7. Teri Jendusa Nicolai - The Mom That Could
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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. I'm the husband. So we have a long story today, so I'm going to jump right into it. Let's do it. This is the story of Terry Gendusa Nicole. I got my research from MyRacineCounty.com, CISpeakers.com, Women'sDay.com,

an ABC 2020 in an instant episode called Left 4 Dead. You can find it on YouTube as well as journaltimes.com. There is also a book called Left 4 Dead about this story and you can find it on Amazon. I didn't read the book. And there is also an episode on Oxygen's female-focused true crime series called Three Days to Live. And I also didn't watch that because it cost money. And...

So, Terry comes from a loving family. She grew up in Wisconsin, which I've met someone from Wisconsin before and they said I need to pronounce it Wisconsin. Really? Yeah. So, Wisconsin. Is that really how they say it? I don't know. That's what he said. Wisconsin. Okay. She met her first husband, Dave Larson, and married him in April of 1996. Wow.

On their honeymoon, they were arguing one night about what she was going to wear to dinner, and he hit her during the argument. She knew he had a bad temper, but she had never seen this controlling side of him. Terry wanted to leave, but she was embarrassed that they had just got married, and she was scared to look stupid. How do you divorce someone after on your honeymoon, you know? That's the...

So throughout their marriage, Dave would yell at her for the smallest things, and he definitely practiced his dominance over her as her husband. According to womensday.com, Dave would yell if the window curtains were out of place or if the towels weren't folded correctly. He also would make her keep the door open if she was showering or going to the bathroom. Jeez.

If she ever accidentally broke something in the house or did something that was going to upset him, she would throw away any of the evidence in the neighbor's trash can. So if she got a cup out of the cupboard and dropped it and it broke, she would sweep it up and hurry and go throw it in the neighbor's trash can because that would make him mad. And there was no past evidence of this? So she said while they were dating that...

She could kind of see signs like she had told family members like, oh, he's really, you know, aggressive. And she like told her family members about this instance where he like got so mad at like a road worker, construction worker person. And he just like drove around him and almost hit him because he didn't want to wait. But she like he had never hit her. Okay. And so she, you know, she saw signs, but not. Nothing too crazy. That would have made her not marry him. Got it.

One time, David beat Terry for throwing away a freezer-burned sausage link because it was a waste of his money.

The incident that pushed Terry to finally leave David was when he had come home angry and was yelling at her. And their two-year-old daughter was in the room and she started crying hysterically because her dad was yelling. The daughter started to tell him, just stop, stop over and over again. Like, please stop yelling. And he walked and she was like hiding under a table and like screaming it at him. And he walked over to the table and bent down and got in her face and screamed, you don't tell me what to do.

And the daughter was two. Jeez. And so Terry knew in that moment, like, I got to leave. I got to pack up and leave. Like, me is one thing, but my kids is another. So this is all just kind of some background information. Mm-hmm. Correct? Okay. Yeah.

So it was 1999 and they had had two daughters by this point and she knew, Terry knew it was going to be tough to have a civil divorce. She was trying to prove to the court that Dave wasn't fit to be a joint parent. She fought, but he also fought back and got some custody. She knew that she would never stop fighting though to get the kids taken away from him. Yeah. According to some sources on the day of the divorce, David told Terry, quote,

After leaving, and three years later, Terry meets another man named Nick Nicolay. They get married in 2003. Terry felt like Nick was such a positive role model for her two little girls. While still battling it out in courts, Terry and Dave were sharing custody of the girls.

This is all while she's now remarried and stuff. Okay. Terry could not get the courts to see that if he was this violent towards her, he was definitely going to be this violent towards the kids. It was probably hard to present evidence that shows that he was doing something wrong. So David started to verbally and physically attack Terry when she was dropping off or picking up the girls and,

And so Terry, and she shows the courts, like she shows them pictures of her beat up. And I mean, domestic violence is just hard. Where's Terry's husband in all this? So he would just make it worse. He would make Dave flip out worse if he was there. Okay, wait a second. So Dave would still hit Terry during all this? Like she would go to drop off and pick up the kids. And she'd walk him up to the door. And he'd start yelling at her and screaming at her.

But he wouldn't hit her. No, he would hit her. He would get physical with her. And her husband, Nick, wouldn't go in and like beat him up? Well, Nick wasn't always there because if Nick came, it would make like instantly Dave wouldn't let the girls leave the house. So then they'd have to call the cops. So she would just go alone because it was easier. Okay. So Terry decides that they're going to start swapping the kids in public places. After calling the police,

Twice, during one of these meetings when he had been physically hurting her, Terry decides that she's going to file a restraining order against him. The restraining order was making it hard, though, to peacefully get the kids to each other because Terry would always have to bring a friend with her to an agreed upon public McDonald's parking lot to swap the kids.

