4 years later, prison guard faces murder charges

Nichole Riley-Lemcke told her parents in the months leading up to her 2004 death that "if anything ever happens to me, you know where to look."

Her marriage had crumbled and she suspected her husband, Andrew Gordon Lemcke, was committing insurance fraud. The morning of her death, she told a male friend that she didn't want to go home because she knew something was going to happen.

Just a few hours later, Riley-Lemcke was dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

A Minnesota grand jury determined Lemcke, 34, now a Florence resident and prison corrections officer, will be charged in his wife's death at the couple's home in Appleton, Minn., on Sept. 12, 2004, according to Lemcke's attorney, Brian Wojtalewicz.

Lemcke turned himself in Sunday at the Johnson Ranch substation of the Pinal County Sheriff's Office on a Minnesota warrant issued Nov. 14.

Lemcke has dodged charges in the killing after telling police the shooting was accidental.

"It's a tragedy that happened 4 1/2 years ago," Wojtalewicz said. "We gave a complete account to the police about what happened."

That account, he says, includes details about a combative and drunken Riley-Lemcke threatening her husband with a revolver early that morning.

Lemcke said he awoke to a gunshot and saw his wife standing above him with the firearm in her hand, Wojtalewicz said.

The night before, Riley-Lemcke drank heavily and physically fought with one of her friends, he claims.

Following the gunshot, she screamed the name of an ex-boyfriend, and according to Wojtalewicz, Lemcke assumed she thought he was the same man. He said he attempted to wrestle the gun away from her when it fired. Riley-Lemcke, 26, died at an Appleton hospital from a wound that pierced the bottom of her chin.

She left behind three children and her parents, Gary and Kim Riley, said theWest Central Tribune paper in Willmar, Minn.

A wrongful death lawsuit, filed by her parents in September 2007, claims Riley-Lemcke was inexperienced with firearms and did not like having Lemcke's gun in the home. She also ran a licensed day care center through the home, which outlaws the storage of an unprotected loaded gun, according to Minnesota law.

Over the past four years, few details have been released about the incident. A grand jury listened to testimony for the case in 2005, but didn't indict Lemcke.

Police haven't confirmed the amount of evidence stacked for or against Lemcke. Even his attorney doesn't know about any new evidence that may warrant murder charges.

The Swift County Attorney's Office and the Rileys' attorney did not return messages for comment Friday.

"It's very frustrating, I can't tell you all of the emotions," Kim Riley told the West Central Tribune in 2006. "You go to bed with it. You wake up with it."

A Pinal County sheriff's jail cell holds Lemcke until his extradition to Minnesota on charges of first and second degree murder, said sheriff's spokeswoman Vanessa White. His transfer date will not be released for security reasons, she said.

Lemcke has since been placed on administrative leave from his position with the Correction Corporation of America, company spokesman Scott Owen said.

As a corrections officer, Lemcke was responsible for the "safety and security of the inmates, public and staff" at the 1,824-cell medium-security Florence Correctional Center, said spokeswoman Bertha Montano.

"I believe he revealed (the incident), but I'm not sure what went on by allowing him stay on," Montano said of the company which hired Lemcke in July 2006. "Because he had not been indicted and there was no charges pending, he was hired on."