads going by. They weren’t traveling by a major freeway, but rather, a high-speed country road with many trucks. Teri thought maybe a motorist or trucker might see her hand if she motioned for help. She tried to signal to another driver along the road, but no one noticed her frantic waving…except for David, unfortunately.

  David quickly stopped the truck, got out, and angrily walked around to the back. “If you pull another stunt like that, I’ll pull out my thirty-eight,” he warned her.

  “I’m so cold,” Teri pleaded. “I’m so cold.”

  “I know, I know,” David muttered impatiently as he turned and stepped back into the truck, leaving Teri to freeze outside.

  So, now I’m thinking that I should just lay here, behave myself, and give myself a chance to survive, rather than getting my head blown off. My real hope was that the police would find us. So, for the time being, I sat quietly in the garbage can, sometimes shivering uncontrollably and blacking out at least twice.

  I tried calling 9-1-1 another time and said David is going to kill me. Some of the snow in the garbage can had melted from my body heat, and I was now huddled in a solution of ice and a couple inches of water; I was like a giant snow cone. My legs and feet were numb, and I was losing all the feeling in my extremities. The truck continued to roll, and I bounced around in the bed of the truck. Oh, God, I was cold!

  Teri could only wonder whether David was planning to spare her life or simply kill her when they reached their destination. The answer to her question lay a few more miles ahead, at the predetermined end of this cold and horrific journey.

  David had driven the truck to Wheeling, Illinois, a suburban and rural town about thirty-five miles south of the Wisconsin border. Wheeling was also near David’s place of employment at the time, the Palwaukee Airport.

  I had blacked out during the mystery trip but was awakened by a brutally loud metallic crash. It sounded like a giant metal door of some sort; the sound was deafening. Having blacked out and awakened several times, I think some of my senses were accentuated.

  David quickly put the top on the garbage can and duct-taped the rim before I could see anything. Then he wheeled me into this place. I thought maybe I was in an aircraft hangar, but then I heard David moving around boxes and junk, so then I was back to having no idea where I was. I heard the big door open and crash down again. I was confused. David had more work to do. I heard and felt objects being piled on top of the garbage can. He was walling me up into something.”

  The Longest Night

  The heavy door to the storage locker slammed shut with an ominous metallic crash, sealing its frightened occupant inside a cold,
dark room. The hallway leading to the second-story lockers was reminiscent of a prison hallway: heavy doors and chilling metal walls that gave way to more barren rooms, one after another, like icy holding cells.

  Outside, the temperature was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit that afternoon, typical weather for northern Illinois on January 31st. It was nearly as cold in the locker, and as night fell, the temperature in the locker dropped further. Already suffering from the early symptoms of frostbite, Teri would soon find herself struggling to keep her body from shutting down due to the bitter cold of a winter’s night in Wheeling.

  For at least an hour, Teri pretended to be dead, desperately hoping that David hadn’t planned on finishing her off with a gunshot to the head. She had no idea where he’d taken her or whether he even planned on returning, but for now, she was alone and surrounded in darkness, imprisoned in a metal-walled storage locker not much larger than ten square feet.

  David had duct-taped the plastic garbage can shut, and Teri was sealed in a forty-gallon plastic coffin. Before he left her to die, he made sure to cover the makeshift coffin with heavy storage boxes, presumably to immobilize the can and conceal it from view. When he was finished, he walked out without a word, leaving Teri alone, severely injured, and freezing inside the can.