And so, you know, she felt bad. She was having to always ask her friends and her family, like, can you please come with me so I can get the kids? And it's like they're swapping them a lot, you know, and so it was just becoming a hassle. Yep. Annoyed by the whole situation, Terry decides that she's just going to start picking up and dropping off the kids at Dave's house again, hoping that they could just put everything in the past and that, you

you know, it won't happen again as long as she doesn't bring her new husband. And as long, you know, as she doesn't say anything that's going to trigger him, they can peacefully get the kids back and forth to each other. I feel like domestic violence is a very, as far as policing goes, it's,

I don't know, a justice system. I don't know enough about it, but it seems like it's very difficult to put someone away for domestic violence. Because it's he said, she said. Yeah. And so, I mean, yeah, you have evidence right with. I mean, now it might be a little different. There's cameras all over people's houses and stuff. But it's definitely been hard. Yeah. And this was in 2000, 1999. Oh, wait, no. We're now to like 2003. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so Dave's house that she's going to, you know, do these swaps at happens to be the house that Terry and him had been living in their whole marriage. So he kept the house when they got divorced.

And she started to notice when she was dropping the kids off and picking them up that it was like in bad shape. Dave had become a hoarder. He was obsessing over all of the stuff that they had owned together. He wouldn't get rid of anything. He kept mementos from their wedding, including her dress, some of their photo albums. Weird. And he would sit the little two girls down when he had them.

And make them watch the video footage from Terry and Dave's wedding to prove to them that, and I quote, mommy doesn't keep her promises. Because in the vows, it was till death do us part. And he would sit the little girls down and go, look, mommy left us. Mommy, look, she doesn't, look, she told me this on our wedding day and she doesn't keep her promises. How are the kids allowed with him? It's so strange to me.

It was just, she was fighting hard in the courts, but because he was fighting too, it's not like, oh, we have this deadbeat dad. It was like, oh, he wants possession too. Gosh, that would be hard. That would frustrate me. So on January 30th, 2004...

Terry and her new husband, Nick, go and buy a pregnancy test and find out that she's pregnant, and they are ecstatic. They feel ready to be parents together and to add another child to their growing family. The next morning, January 31, 2004, was the three-year anniversary since Terry and Dave's divorce.

Terry called Dave early that morning so she could go pick up the girls from his house and she wanted them, you know, to be ready to go. Like I want to pull in, I want them to run out and get in the car and I want to leave. The soon to be new parents had some plans later that day with the girls and they were excited to tell him about the baby. So they just wanted to pick them up and leave. Nick, her new husband wanted to go with her to pick the girls up because of the past. You know, like you said, he was, he was like, I need to go. But

Just two weeks earlier, he had gone with her and Dave had freaked out and threatened them and made a huge scene and he was so upset and screaming at her in front of the kids and he was like,

You're going to bring your new husband to pick up to my house to pick up my kids. Do I bring my girlfriend to your house? And just screaming. What a mess. And so Terry's like, no, it'll be fast. I've already called him and told him I'm coming. And what time? And so they'll run out like you don't need to go. It's just going to be best if I go alone. So Terry starts the short five minute drive to Dave's house.

It was a cold morning in Wisconsin. It was 17 degrees and there was snow everywhere. Oh, no. When she got to Dave's, which is her old house, Dave leans out the door and yells that the girls weren't ready. She goes back to her car to wait, annoyed that he hadn't gotten them ready like she had asked. After some time went by and the girls still hadn't come out, Terry walks up to the door and knocks.

Dave answers and he tells her that the girls were playing hide and seek and that they wanted her to come and find them. Oh, this does not sound good. Terry knew this felt wrong. Dave hadn't

ever allowed her back in the home since the day she left five years ago so she hadn't stepped foot in the home she had seen through the door but she hadn't actually stepped foot in the home since she had collected her belongings and left five years ago okay and now all of a sudden it's okay that she comes in oh hey come in the girls the girls are playing hide and seek come grab them she brushes it off though because she's annoyed about the whole situation and she's ready to tell the girls that she's pregnant and get to that day's activities yeah

So she walks in the house and starts looking for the girls, you know, because they're playing hide and seek and she's calling out their names. And while her back is turned, Dave hits Terry on the back of the head with a baseball bat, knocking her unconscious. Oh, man. That sucks. I know. That just sucks. It sucks that...

There's just so many things. Like, I wish she would have called the police. It's not her fault, obviously, but it just. I know. What a bummer. Bummer. It's a bad word to use. Oh, what a bummer. So Dave stands over Terry waiting for her to wake up. Okay. Once she does, he starts beating her to death with the bat, making sure that she was awake and aware of what was going on. Instead of just beating the crap out of her, once he knocked her out, he waited for her to wake back up so she knew.

She was getting beaten. He's obviously wanted to kill her for a long time. Well, yeah. I mean, how many years ago did he say you're going to regret this? This was all just adding up. So Terry tries to talk to him while he's beating her, but he just keeps going.

Once he's done beating her with the bat, he puts a towel over her mouth to suffocate her. He then duct tapes her wrists and feet together, tearing off her pants in the process. He then took the duct tape and wrapped her head in it, starting from the crown of her head all the way down to her neck. So her whole head is covered in duct tape. And are the kids in the house during all this? I mean, I would assume. Obviously, right? They were in custody with him. Like, that was his time to have the kids. Jeez. Yeah.

