Wanda Krumwiede

• Missing Since 06/14/1995
• Missing From Lyons, Nebraska
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Age 48 years old
• Height and Weight 5'6, 115 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics White female. Gray hair, blue eyes.

Details of Disappearance

Wanda was last seen Lyons, Nebraska on the night of June 14, 1995. She left the grocery store where she worked part-time as a cashier, and a neighbor saw her arrived home at 2:00 a.m. She spoke to her son in Fremont, Nebraska that day and agreed to babysit his two children later in the week. She never showed up for work for the rest of the week, never came to watch his grandchildren as she had said she would, and has never been heard from again.

When police checked her house, the doors were locked, the windows were open and nothing appeared to be disturbed. Both vehicles Wanda drove were left behind at home, and the keys were inside the residence. Only her purse was missing.

In October 1996, Wanda's estranged husband Wilhelm F. "Bill" Krumwiede was charged with her murder. She went missing shortly after filing for divorce and a protective order; in her application for a protective order she cited her husband's temper and said she feared how he might react when he found out she wanted a divorce. Wilhelm contested the divorce, and was ordered to pay her alimony.

Neighbors reported seeing heavy, oily-smelling black smoking coming from the wood stove in Wilhelm's workshop two days after Wanda disappeared. Authorities found a temple fragment of a pair of eyeglasses, identified as the kind of glasses Wanda wore, in the stove as well as burned copies of the couple's 1969 wedding announcement. A few drops of blood, matching Wanda's DNA, were found on the tailgate of Wilhelm's pickup truck.

Wilhelm's first trial, in 1997, ended in a mistrial, as the prosecution had failed to disclose some of their evidence to the defense. During the second trial, in 1998, after five days the judge dismissed the charges, saying there was insufficient evidence to support the murder case.

The same judge granted the Krumwiedes' divorce after the second trial and divided the couple's assets. Wanda was awarded ownership of all her personal effects and a $135,000 property settlement, to be paid in installments over ten years. After the divorce, Wilhelm's attorney argued that as state law requires the liability for debts incurred by a married couple to be shared, Wanda's estate should be made to help pay her husband's legal bills he incurred from the two murder trials. He owed $120,000.

This issue went to the Nebraska Supreme Court, which ruled that the divorce should never have been granted. The court issued an opinion stating, "Simply put, before a marriage can be dissolved, both parties must be alive" and that in spite of her husband's acquittal, "there was no proof Wanda was alive at the time of the dissolution."

Wilhelm was killed in a vehicular accident in 2003, at age 66. Wanda has never been found and no one else has been charged in her case.