On the morning of April 25, 2010, at about 6:30 a.m., Heidi Firkus called 911 from her Saint Paul, Minnesota, home and told a dispatcher someone was trying to break in. A loud bang punctuated the call; the line went silent. About a minute later, Heidi’s husband, Nick Firkus, called 911 saying that he and his wife had both been shot. Paramedics found Heidi unresponsive; she had been hit by a shotgun blast and died at the scene. Nick was taken to the hospital with a grazed thigh wound.
Nick told police a narrative that evening and the next day: he had been awakened, retrieved a shotgun, and told Heidi to head downstairs to the front door where an intruder appeared to be forcing the screen or knob. He said a struggle ensued at the doorway, the gun discharged, Heidi was struck in the back and ran to the kitchen where she died, and Nick himself had been shot in the leg by the intruder. Police found a shotgun in the foyer near the front door.
From the start, some investigators and neighbors found elements of the account puzzling. A next-door house sitter, Branden O’Connor, said he heard a muffled argument and then anguished cries—he thought he heard someone shouting words like “You shot her.” Detectives, including Sergeant Jim Gray, later described discrepancies: officers found no sign of the kind of violent scuffle Nick described—no overturned items or other evidence of a third person struggling at the doorway. Reenactments suggested that from the bedroom the sound of the front door being fiddled with would not have been audible. Detectives also questioned why Heidi, reportedly asleep upstairs, would be sent in front of Nick down the stairs toward an alleged intruder.
Investigators returned to the Firkus home and issued a sketch of an alleged intruder. Over the months and years that followed, police pursued leads but found no credible evidence of a third person’s presence: there was no DNA or fingerprint evidence linking anyone else to the scene, and the door marks were judged not to show a recent forced entry consistent with Nick’s account. Detectives also examined the living situation—Nick and Heidi had purchased a house that strained their finances, and by March 2010 the mortgage was in arrears; foreclosure documents showed they had lost the home to foreclosure and were unaware, investigators later contended, that eviction proceedings had been underway.
Detective Nichole Sipes, who took over the case years later, reviewed the files in depth. She says the financial timeline and communications showed Heidi did not know the extent of their financial problems—texts and emails did not demonstrate that Nick had told Heidi they were facing imminent eviction. Sipes told prosecutors she came to believe more and more that there were “only two people” in the house when Heidi died.
Nick remained a focal point of suspicion. He retained counsel and, on advice, stopped cooperating with some police requests. He and his lawyer commissioned a private sketch artist and submitted that sketch to police. Nick moved out of the house weeks after Heidi’s death. He later dated and married a woman named Rachel Sanchez (referred to in coverage as his second wife); she eventually divorced him and, years later, recorded conversations in which he made troubling statements that investigators felt were relevant.
After years without a major break, in 2015-2019 the investigation was revived and Sipes dug deeply into the case. She and the prosecution assembled circumstantial evidence and renewed efforts to find physical links to a third person, but none emerged. In 2020 Rachel, then divorced from Nick, met with Detective Sipes and shared recordings of conversations where Nick suggested, in a moment of anger and denial, that he “could” or “might” do terrible things—even mentioning “murder” in a context that investigators later said showed pattern of dishonesty and concealment. Sipes says Rachel’s willingness to come forward and the recordings pushed the case forward.
In May 2021, more than 11 years after Heidi’s death, Saint Paul police arrested Nick Firkus and charged him with murder. A grand jury indicted him on first- and second-degree murder charges. Prosecutors contended that Nick staged a burglary to cover a murder motivated by shame and desperation over his mounting financial problems, and the imminent exposure of lies he had told friends and family about their finances. They argued evidence at the scene was inconsistent with an intruder: no third-person DNA or fingerprints were found, no physical signs of the violent struggle Nick described, and forensic reconstructions showed the trajectory of the shotgun blast could have been fired from Nick’s position.
Defense attorneys challenged the forensic and circumstantial inferences. They argued the lack of third-party DNA could be explained if an intruder wore gloves; they pointed to tool marks in the door consistent with forced entry; they highlighted testimony from neighbor Branden, who said he heard an agonized voice cry “You shot her, you shot me” and argued that proved someone else was present and hearing words from Nick on the phone could have been mistaken for someone else. Defense counsel also pointed to alleged inconsistencies in time-stamped phone records and said the 65-second window prosecutors highlighted—used to suggest Nick could have shot Heidi, checked she was dead, shot himself, and then called 911—was compressed by the state’s reenactment and should be viewed skeptically because phone logs showed misdials and timing anomalies.
In pretrial rulings, prosecutors were blocked from using Rachel’s secretly recorded conversation with Nick as evidence; the judge ruled it had limited relevance and was inadmissible. Rachel did not testify at trial. The prosecution focused instead on circumstantial, behavioral and forensic evidence: the absence of physical signs of a third person, the small foyer’s dimensions, the trajectory of shot pellets, and the alleged inconsistencies in Nick’s early statements and demeanor. They painted a motive tied to financial desperation—Nick had lied about finances, including claims of identity theft and hidden debts—and argued he staged a burglary to avoid humiliation and to appear as a victim.
Nick’s attorneys emphasized his reputation in the community, testified about possible intruder explanations (gloves, tool marks), and argued the state had no direct evidence tying him to Heidi’s death. They also questioned the reliability of neighbors’ recollections and the meaning of the physical evidence, urging the jury to find reasonable doubt.
In February 2023, after an 11-day trial, the jury deliberated and returned a verdict: guilty on counts of premeditated and intentional murder. The verdict came after the jury considered the totality of the state’s circumstantial case against Nick. Prosecutors and Heidi’s family said the outcome brought long-sought accountability; friends and some acquaintances of Nick expressed shock and maintained they could not envision him committing such an act.
In April 2023, at sentencing, Judge Leonardo Castro imposed the maximum punishment: life without the possibility of parole. Nick Firkus continued to proclaim his innocence and vowed to maintain it, while Heidi’s family and friends spoke at the hearing about the loss and the long path to what they called a measure of justice.
The case left lingering questions for investigators and family alike—what role did Nick’s financial secrecy and perceived shame play; why were there no confirmed signs of a third person at the scene; how did the 911 recordings, neighbor reports and forensic reconstructions combine to persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt? For Heidi’s loved ones, the conviction closed a painful chapter. For others who had known Nick, it raised the difficult task of reconciling a public persona with a criminal verdict. The investigation, indictment and trial drew out over more than a decade, with key turning points including Sipes’ renewed review of the case, the tips and records that eventually led police to pursue new charges, and the jury’s ultimate assessment of the evidence.