Danielle Redlick and Michael Redlick’s relationship and eventual marriage were quite different from any regular couple. Michael was Danielle’s stepfather, and when her mother passed away from breast cancer, the two grew close and gradually got into a relationship, leading to marriage.
However, the shock factor of the relationship does not end here. Danielle was 22 years old when she started dating Michael, who was then 39 years old. The couple shared two children as well. However, after spending almost 25 years together, on January 11, 2019, Danielle stabbed Michael to death and then tried to portray the whole thing first as a heart attack and then as an act of self-defense.
Talking about how their relationship started, Danielle said that Michael would visit her workplace after her mother passed and added, “I grew to enjoy it. He was kind of worldly and smart, so these were new and exciting things for me. At some point it turned into a romantic relationship.”
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While Danielle claimed that she had stabbed Michael to defend herself after she was attacked by him, their adult daughter Jaydn made it clear that her mother was the problem in the relationship. She wrote to the prosecutors asking for a no-contact order so that she and her brother could live away from Danielle.
Jaydn’s letter mentioned, “You may all be fooled by the incredible mask this woman presents to you all, but I am not. My father did not get away in time, and I am so worried for my brother. Judge, please make some kind of stipulation that Danielle not be allowed near myself and Sawyer.”
Danielle, however, said that Michael started cheating on her, and when she left, he begged her to come back. She also claimed that Michael had threatened that he would take their children away. When Danielle also started talking to other men, Michael did not take that well and became jealous and angry.
Michael and Danielle Redlick’s daughter recalled the last time she talked to her father before her mother fatally stabbed him. #DanielleRedlickTrial pic.twitter.com/WJ5Mb6Jtx6
— Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) June 13, 2022
On the night of the fateful incident, the couple got into a physical fight, and according to Danielle, she was smothered and choked by Michael, and that’s why she stabbed him so she could save herself. However, her later accounts showed discrepancies, as she did not make an immediate call to 911, and there was a gap of almost 11 hours between the incident and the call.
Highlighting the gap, state prosecutor Sean Wiggins stated, “The evidence will show that, from the start, this defendant did everything she could to avoid responsibility for her actions.” At first, she told the operators that her husband had suffered a heart attack. However, the doctor did not find any signs of a heart attack, and Danielle then claimed that Michael had stabbed himself before ultimately accepting that she had stabbed him.
She was taken into custody but evaded the charges of second-degree murder. However, Danielle had tried to clean up the blood at the crime scene to make it look like something else.
Since she had tampered with evidence where her husband died, she was given a year of probation and walked free in 2022. During her probation, Danielle received credit for her time in jail.