So he then takes her body and shoves it into a garbage can and drags her outside.

And he starts to fill up the bin with snow by dragging it around the yard in like circles, you know? So he's like picking up the snow with like, so her body's in the garbage can and he's like dragging the can down along the snow because he wants to freeze her body. So it doesn't stink. I'm assuming he's trying to get it cold. So he then puts the garbage bin into the back of his truck and goes back inside and gets the girls.

So the kids were inside and they were locked in a room and they were crying at this point because he had put a movie on, but it was, it was way past lunchtime. And so they were crying and screaming and hungry. How old are the kids at this point? I mean, they're still young, like young enough that they wouldn't notice that anything weird was going on besides the fact that they were hungry. Okay. So he comes back out and he puts the girls in the back seat and starts heading towards the storage unit. He had rented in nearby state. So their mom, uh,

Is in the garbage bin in the back of the truck and they're in the back seat with him driving in the front seat, driving to a storage unit. What a maniac. Like what a crazy person.

So Nick, Terry's husband, who was waiting for Terry and the girls to return home for their plans that day, starts to get anxious as the time goes by and Terry still doesn't come home with the girls. I think if I were Nick, the very first thing that would come to my head is I need to go over to that house. Mm-hmm.

But I mean, he knows how volatile. Yeah, it's hard. So it's true. It's been roughly three hours since Terry left to pick up the girls. And so he just decides to call the police. Okay, good. So he's like, you know what? I know I'm not going to even go over and see what's happened. I'm just going to call the police and send them to the house.

So the police dispatched to Dave's house and they find it empty, but they do find that the house is full of clutter. It stinks. And there is stuff everywhere. Like this guy's major hoarder. I'm sure there's blood everywhere as well. So they discover a huge blood stain next to a trash can that had women's black pants in him. The pants had been had duct tape like around the ankles and there was blood all over the duct tape, but the pants were off in the house in the trash can.

The neighbors tell police that Terry had come by to pick up the kids, but they later saw Dave towing her car away from the house.

Hello? Yeah. Like neighbors? I know. I don't know. So the cops put an Amber Alert out for Terry and her two children. They know something's wrong, obviously. They worry because it's so cold outside. It's like a really cold day. And so it's like creating huge urgency because they're like, if he does, if this family is alive and he drops them somewhere, they don't have longer than an hour in this weather. But they have no idea where to start looking.

It's so hard because back then, right? I mean, it's not that long ago, but smartphones and GPS and all that stuff just wasn't that big of a thing. So Dave, we're back to Dave now. Okay. Dave pulls his truck into the storage unit and turns the engine off. He lets the girls out to play and drags the garbage bin out of the truck and into the unit itself. Okay.

He duct tapes the lid of the garbage can to the actual garbage can itself. Yeah. And then just stacks tons and tons of boxes and plywood on top of it. And then gets back in his car, puts the kids in and leaves. So she's. In the trash can. Mm-hmm. Underneath all those boxes inside a storage unit. Yes.

So how are the police ever going to find that body? You know what this kind of reminds me of? What? You. Uh-huh. The TV show. I don't know if you guys have seen You, but. Yeah, very similar. It's pretty good. Yeah. If you like. And Garrett doesn't like that stuff and he likes you. Yeah, I don't like true crime that much, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. Well, it's not really true crime. It's more like. It's a good show. I actually really enjoyed it. Yeah.

So the police put out an APB for Terry's car and luckily they find it near some rental property that Dave had. Nick and Terry's friends and family are praying and waiting, worried about Terry and the girls. It's getting darker outside and the police finally get a lead that Dave had showed up for his night shift at his workplace that night. So they dispatch out to Dave's workplace because they couldn't find him before. Yeah.

And they detain him, obviously. And they bring him back to the station to interrogate him. And he tells them that the girls are safe and that they're at his girlfriend's house and she's babysitting because he's obviously supposed to be at work right now.

When they ask him about Terry, he goes on this huge rant about how she was supposed to show up that morning to pick up the kids, but that she never showed. And that this is the kind of stuff he has to deal with all the time and how she could have the gall to take him to court and try to take his kids away from him. But she does this terrible stuff all the time. It doesn't show up. The neighbors already said they saw Terry, right? So the cops know he's lying. So the cops, okay, good. But they're just asking him. Yeah. You know, trying to get his story. Yep.

So the detectives tell him, hey, dude, we've actually already gone to your house and conducted a search. And we saw all of the evidence at the house. We saw the blood. We saw the women's pants. We saw the duct tape. And then at that point, they also go, also, when you walked in here, we noticed that you have blood on your jeans. And he like looks down and didn't even realize that he had some small spatter on his jeans. Was he not a very smart guy? Do you know? Well, I...

Because between the neighbors, between blood on his pants. So I think that he had gotten away with bad behavior for so long, beating her, not going to jail, not getting the kids taken away from him. Like he could kill her and get away with it. Like I think that's what his thought process was. I can do anything. Okay. Yeah.

