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Ex-Navy officer who had wife killed dies after prison attack
Posted to: Crime Military News Virginia Beach
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Michael Fricke
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By Jen McCaffery
The Virginian-Pilot
© July 31, 2010
VIRGINIA BEACH
In the end, the deaths of both Roxanne and Michael Fricke were violent.
On May 13, 1988, the 31-year-old Navy wife was shot to death in the parking lot of a Kempsville Road supermarket.
More than 22 years later, her husband, serving time for hiring someone to kill her, died after he was attacked by another inmate at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Former Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Fricke, 54, was about a month away from being released for the crime when he died Thursday after being beaten with a baseball bat in a fight.
"All we can say is, God takes care of everything," said Roxanne Fricke's mother, Elizabeth Wade, in a phone interview. "Maybe not the way we want it to be taken care of. But I did not want him to walk outside prison walls."
The high-profile case went on for about 15 years, starting with the investigation of the murder and wending its way through military and civilian courts.
Two other men who were implicated as the middleman and triggerman in the murder-for-hire plot eventually had all charges dismissed against them.
Fricke wasn't charged in his wife's death until about five years after it occurred.
By the time he was arrested in 1993, he was living in Ohio with a new wife and family.
During Fricke's court-martial in 1994 at Norfolk Naval Station, he faced the death sentence. He could have become the only Navy man on the military's death row.
Before the prosecution finished its case, however, Fricke pleaded guilty to premeditated murder, avoiding a possible death sentence.
Fricke told the judge that he and his wife had been having marital problems and that he was afraid she would divorce him and take their son away.
He said he made a deal with a man who had been stationed with him at Oceana Naval Air Station to find someone to kill his wife.
Fricke promised to pay the man $25,000. He had taken a $100,000 life insurance policy out on his wife shortly before her death.
He said he paid a middleman $13,000 but didn't know who actually committed the murder.
Fricke said he got his wife to drive to the supermarket on the day of her death by asking her to buy him contact lens solution.
"We talked about it and she said, 'Can it wait?' and I said go ahead and go," Fricke said.
As Roxanne Fricke tried to drive out of the parking lot, she was shot in the head and neck.
Fricke had served 16 years of the 30-year sentence he received for her murder. He was eligible for parole after 10 years.
Fricke was scheduled to be released to Edgewater, Fla., next month.
Wade said members of Fricke's family, including the couple's son, who was 13 months old at the time of the murder, live there.
On July 24, however, Fricke was with several inmates playing sports on a field at Fort Leavenworth, according Rebecca Steed, a spokeswoman there.
A fight broke out between Fricke and another inmate and the other inmate attacked Fricke with a baseball bat, according to Steed. Fricke was taken by helicopter to a local medical facility.
He died Thursday about 11:50 a.m. after his family authorized taking him off life support.
Messages left for relatives of Michael Fricke were not returned.
Jen McCaffery, (757) 222-5119, jen.mccaffery@pilotonline.com
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/07/exnavy-officer-who-had-wife-killed-dies-after-prison-attack
Posted to: Crime Military News Virginia Beach
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Michael Fricke Roxanne FrickeRelated
- Man who had wife killed in Va. Beach in '88 to be freed - Jul. 2
- Archives: Fricke hired killer, witness says - Jul. 2
- Archives: Fricke likely to spend 20 to 25 years in jail - Jul. 2
By Jen McCaffery
The Virginian-Pilot
© July 31, 2010
VIRGINIA BEACH
In the end, the deaths of both Roxanne and Michael Fricke were violent.
On May 13, 1988, the 31-year-old Navy wife was shot to death in the parking lot of a Kempsville Road supermarket.
More than 22 years later, her husband, serving time for hiring someone to kill her, died after he was attacked by another inmate at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Former Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Fricke, 54, was about a month away from being released for the crime when he died Thursday after being beaten with a baseball bat in a fight.
"All we can say is, God takes care of everything," said Roxanne Fricke's mother, Elizabeth Wade, in a phone interview. "Maybe not the way we want it to be taken care of. But I did not want him to walk outside prison walls."
The high-profile case went on for about 15 years, starting with the investigation of the murder and wending its way through military and civilian courts.
Two other men who were implicated as the middleman and triggerman in the murder-for-hire plot eventually had all charges dismissed against them.
Fricke wasn't charged in his wife's death until about five years after it occurred.
By the time he was arrested in 1993, he was living in Ohio with a new wife and family.
During Fricke's court-martial in 1994 at Norfolk Naval Station, he faced the death sentence. He could have become the only Navy man on the military's death row.
Before the prosecution finished its case, however, Fricke pleaded guilty to premeditated murder, avoiding a possible death sentence.
Fricke told the judge that he and his wife had been having marital problems and that he was afraid she would divorce him and take their son away.
He said he made a deal with a man who had been stationed with him at Oceana Naval Air Station to find someone to kill his wife.
Fricke promised to pay the man $25,000. He had taken a $100,000 life insurance policy out on his wife shortly before her death.
He said he paid a middleman $13,000 but didn't know who actually committed the murder.
Fricke said he got his wife to drive to the supermarket on the day of her death by asking her to buy him contact lens solution.
"We talked about it and she said, 'Can it wait?' and I said go ahead and go," Fricke said.
As Roxanne Fricke tried to drive out of the parking lot, she was shot in the head and neck.
Fricke had served 16 years of the 30-year sentence he received for her murder. He was eligible for parole after 10 years.
Fricke was scheduled to be released to Edgewater, Fla., next month.
Wade said members of Fricke's family, including the couple's son, who was 13 months old at the time of the murder, live there.
On July 24, however, Fricke was with several inmates playing sports on a field at Fort Leavenworth, according Rebecca Steed, a spokeswoman there.
A fight broke out between Fricke and another inmate and the other inmate attacked Fricke with a baseball bat, according to Steed. Fricke was taken by helicopter to a local medical facility.
He died Thursday about 11:50 a.m. after his family authorized taking him off life support.
Messages left for relatives of Michael Fricke were not returned.
Jen McCaffery, (757) 222-5119, jen.mccaffery@pilotonline.com
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/07/exnavy-officer-who-had-wife-killed-dies-after-prison-attack
