LACROSSE, Wis. – A suburban Shelby woman found dead in a bedroom at her house two days ago was savagely beaten, according to a criminal complaint against her husband. An autopsy found 50 sharp force injuries on her body and four bite wounds, the complaint said. State Crime Lab investigators were quoted that blood was smeared on the walls. The body, covered in blood, was in the bedroom. She had a knife in one hand, but her wounds, investigators said, did not seem to be self-inflicted. Inexplicably the criminal complaint doesn’t identify the woman except as E.F. It is her husband, Zachary W. Fritz, whom the complaint accuses of first-degree murder. When deputies arrived in response t a 911 call, the husband was in the house and covered in his wife’s blood, according to the complaint. Deputies quote Fritz as saying his wife killed herself.
Verbatim
Andrew Burdick, assistant prosecutor: “This is a situation where the defendant was found in the home covered in his wife’s blood The defendant said that she had killed herself. The stab wounds, the bite marks on her face the blunt force trauma was not consistent with the self-inflicted injury.”