So David changes his story, obviously. And he says that Terry had actually come to his house that morning, but she just walked in the door and she had a hammer over her head and her pants were around her ankles. Hence why the pants were on the ground. Okay. So back to my comment about if he's a smart guy, he's not a smart guy. He's not a smart guy. He said in fear for his life, he grabbed a baseball bat that just happened to be sitting right next to him and he hit her on the head.

I think if someone walked in my house with pants around their ankles, I don't know how scared I would be. I'd give him some help. So he says he remembers grabbing the duct tape, but he doesn't know why. And then he says after that, he doesn't remember what happened until he showed up at work. Okay. And so this is when the cops drop a bomb on Dave. They ask him again, hey, what time did Terry show up at your house this morning with a hammer?

her head and pants around her ankles. And he's like 11 a.m.

And they go, well, Dave, there were actually some cops dispatched to your home this morning at 11 a.m. before we came back again later and conducted a search. The detectives tell Dave that they had actually received a 911 call from Terry that morning around 11 a.m. saying that her ex-husband was trying to kill her and she was stuffed in a garbage can in the back of his truck. No way.

Way. So she had her phone inside the garbage can as she's alive. And she had played dead the whole time he was filling it with snow so that she could call the cops when he put her in the back of the truck. Well, we know who the smart one out of those two were. So Dave is confused, wondering how Terry could have possibly made a 911 call at 11 a.m. in the back of his truck in a garbage can with her hands taped and tape around her head.

So that is crazy. After getting hit in the back of the head by Dave with the bat, Terry came to and saw Dave standing over her with a bat in his hands. She realizes what is going on. He's actually going to kill her. And he tells her that she was finally going to see what abuse really means. He starts to brutally beat her with the baseball bat.

As beating someone with a bat would not be a quiet thing. He informs her as she's screaming and making noise that the girls are in the house and in the bedroom next door and she needs to be quiet.

This means that her two little girls were playing in the bedroom while Dave was beating the life out of Terry. And she actually tried her hardest to stay quiet because all she could think was what is going to be the psychological effects if my daughters hear this and I die. Man, mothers. I know. No joke. So she stays quiet.

That's crazy. Terry starts mumbling in between the hits, whispering to him, claiming, I won't take you to court. You won't have to pay child support. I'll do anything you want. Like, please just stop. And he doesn't say anything. He just keeps beating her. She remembers laying there, basically lifeless, unable to move, and that Dave was hunched over, breathing so hard from beating her that she thought that he was going to fall down and pass out on top of her.

At this point, Terry starts to fill him, start to duct tape her wrists, and eventually get to her ankles. As Dave is trying to get the duct tape around her ankles, he's tugging so hard that her black sweatpants start to slide down off her. And eventually they're around her feet. And so he tears them off. And that's why the pants were found with duct tape around them. But he tears them off. And then he stands up.

And he starts talking to her, but she's like, not like, she's basically dead. Like she's not talking. She's not responding. She's not, she's beaten badly. Yeah. She's not coherent at all. Yeah. But she can kind of hear him and he's blaming her saying, this is just like you to make this look like something. It wasn't like I'm trying to rape you. What a weird. You're just trying to kill her. Like he's worried. He's worried that it looks like.

He tried to rape her when he was just trying to kill her. Like that's why he said, oh, she came in with her pants around her ankles. Cause he didn't want anyone to think that he had tried to rape her. But killing her is okay. But killing her was fine. That's fine. I'm actually surprised that she's alive. Like I'm surprised she's alive. Yeah. And so she's like coherent enough to think, but she couldn't put a sentence out because she's beaten that badly. But she knows at this point, like,

That she needs to be playing close to dead so that he thinks. Because she's worried if he feels like I'm still alive enough, he'll keep beating me or he'll shoot me. Like he wants me dead. She knew that. So she like just limped around like she knew she was smart enough to know I need to be dead right now. Okay, you guys, shifting my wardrobe from summer to fall can be a challenge. But I'm telling you right now.

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So

Um, at this point, Dave starts taping up her head. And can you imagine the tear of someone wrapping tape from the top of your head all the way, covering your eyes, covering your nose, covering your mouth. Yeah. It'd be like being buried alive. And so at this point is when she starts to get that like fight in her. And she's like, I can't die here. I can't die in this house with my girls sitting in the room next door. Like I can't do it.

And so luckily the tape was wrapped in a way that Terry kind of moved her mouth a little bit and made a little like open the tape enough so that she could breathe out of it. So she then hears Dave bring something big into the room.

She realizes that he's going to put her into something. And so slowly she turns her body around as she can hear him moving around to make sure that whatever he's putting her in, she goes in feet first and not head first. Because she knows if she goes in head first, she won't be able to climb out. Okay. So she wiggles around so that when he comes back to put her in, he'll grab her feet first and put her in. She's super smart, but he's obviously not very smart because if he really...

Not really wanted to kill her. He obviously wanted to kill her, but he just was so relaxed. I think he knew that he was going to take her to that storage unit and that she was so close to being dead that she would die. Maybe or maybe he was going to go back and do something. Yeah. Who knows? But whatever it was like, she's still moving. Yeah. Just not. She's not holding a coherent sentence or thought with him.

