Corey Wieneke Murder: How Did Corey Wieneke Die? Who Killed Corey Wieneke? – While there’s no doubt that NBC’s ‘Dateline‘ is a newsmagazine fixture, it’s the sympathetic approach in which it delves into real-life riddles to get to the heart of the matter that keeps it fresh. Season 28 episode 16, fittingly titled ‘The Black Candle Confession,’ chronicles the long-running and horrible murder case of Corey Lee Wieneke, and is no exception.
So, if you’re interested in learning more about him, specifically, who he was, what was the cause of his death, and its perplexing aftermath, we’ve got the information for you.
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Who was Corey Wieneke and How Did He Die?
Wieneke, who was born in 1970, was well-known in the neighbourhood for his kind, open demeanour. At the age of 22, Corey Wieneke could only be described as a larger-than-life figure who attempted to use his celebrity in the small Iowa town of West Liberty for good.
Wieneke, a football player for the West Liberty High School Comets, made it to the state championships, and it was about this time that he began dating Jody Hotz. Friends and family thought she was a positive influence, and the couple appeared to be entirely devoted to each other.
Wieneke worked at Wink’s Bar & Grill in his leisure time, a restaurant established by his grandparents and now maintained by the family. He began by cleaning and filling the coolers, then moved on to bartending when he turned 18. The outgoing former high school football player quickly established himself as Wink’s most popular bartender.
By 1992, Corey and Jody had relocated to her father’s farm outside of town. He bartended at night, and she worked at a bank in Iowa City during the day. They announced their engagement in the fall of that year.
The ideal future they had imagined came crashing to a halt on Oct. 13, 1992, when Jody dialed 911 in a panic at about 6 p.m.
In a clip obtained by “Snapped,” she remarked, “I think my fiancé is dead.” “He’s covered in blood, he’s not breathing, and he’s freezing.”
Wieneke’s body was discovered on his bedroom floor when first responders arrived.
“You could see right away that this was a blunt force trauma type of crime and that the beating had occurred,” Muscatine County Sheriff C.J. Ryan said “Snapped.”
Investigators investigated the murder scene and quickly ruled out a robbery or house invasion as possibilities.
“The residence was not broken into. There were no overturned chairs or tables, so I believe the motive was quite precise, and the intent was to cause harm,” Muscatine County Sheriff’s Captain Quinn Riess told producers.
When Hotz departed for work at 8 a.m. that morning, she last saw Wieneke asleep in bed; she said to the police. She returned home to discover their dog outdoors and Wieneke’s car parked in the driveway, although he was supposed to be at Wink’s.
Investigators were able to establish Holtz’s alibi after speaking with her coworkers, and she was soon removed as a suspect.
Local journalists descended on the couple’s home the next morning, and a reporter alerted authorities to a bloodied aluminum baseball bat he had seen on the road nearby.
“The blood was mostly on the striking end of the bat,” Riess said on “Snapped.”
According to the Des Moines Register, the bat was found and sent for forensic examination, and it was eventually proven to be the murder weapon. The bat, unfortunately, yielded no fingerprints or relevant DNA evidence.
The authorities were told by a local farmer that on the morning Wieneke was killed, he drove up and down the road near Wieneke’s house. He stated the bat arrived on the road between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., reducing the window of opportunity for the murder.
Investigators gathered from Wieneke’s coworkers that he was last seen leaving Wink’s at closing time on October 13 with his friend Wendi Marshall.
Marshall told authorities that after they left the bar, they were confronted by Annette Hazen, 29, a frequent and sometimes bartender at Wink’s. Annette was drunk, according to Marshall, and Wieneke offered to drive her home.
During the car ride, Annette became irritated, leaping out of the vehicle to quarrel with Wieneke. Marshall was then driven back to Wink’s, where she got into her own car. He then drove Hazen home before meeting up with Marshall later that night.
Annette showed up at the police station to deliver a statement before investigators could even call her in for interrogation. Annette claimed that she and Wieneke had a casual sexual relationship.
She stated they were scheduled to hook up on October 13, and she was envious when she spotted him leaving Wink’s with Marshall. She then claimed that she and Wieneke reconciled and had sex.
Annette stated she spent the next day working on a roofing job with her sister-in-law, who backed up her allegation. She claimed she went to Wieneke’s that morning to pick up a book she had forgotten about, but he did not answer the door.
According to Ryan of “Snapped,” authorities invited Annette to undergo a polygraph test, and the results revealed that “she did not present any symptoms of guilt.”
Who Killed Corey Wieneke and Why?
The murder case went nowhere for 25 years, and it wasn’t until December 2017 that investigators got their first huge break, when a woman named Jessica Becker approached agents with the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation to inform them about a frightening childhood recollection.
Becker told the agents she was friends with Annette’s niece and had attended a sleepover at her house, where Annette also lived, when she was 9 years old.
Becker alleges she came downstairs in the middle of the night and heard Annette crying. “‘I’m very sorry, Corey,’ she cried as she lit black candles and apologized to him. I had no intention of hurting you. Corey, I adored you.” “I never meant to harm you.” According to Iowa ABC affiliate WQAD-TV, Becker subsequently testified.
Becker told her mother, Cynthia Crogh, about the incident, but they were both too afraid to call the cops. According to WQAD, Crogh later stated, “The major reason I was afraid was because of the savagery of the murder.”
Investigators tracked Annette to Tipton, Iowa, where she had remarried and assumed the name, Annette Cahill. Annette was summoned to meet with Iowa DCI officers, and she told them a different story than she had given them in 1992.
She said that Corey was her true love and that the two of them had planned to buy a bar and start a new life together.
In-camera footage obtained by “Snapped,” she informed detectives, “We had discussed about escaping town.”
Annette visited with investigators at her house a second time and told them she knew Wieneke would never abandon his fiancée. Becker became enraged when challenged with her statement.
“On an audio clip obtained by “Snapped,” she can be heard saying, “I’m calling my lawyer.”
Annette was arrested and charged with first-degree murder on May 31, 2018. Annette was charged with the murder of Wieneke the following year, and prosecutors claimed that she killed the 22-year-old bartender in a jealous frenzy about his relationships with other women.
Despite Becker’s claim that she overheard Annette’s confession when she was 9, there was no physical proof linking Annette to the crime. According to WQAD, the jury was deadlocked after six hours of deliberation, and a mistrial was announced.
Prosecutors had a new witness, Scott Payne, by the time Annette’s second murder trial began six months later. Payne, Annette’s brother’s drug companion, claimed to have seen Annette burning “blood-stained” cigarettes “On the day of the murder, the victim wore the following outfit.
According to the Muscatine Journal, when questioned why he didn’t call the cops, Payne told the jury, “I tried to avoid the cops as much as I could.”
On Sept. 19, 2019, Annette was convicted guilty of second-degree murder in the killing of Wieneke, according to the Quad-City Times newspaper. The jury pondered for 16 hours, telling the court at one point that they were deadlocked, before reaching a unanimous decision.
According to the Muscatine Journal, Annette received the maximum penalty of 50 years in jail. She is currently detained at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women, where she is 57 years old. She maintains her innocence and has petitioned the court to overturn her conviction.
