A missing Wisconsin woman abducted by her ex-husband was found alive but severely beaten Sunday inside a garbage can in a Wheeling storage facility, police said.
The muffled cries of Teri Jendusa-Nicolai (the name as published has been corrected here and in subsequent references in this text), 38, of Norway, Wis., were heard by a Public Storage employee who had been asked to search the facility in the 900 block of South Milwaukee Avenue after police said they learned Jendusa-Nicolai’s ex-husband had rented space there.
Jendusa-Nicolai had been stuffed partially clothed inside a 3-foot-tall green plastic garbage can hidden under some boxes in a 4-by-8 foot unheated unit, police said.
“I believe he left her for dead,” Racine County Sheriff Robert Carlson said of Jendusa-Nicolai’s ex-husband, David Larsen, 39, an air traffic controller. The couple had a history of domestic problems and filed for divorce in November 1999, Carlson said.
“It was a difficult marriage and even more difficult divorce,” he said.
Jendusa-Nicolai likely was in the unheated storage unit for at least 18 hours, police said. Temperatures outside dipped to 12 degrees overnight.
She was listed in serious condition late Sunday at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.
Jendusa-Nicolai’s rescue was a relief to her family, who were terrified Saturday with the disappearance not only of her but also of her two young daughters. Amanda Larsen, 6, and Holly Larsen, 4, were found with a baby-sitter Larsen had left them with.
Jendusa-Nicolai had last been heard from when she made a 911 call from her cell phone Saturday afternoon, saying Larsen had bound her hands and placed her in the back of his truck.
A neighbor said they saw Larsen driving away from his home in his pickup truck Saturday morning, towing a trailer with his ex-wife’s car on it. Jendusa-Nicolai’s empty 1994 silver Camry was later found parked on a Milwaukee street, near a rental property owned by Larsen, Carlson said.
“She’s alive and recovered. And for that, we are profoundly grateful,” Carlson said, adding that police believe she was beaten with some sort of weapon.
Larsen was being held by Wheeling police Sunday on a charge of false imprisonment. Other charges likely will be filed Monday against him, police said.