So she then starts to feel it get cold. She's sitting in this bin, head wrapped up, can't see, ankles, hands tied up. And she starts to feel it get cold. And so she realizes that he's

dragging her outside. Remember at this point, she is only in her underwear and her jacket because her pants have been pulled off and her shoes and her socks have been pulled off. And the storage units aren't heated. So it's freezing. So, well, she's not in the storage unit yet. She's still at the house. Remember? Oh, okay. So she remembers him dragging her around in circles and it takes her a while to realize that he's

He's dragging her around to put the snow into the bin, like pushing it into the bin. But she's in the bin basically naked. Yeah. And it's freezing. Uh-huh. So, like, I just can't even imagine the tear of that. So then she fills him, put her into the back of the truck, and then she hears him leave and go in the house. This is when Terry, with her hands tied, reaches into her jacket pocket and grabs her cell phone.

realizing the whole time knowing I have my cell phone in my pocket. Please don't find it. Please don't find it. And he never finds it. And so she just kept quiet until she could tell she had time alone. That's so crazy. Realize that her hand, her face is so covered. She's completely blind. Her hands are taped. So she gets the cell phone. And at this time, cell phones were the one, the kind that had a key pad, like a flip phone. And so the, the,

The numbers were raised a little bit. So she fills the numbers because she can't see and dials what she thinks is 911 and presses like send. Yep. And crosses her fingers hoping that she was calling the police. Uh-huh. An operator picks up and she is so really...

relieved that she actually dialed 911. Like, she's like, I did it. I dialed it. I feel like I used to do that in school, though. Like, I would text without looking. Looking at the teacher. And then look down and be like, oh. Exactly. So, once the operator answers, though, she realizes that she can't talk because she has this duct tape around her mouth. Oh, yeah. And so, she just...

holds the phone up and starts to just repeat the address of where she's at she just repeats it over and over hoping that they can make it out keep in mind she's badly beaten barely alive and in 17 degree weather in a bin full of snow naked basically i also wonder it makes me wonder while she's in the car doing on the phone like you obviously can't hear but i wonder how loud it was i know i wonder if the girls could hear i don't know you know what i'm saying so dave comes back out

and starts his truck and takes off. And she, you know, she's only recalling this from what she's feeling, right? Okay, he started the truck. Okay, we're driving. A little bit later, Terry hears sirens and squad cars drive by. So she's like, oh my gosh, they found me. But then loses hope as they pass, realizing that

How could they have known she was in the garbage bin in the back of this truck when the place she told him to go was the address? That scene right there is like a movie. Yeah. Like you're in the back of a car and cops drive by you. Wow. So at this point she loses hope. Like she's like, the only way I'm going to get out of this is on my own accord. And she thinks about the kid, her daughters. Like she said, I just kept thinking about my daughters and how he's now with them. And what was he going to do to them?

Like he still had them. Yeah. Mom power. Yeah. She's like, so she finds her cell phone again and her like, she's like, okay, well maybe I can do something with my cell phone again. Like call him back and say, no, we're driving now. I don't know where. So she gets it out and she dials her husband, Nick, because at least Nick knows, knows Dave, you know? And so she's barely able to talk and you can go back and listen to all of these calls. Oh, cause operatives recorded them. And she's like,

just breathing really heavy taking like 15 seconds in between each sentence like barely able to form like a coherent thought like it's sad because you can hear that she's dying but she's trying and so she's barely able to talk and so she tries as hard as she can to tell nick that dave is trying to kill her and that she's in the container in a container in the back of his truck and that he's driving

And so can you imagine getting that call from your wife? No, I can't. My ex-husband, he's trying to kill me. I'm in the back of his car. I don't know where we are, but I'm in a bin. I'm in a bin. My head is duct taped. My hands are duct taped. And so he tells her, hang up and call 911. Like maybe they can track the phone. Like hang up and call 911. So this part for me is the most frustrating part of this case. Oh no, it's going to frustrate me probably. So she calls 911 again.

And dispatch, it like dispatches to not the people she called earlier because he's driving. So it dispatched to a different 911. Like I'm guessing a different county has different whatever. And the dispatcher is not taking her seriously. She thinks it's a prank call because like she can barely talk. And like she's, but I'm like as a dispatcher.

Like if someone calls and can barely talk and sounds out of breath, hi, they're probably in trouble. Oh, I can't even, I can't even talk about that. So like Terry, um, is clearly in distress and you can hear it. Like I had to, I listened to the call and, um, she can't breathe. She's barely alive. It's worse than the first call. And operator questions, basically everything she's saying. She asks her when Terry's like,

My hands are tied. Like she's trying to tell her my, my name is. And then the lady's like, what's your name? What? I can't hear you. What's your name? I can't hear you. And you can go back and listen to it. And she's like, like, she's trying to say it, but she can't. And so then she's like, I have tape over my mouth. Like she's trying to tell her I can't. And, and so then the lady's like, why don't you just stand up? And she's like, I, my hands are tied. My feet are tied. And the lady goes, literally says,

Um, if your hands are tied, how are you holding the phone up to your ear? Oh my gosh. I'm so mad right now. Yeah.

oh this is frustrating me okay keep going so when terry like can't reply so she asks her how are you holding the phone you know and she's like she can't reply like at this point she's about to black out again this whole time she's been going in and out of blacking out like she wakes up and she's still in the back of the car yeah well she's cold she's beaten yeah and so she's about to black out again and so she can't reply and so all you can hear her is like

Like heavy breathing in the back. And the operator says, um, ma'am, do you want to talk to me? Or do you really just want to sit here and breathe deep like that? That's literally what the operator says to her. And like, that's word for word. And then the operator hangs up because she's not replying because she's blacked out.

