It was a case that kept the researchers of St. Paul, Minnesota, awake through the night as they worked to bring justice to a family of more than 13 years.
In the early morning hours of April 25, 2010, 911 dispatchers received a frantic call from 25-year-old Heidi Firkus.
“Somebody’s trying to break into my house,” Heidi Firkus told the dispatcher in audio obtained by ABC News.
The call ended abruptly with a loud bang. Just 65 seconds later, she got another call, this time from her husband, 27-year-old Nick Firkus.
“My wife’s shot, someone’s broken into our house,” Nick Firkus yelled into the phone. “They shot me.”
Rachel Firkus talks to “20/20’s” Deborah Roberts about her ex-husband’s murder conviction.
ABC News
Nick Firkus had a gunshot wound to his thigh. Heidi Firkus had been shot in the upper back and was unresponsive.
Heidi Firkus died at the scene.
In a video interview obtained by “20/20,” Nick Firkus told police the story of a robbery gone wrong.
Nick Firkus said he woke up to a suspicious noise at his front door, grabbed his shotgun and alerted his sleeping wife.
Nick Firkus claimed that the gun went off during a life-or-death battle with the robber and that the gun went off twice, hitting Heidi Firkus and then himself.
Nick and Heidi Firkus are seen in this undated family photo.
Courtesy of the Firkus family
“I don’t remember exactly what happened, but the gun went off. So my fingers slid to the trigger, they fired,” Nick Firkus told Sgt. Jim Gray of the Police Department of St. Paul.
The Firkus’ house was clean and tidy, and the entry table by the front door was quiet.
An extensive search of the neighborhood and a K9 search turned up no sign of an intruder.
“I thought it was a black man, but I wasn’t quite sure,” said Sgt. Jim Gray told ABC News in an interview.
Nick Firkus told Gray the couple had financial problems. They were over $15,000 in credit card debt and lost their home.
None of their friends or family knew they were to be evicted the next day. Investigators found no signs the couple was packing to move.
“It didn’t seem like anyone was planning to go on a long vacation, let alone move out of the house,” Commander Jake Peterson said in an interview with ABC News.
In a review of correspondence between the couple and financial documents found in the home, investigators could find no evidence that Heidi Firkus knew of the impending eviction.
Finally, Gray asked the big question; “Did he have anything to do with it? [the murder]?”
“No,” said Nick Firkus. “Absolutely not.”
Nick and Heidi Firkus are seen in this undated family photo.
Courtesy of the Firkus family
Nick Firkus hired a defense attorney, Joe Friedberg, who recommended that he stop contacting the St. Louis Police Department. Paul.
On the advice of his attorney, Nick Firkus declined the SPPD’s request to sit down with a police cartoonist to create a composite of the alleged intruder.
“I knew they were going to use it as leverage to try and question him more. So, I said, no, we’re not going to do it, but we’re going to hire an artist and we’re going to do it,” Friedberg told ABC News.
Nick Firkus and Joe Friedberg returned to SPPD with their own sketch of the alleged intruder who Nick said was a black male in his 30s wearing a hoodie.
Police released the sketch to the media to see if there were any tips. Years later, a woman identified Michael Pye to police as a possible match.
“We started investigating him immediately and started to learn that he was involved in a pattern of breaking into homes in St. Paul around six o’clock in the morning,” Peterson said.
However, Pye was jailed on the day of Heidi Firkus’ murder. The authorities later cleared him of any involvement in Heidi’s death.
A few months after Heidi Firkus’ death, Nick Firkus met Rachel Watson.
“I definitely felt sorry for him that he had to go through such trauma,” Rachel said in an interview with ABC News.
After a year of dating, in August 2012, Rachel and Nick got married.
The couple had three children and moved into a house that Nick Firkus’ parents bought for them.
Nick and Rachel had an agreement where they would pay the mortgage amount to Nick’s parents and Nick Firkus would pay the property taxes directly to the county.
Rachel Firkus found a notice at her home saying she was delinquent on her property taxes and that her home was in danger of foreclosure.
Rachel Firkus said her mind immediately went to Heidi Firkus’ death.
“I didn’t know this was happening and I’m living with this person. I have children with this person, and the last time he had problems with finances, a lot of things went wrong,” she said.
Rachel Firkus decided to confront Nick Firkus and recorded the conversations, which have been obtained exclusively by ABC News.
In one recording, Rachel Firkus said, “The fact that your lie was so easy to pull off in front of me over and over again makes me think . . .”
“That he could murder my wife?” answered. She replied, “Yes.”
The couple divorced in 2018.
In 2019, Sgt. Nichole Sipes of the St. Louis Police Department. Paul took a new look at the death of Heidi Frikus.
“The case always bothered me because the circumstances didn’t seem to fit what happened,” Sipes told “20/20.”
Sipes contacted the FBI to help reconstruct audio data from the 911 call to see if there was evidence of a third person in the home.
Rachel Firkus talks to “20/20’s” Deborah Roberts about her ex-husband’s murder conviction.
ABC News
“There was no background noise that we could detect,” said FBI agent Pat Reilly.
The FBI also combined its ballistics evidence and a virtual model of Heidi and Nick Firkus’ home to show that the shots were likely not “accidental” in the middle of a struggle, but deliberate.
However, Nick’s lawyers countered that these findings did not necessarily disprove their version of events.
When Sipes learned of Nick Firkus’ recent divorce from his second wife, he contacted Rachel Firkus, who shared his suspicions.
“She could have been a victim, too,” Sipes said.
In May 2021, Nick Firkus was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of his ex-wife. A grand jury later indicted him for first-degree murder.
Ramsey County prosecutors argued that Nick Firkus hid the details of his financial problems from his wife and killed her because of the shame of her impending eviction.
“It would not only be the loss of this house, but the realization that he had lied to his wife and his friends, he had lied to the community for many years,” Ramsey. County Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lamin said “20/20.”
Robert Richman, Nick Firkus’ defense attorney, denied those allegations.
In addition to the financial evidence, prosecutors also found only Nick Firkus’ DNA on the gun, and several witnesses testified that there was no sign of kickbacks.
Nick Firkus’ lawyers claimed the intruder was wearing gloves and was only in the house for a couple of seconds so he couldn’t leave DNA evidence.
On February 10, after four hours of deliberations, the jury found Nick Firkus guilty of murder. He was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole.
His family declined an ABC News request for an interview, but issued a statement in support of him.
“He was wrongfully convicted and is in prison for a crime he did not commit. This is not just the belief of the grieving parents,” the statement read in part.
