The killer who hid the woman he killed in the refrigerator for 9 months: Bernie Theede

To date, several very interesting, unusual or brutal murders have been committed in different parts of the world. Some of these murders had very strange motives. Others were done purely out of pure malice. However, regardless of the reason and method, almost all murders harbored anger and even hatred towards the perpetrator of this inhuman act. However, the murder committed in the United States in 1996 did not change the attitude of the inhabitants of the region towards the killer. In fact, a killer named Bernie Theede won the admiration of some residents when he killed 81-year-old Marjorie Nugent. Let’s get into the details of this interesting murder case together.

Bernhardt Tiede, or Bernie Tiede as he is known in the region where he lived, was born on August 2, 1958 in Abilene, Texas, USA.

He was only 3 years old when his mother died. When you were 15, your father died. Chiede started working at a funeral home after graduating from high school.

In 1985, at the age of 27, he left his birthplace and returned to Carthage, Texas.

The area was a small settlement with a population of only 6,500 people. Bernie Theede, who started working as an assistant director of Hawthorn Funeral Home here, quickly became a favorite with the locals. A very cheerful person in his personal life, Tiede was known for his efforts to alleviate the pain of the people of the region who had lost their loved ones.

He did not hesitate to make great efforts to give them some comfort, visiting them days or even months after their funeral to check on their condition. Thanks to this benevolence and self-sacrifice, Tiede soon became one of the most beloved members of the small Carthaginian community.

Bernie Theede met an elderly woman named Marjorie Nugent at a funeral in 1990.

Nugent lost his wife, who was previously in the oil business, thus amassing a large fortune. Chiede also decided to help this elderly woman who had recently lost her husband.

A few days after the ceremony, he knocked on her door to check if the woman was okay. Tiede later said of this visit:Looks like he didn’t have any friends. I felt obligated to befriend him.would make a statement. After this visit, a relationship began between them, which will become very interesting in the future. However, the benevolent Bernie Theide had no idea what would happen to him because of this relationship …

The relationship between Thiede and Nugent was met with great astonishment by the people of Carthage.

Because according to the locals, the best man in town was with the worst man in town!

Nugent was a mean, mean man who used his family’s wealth as a tool of dominance, and almost none of the townspeople liked him. So much so that he did not even meet with his children and grandchildren, so as not to share his wealth.

Tiede made the correct diagnosis when he first visited the old woman: this lonely woman had no friends. But still, it was surprising that even such a good and benevolent person as Tiede befriended such a bad person as Nugent…

The unexpected rapprochement between Thiede and Nugent caused all sorts of rumors in the city of Carthage.

According to some reports, the two fell in love with each other. However, Tiede later explained that he saw the old woman as a mother. According to some reports, Chiede wanted to take advantage of the old woman’s wealth, so she even endured communication with such a bad person. Despite all these rumors, the duo continued their relationship, which is not very clear from the outside.

In 1993, Marjorie Nugent completely handed over control of her fortune to a man named Bernie Theede.

Tiede paid the old lady’s bills, checked her accounts, kept track of her financial transactions. In short, the once-beloved funeral director became Nugent’s full-time employee… Nugent, who had taken full control of his relationship with Tiede, wanted him to take care of himself 24 hours a day, keeping the young man on his toes.

Tiede, on the other hand, could not find the strength and courage to end this troubled relationship… In the coming years, Tiede will make the following statement on the subject:He controlled me so much that he felt he could possess me, and I think he did that to some extent.”

Tiede, whose life has been turned into a nightmare by the old woman’s pressure, did what she shouldn’t have done to get rid of her…

Bernie Theede shot the old woman three times on November 19, 1996! He wrapped the woman’s body in a sheet and put the body in the freezer! Then he continued to live, as in his old happy days. And for some reason he was even more generous than before! He donated nearly $2 million to the city of Carthage and its people…

The absence of the old woman did not bother any of the townspeople, but her absence began to attract attention.

To those who asked about the old woman, Chiede said that she sometimes rested at home, and sometimes was outside the city. When the woman’s absence attracted attention, he concocted a lie that the elderly woman had a stroke while visiting a relative in the country, and so began a long process of treatment. However, the old woman’s children decided to visit their mother on August 18, 1997, exactly 9 months after the murder. Of course, they were accompanied by the police…

At the end of their search, the police found the lifeless body of an old woman in a freezer.

Bernie Theede confessed to killing the then 81-year-old woman. Word of the murder quickly spread throughout the city of only a few thousand people. If the killer and the victim in the murder case were any other two people, the reaction of the townspeople would be very different.

However, Bernie Theede, who killed an 81-year-old woman and kept her body in a freezer for 9 months, did not cause a reaction in any of the residents of the area. There were even those who appreciated him for the murder he committed. So much so that the murder case was moved to another region due to the active support of the killer by the townspeople.

Bernie Theide sentenced to life in prison a week after capture

But in 2014, defense lawyers found some evidence that could have influenced the outcome of the case. Accordingly, as a child, Thide was sexually abused by a family member. He committed the murder due to the psychological breakdown caused by this situation. Thus, a decision was made to retrial the murderer. Tide was released at this time. However, at his most recent trial on April 22, 2016, he was sentenced to 99 years in prison for murder.