I thought it was standard, though. Even if you call the police and hang up, they're supposed to. I mean, I guess they can't sit because they don't know where she is. Yeah. Well, and she said, like, she's, I don't know where. I don't know. I'm just driving in the back of my ex-husband. I'm in a container. I'm in a container. Like, she doesn't even know she's in a garbage can. She just knows she's in a container. Yeah.

So that part was just so frustrating to me. Yeah. And in like a lot of the movie part, like the movies about this, when they would interview the detectives and stuff, they wouldn't talk about this call. They left it out of the story because it makes the police look bad. Because how could you do that? I wonder...

I actually can't imagine how many death threats or whatever. I don't even know. Like I did so much research and I never found the name, but I'm sure, I mean, maybe there are people who know, but yeah, like I just, that's so I've heard 911 calls where this is the exact situation. Someone's kidnapped. They can't talk very loud. They can't say very much details and people, the operators find them. They're like, okay, I know you can't talk. Tell me what's around you. Can you find a window? Can you, you know, like they're so good at working with them. And sadly this dispatch just thought it was a prank call.

I wonder if they were getting a bunch of prank calls about this or something. Cause I know there has to be more. Can you imagine being Terry and just sitting there going, I'm about to die. I can feel it. I don't know where I'm going and they aren't taking me seriously. Like they aren't taking me seriously. Everything that could go wrong is going wrong.

So Terry blacks out, obviously after she comes to again and she's still in the back of the truck and she's like, I have to fight. The cops aren't looking for me. They're not taking me seriously. I have to fight. So she scratches. Sorry. So, um, I must've missed this the first time. So they're in a truck. She's sitting like the kids are in the back seat of the truck. It's like a two and she's in the, she's in the bed, the bed of the truck in tipped over with a tarp over her in a trash can. Okay.

So, keep in mind, she's in fetal position in this. Like, you can't fit in a trash can. No. You can't stand up. And so, she's probably just sunken. She's in fetal position. So, she starts to scratch the duct tape off her hands with her thumb. So, she like... Her hands are tied, but she reaches one thumb down and just starts to break the duct tape. And she eventually gets it off. And so, she...

she can't see, she knocks the lid off of the container because it was just sitting on it. And then she reaches around trying to find air. Like she wants, she's thinking in her head, if I can get my hand out of whatever I'm under, someone maybe could see me that's driving past. Oh, okay. So she finally gets her hand out from the tarp. She's like feeling around, gets her hand out from the tarp and just starts waving her hand like crazy. Like maybe someone can see me. Maybe someone can see me.

She fills the truck, start to stop. And then she starts getting beat with a bat again. And he saw her raving her hand. So he knew at this point she's alive. She's still alive. So she hears him say one more stunt like that and I'll just get my 38. He says that to her and then gets back in the car. And so at this point, she's like, I don't want to die. I still want to try to fight. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to play dead from here on out because I, I don't want him to actually kill me. Yeah. Yeah.

So Terry starts going over in this drive in between blackouts. I'm sorry. What? So no one saw him beating her again? So he's just driving in between two, like he's driving to a different state, but it's not far. It's a nearby state. He's going to Illinois. Okay. And so I think he's probably just on like a two lane country road drive. You know what I'm saying? I doubt it's very busy. Yeah.

So Terry, in between blackouts, starts to go over in her head how she thinks Dave's going to kill her. Like, because she's got nothing. And she said to herself, I tried to keep my brain busy because I was scared to pass out again. So she wonders if he'll, you know, I'm in a container. So is he going to drop me in a lake? Is he going to leave me in a forest? And then after that, what's he going to do with the kids? And then she blacks out again.

So she's woken up again because the garbage can she's sitting in starts getting dragged out of the truck. She can hear her daughters playing outside, laughing in the background. So he stopped. This is when he's gotten to the storage unit. He stopped. He let the girls out and then he's dragging her out and she comes to and can hear her kids. Yeah. I just can't even imagine. I can't either.

So she hears things being moved around. She gets dragged somewhere and stopped. And then she can hear things like pounding on top of her. And she doesn't say anything, hoping that Dave will think she's dead. Like this whole time she just stays quiet. She doesn't even like murmur or anything. She then hears a door shut and then she knows, okay, I think he's gone. Like I think I'm in something and he's gone. And so she waits a while, but can you imagine like what time do I start screaming? Yeah.

