MANKATO, Minn. (WCCO) — For the first time, we’re hearing a Minnesota woman’s chilling words as she describes the killing of her husband.
“It was horrible! It was horrible! Once it happened, I thought, ‘Oh, my God! What did I do? What did I do,’” said Jennifer Nibbe during the police interrogation.
She will soon stand trial, accused of killing James Nibbe in their Lake Crystal home in the summer of 2010. The town is southwest of Mankato in southern Minnesota.
The intense interrogation gives us some insight into how she felt following the murder.
“I don’t know how I’m going to live with this the rest of my life. I don’t know,” she told a special agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and a detective with the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Department.
Jennifer Nibbe reported a burglar broke into her family’s home, grabbed a shotgun and killed her husband. A week after James Nibbe was found dead, police blamed her. Court documents revealed they didn’t buy her story from the start.
Detectives suspected Jennifer Nibbe herself killed James, after discovering gaps in her story. She told the sheriff she heard that fatal gunshot while in the shower, but soon after, she told a deputy she heard it while brushing her teeth. Investigators also did not find fresh tire tracks or footprints that rainy August morning.
“And that’s why I made it to look like someone tried to hurt me and came in,” said Jennifer Nibbe during the interrogation.
She told the investigators she struggled with drugs and felt unhappy in her marriage. She firmly denied her son was involved when asked.
“I swear to God. No. I swear to God,” she repeated to investigators.
Nibbe talked several times during the interrogation about killing.
“I took somebody’s son, and I killed somebody’s brother and grandson and uncle,” she said. “I know Jim is in heaven, and that Brady will someday go to heaven. And if I try to take my own life, I won’t be with them.”
Detectives said that Nibbe had multiple motives. She was thousands in debt from a drug habit and was the beneficiary of her husband’s life insurance policy. She also admitted to sending nude photographers to a male friend.
What happened in the Lake Crystal home has detectives pointing the finger only at Jennifer Nibbe. A woman who says she cared about her husband is now the one charged with murdering him.
The Judge in Jennifer Nibbe’s murder trial will allow just about all her statements to police to be heard in court. The pre-trial hearing happens in early March.
