Samantha Krebs (Photo courtesy: Outagamie County Jail)
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A jury convicted Samantha Krebs Thursday of first-degree intentional homicide for the murder of her boyfriend.
According to police, Krebs stabbed him, then told other friends who arrived at his apartment to tell the police the victim stabbed himself. She then kissed him goodbye before leaving the scene.
The panel deliberated for more than four hours before returning the guilty verdict.
Krebs, 40, was charged for the July 18, 2024, death of a man identified in the complaint by his initials, J.J.C., for the incident at an apartment on Park Drive Lane. She testified at trial and maintained it was a death by suicide.
At the Nov. 25 sentencing, Krebs faces a mandatory life prison term. Judge Vince Biskupic has the option to set a date when she would first be eligible to ask for parole, or can make it a life sentence with no chance of release.
According to the complaint, police were called to the residence at about 10 p.m. for a report of a stabbing. Efforts to save the victim’s life were unsuccessful.
One witness told police when he arrived at the apartment, they found the victim and Krebs.
The witness said “I had four missed calls when I pulled into the parking lot from Samantha… didn’t think much of it… just walked into the apartment, hit the buzzer, she buzzed me in, walked into the apartment, J.J.C. was laying on the linoleum in the kitchen… she looked me dead in the eye and she said, just tell the police he stabbed himself,” the complaint states.
Another person told police “Samantha kissed J.J.C. before she left and said she was sorry and that she loved him,” the complaint states.
Krebs told the others there that she could not go back to prison, and left. She was not at the scene when police arrived. When police reached her by phone, she said J.J.C. was “going through court and was upset that Samantha had left. Samantha advised that she had left the apartment complex around 1900 hours when J.J.C. began acting crazy,” the complaint states.
Police later had additional contact with Krebs, who offered conflicting versions of what happened.
“Sgt. Hoffman was standing next to Samantha and the defendant stated to Sgt Hoffman that she had just lost her fiancé. She then made the comment that he had stabbed himself. Sgt. Hoffman informed her he was sorry to hear that, and asked if that happened recently. The defendant, Samantha Krebs, stated it happened Thursday night and then she found out in the newspaper he had died. A short while later, while waiting for other units to arrive on scene to assist, Sgt Hoffman was standing with Samantha, and Officer Rudebeck in the parking lot. At one point Samantha made the statement “I just watched my fiancé kill himself, and now I’m being arrested.” It should be noted that initially Samantha had stated that her fiancé had stabbed himself and she found out that he had died from the newspaper. Now she made the statement that she had watched her fiancé kill himself,” the complaint states.
Another witness told police the victim had told him several times he feared Krebs was going to stab him, according to the complaint.
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