Like, am I back in the house or am I somewhere else? And at what point do I scream for help? You know? So she waits and then she starts to scream. But she said, I didn't even think about this beforehand, but I just screamed his name. Like I was like, Dave, because she thought, Dave,

Well, maybe if he's still here and he comes in, I can say, oh, I wasn't screaming for help. I was screaming to talk to you like I was trying to get you, you know. But then no one replies and she doesn't hear anything. So she just starts screaming for help as loud as she can. Keep in mind, she's freezing at this point. She's beaten. She's near death. And so it's not very loud, but she's like, I...

I'm just going to scream. She puts her hands down and checks her pockets for her cell phone and realizes it's gone. So at one point while she was blacked out, he took her cell phone. Did. So this storage unit, something I thought of, it's in another state? Yeah. So he, it's not far, but it's like. Isn't that kind of weird to have a storage unit in another state? Or maybe that was normal? I think because he was trying not to draw suspicion. Like hoping if they did checks in the state of,

Wisconsin for he wouldn't have anything pop up. But he's obviously owned it for some amount of time. It was very definitely pre-planned just for this. Got it. Yes. Hola. ¿Cómo está? Hola, ¿cómo estamos? Want to learn a new language? Well, the best way is to uproot your entire life, move to Spain, and live there for the rest of your...

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And between blackouts, she starts to feel like the bin is getting smaller, but really her head is swelling. Oh, no. Because, you know, and she's running out of air because the lid is on and she can't breathe. Okay. And so she starts to push on the lid, unaware that it's duct taped and it is piled on, piled on, piled. And so she's pushing for no reason, but she doesn't know that.

Terry has lost track of time at this point because she's been going in and out of consciousness and she's dying. Her head is swollen. Her eyes are completely swollen shut at this point. She couldn't even open them if she tried. She's freezing. She's bleeding. And so she tries to scrape her hand like through the lid. Like she's like, if I can find the edge of the lid, I can try to scrape my hand. And she said that she only, there was no reason for doing this other than to keep herself awake and like,

on task of doing something because she was scared that the next time she blacked out, she wasn't going to wake back up. That makes sense. So she's like, I just focused on doing this so that I could keep my mind coherent enough and like focused on something so that I wouldn't black out. Smart woman. Super smart. So back at the police station, it's 4 a.m. And detectives go through the evidence again.

He won't tell them where she is. And so they go through all of his stuff and they go through his wallet and they find a business card for a storage unit in a nearby state. And so they call the business and they ask if Dave had rented a unit there. And they say, yeah. And they ask him to check the records and see if he'd been there that day. And they say, yeah.

Oh, yeah. And so they tell the employee to go to Dave's locker and see if they can hear or see anything, see if they can get in. And so the employee comes back to the phone and tells them that he could hear a faint moaning sound coming from the storage unit. No way. And so the police officers race to the unit. They dispatch the local police that are there to the unit.

And they break open the door and they see nobody. And Terry comes to like, she's passed out, but she comes to when she hears the sound and she stays quiet. She won't say anything because she thinks it's him. Even though they're saying we're the police. She like, I think at that point you're so scared. So confused and scared. She doesn't say anything. She won't say anything, even though they're announcing themselves as cops and stuff. And so the cops noticed the garbage can with the duct tape and they literally go, okay,

Okay, well, if there's one place in here that she's hiding, it's in that bin because there's nowhere else she could be hiding. So they start unstacking stuff and they take the duct tape off and they find her in the garbage can. Yes, yes, yes. It was 20 degrees in the storage unit when they found her and her body temperature was 86 degrees.

The officers say that when they lifted off the lid, it didn't even look like a human being. She was completely unrecognizable. She was just stuffed down in a fetal position, head wrapped and bleeding, swollen. So they get her in an ambulance and then she blacks out again. That's all she remembers.

The doctors and surgeons from the hospital say the only reason Terry survived those 26 hours that she was gone was because she had played dead. If he had beaten her even one more time with the bat, she would have died. She had that much brain trauma. Holy crap. They say she was about an hour away from dying of hypothermia when they found her.

There was a lot of obviously bad things that happened, but then there were some good things. Like the storage unit person, he could have come back and said, no, I didn't hear anything. Imagine if she had been blacked out. Yeah. They probably wouldn't have raced there, but she happened to be awake and moaning for help during that time. I'm just honestly still surprised that he heard something through there. I know. I'm sure he was probably just like, what? And she's tucked in there, you know? Yeah. So, technically,

Terry actually had to have all 10 of her toes amputated due to frostbite and they almost had to amputate her arm. But the surgeons were like, Hey, let's just leave it because sometimes tissue like regains, you know, and it did, it regained, she regained full mobility. We grow, we grew. Yeah. So sadly she lost the baby that she was pregnant with due to the beatings. Yeah. Um, and she spent seven weeks in the hospital and had 10 different surgeries. Wow.

The detectives back at the station, once they find her, you know, she's in the hospital, she's fine. They go back into the room because Dave is still in custody because it's only been 26 hours. Wow. And they tell him that they had found Terry in a storage unit and that she was alive. And he put his head in his hands and said, I don't know what you're talking about. That's all he said. And they were like, yeah, you do. And they walked out of the room.

Yeah, exactly. And she's alive to testify against you. Yeah. So he at that point he knew I'm done for. She was alive. How could she still be alive? Oh, man, this this makes me so mad. I'm glad she's alive. But it's just how can you do that to somebody?

On August 16th, 2005, David Larson was sentenced to 35 years in prison for attempted first degree intentional homicide because he didn't actually kill her. And this is the part of the justice system that sucks is if he had killed her, it would have been life in prison, probably without possibility of parole. But because she lived even just barely an hour away from death, he got 35 years, which is still a lot.

But it just, I, you know. How old is he at this point? Do you know? No, I don't. But I mean, I'm guessing 40s, 50s, somewhere around there. So he, there's a chance he might not even be alive when he comes out of prison. Well, don't worry, actually, because in 2010, David tried to escape prison. So now he really is in prison for life. Oh, okay. Well.

I know. Well, according to Journal Times, he was trying to fake a medical emergency, but they had found his plans like written out beforehand. And so they knew. And so as soon as he started faking it, they arrested him. They were like, we know you're trying to escape. And so he was actually moved to a heavy duty maximum security prison because of it. And he'll be there for life. Yeah, that one deserves a yay. I'm so glad they found her. I know me too. Because I think I would have...

Just walked away. I know. They didn't find her. I know. It was such a bad story. But it was a good story. Because she survived. I was making so many. Whoa. Wow. Crazy. Just because I was so hyped up during this. So if you find that annoying. I'm sorry. No. So.

This story is truly a sad case of the trouble and error that comes with domestic violence cases. Terry had called the cops multiple times on his abuse beforehand. They, she had taken pictures of her wounds and the police had taken pictures of her wounds from his abuse. It was in their files and the DA had decided not to press charges. Um,

Why is it so hard to get help and justice when you need it? Why couldn't this have been prevented? It could have, and it should have. The reason that Dave thought he could get away with killing Terry is because he had gotten away with bad behavior for years from the law and was never punished for it. Terry has since become an advocate in fighting domestic violence and standing with victims. She helped draft the Wisconsin's Safe Act, which

which takes weapons out of the hands of abusers so when she filed for a restraining order they said okay you have to turn in all of your guns but unless they had a warrant they couldn't go to the house and confiscate his guns okay so she now has made it that if you get a restraining order filed against you the cops can automatically go to your house and check for guns which is

That's great. But it also does kind of suck that people can still use knives and bats, right? Yeah, exactly, right. You use the bat. But still, it helps. I mean, she's alive, right? Yeah. She is also the chairman of Marcy's Law, which is a victim's right initiative that gives victims constitutional rights. She also goes around every year and does conferences on domestic abuse, domestic violence, like what to look for signs, how to get out of it. Here are some resources. Like she has gone full force in helping women in

In domestic violence situations, get help. Great job. That's awesome. Terry says to this day, if you have kids or someone you want to stay alive for, that's enough. Terry and Nick have since had a son, and that's the attempted murder of Terry, Jandusa, and Nicole. So Nick and Terry are still married? I think. Oh. Most of the sources said that they just had a son, but then I was watching some interviews and

And she was kind of, I don't know. I just couldn't get a read on it. So I'm not going to say yes for sure, but I am going to tell you that they had another baby after she lost that one and it was a boy. Okay. So yeah, she did so good. Yeah.

That's crazy. That was, I said that a lot, but that was pretty, that was like a movie. I know. All, I say this like on all of them. They're all, I mean, they're all pretty movie-ish. It's because I'm such a good storyteller. It is why. By the way, my wife does a lot of research and spends a lot of time researching these. Just wanted to throw that out there. So. No. I,

I'm proud of her. At least I like doing the research. It's a lot better than writing an eight-page research paper on something I didn't like like I used to do in school. But it's just a lot more work than I thought. I thought, oh, yeah, we can do a podcast and you can research for 20 minutes and we'll start it. But no, it's hours and hours and hours. Yeah.

I want to make sure that I get all the details correct, that I'm crediting the people I need to credit. That's good. And that it's a good story. I have to get all the details because once I get all the details, I write it in a way that's like, I didn't tell you she was alive yet, you know, but then, you know, stuff like that to make it more intriguing for you. Yeah. So basically you should share the podcast with,

All of your family and friends and everybody you know because she's put a lot of work into doing this. Well, I hope you guys like it. I mean, but if you do like it, seriously, please share. Word of mouth is an awesome way. It's the best marketing possible. And thank you to

everyone who's left reviews goodness gracious i feel like we have just gotten a ton of ratings and reviews it's true and it means so much and if you haven't yet and you enjoy it please go rate and review please subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on also follow us on our social medias it's murder with my husband we're on twitter instagram and facebook and

I will be posting pictures and any type of content that goes along with this story on all of our platforms. So if you're wanting to, you know, see the faces behind the stories and details like that, then definitely go follow. It's an easy way so you don't have to go search it and find it on your own. Yep. And yeah, that's the attempted murder of Terry Gendusa Nicole. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.