On February 14, 2006 Curtis Lovelace found his wife Cory dead in their bed. At first her cause of death was listed as “undetermined,” but then a determined and recently promoted detective decided to take another look. He was determined to prove that Curtis Lovelace was responsible for the death of his wife.
Valentine’s Day
On Valentine’s Day in 2006, while terrified and frantic men were probably at Walgreens digging through the last of the Valentine’s cards and candy because they “forgot” to get something for their significant others, the Lovelace family was just beginning the ordeal that would change their lives in so many ways. That Tuesday morning, in the Lovelace household, 4 children were being prepped for the day and the 3 oldest would head off to school.
Curtis Lovelace drove his oldest 3 children to school and 4-year-old Larson stayed home with mom, Cory. Curtis said that Cory had been ill all weekend and after getting the kids ready for school, she sat on the stairs exhausted. He helped her go upstairs and lay down and told her he’d take the kids to school today. When Curtis Lovelace got home around 9 am, he went to the bedroom where he found his wife laying in bed with her eyes open. He would later tell 48 Hours that what he saw upon entering the bedroom was not a person who needed help. He saw that his wife was dead.
Instead of calling 911, Curtis’ first thought was for little Larson. He wanted to get him out of the house before things got crazy. He scooped up the preschooler from his bed and drove him around the corner to Cory’s parents’ house. Larson later testified that some time after his dad had left with his siblings, he went into the bedroom where he tried to wake his mom. He said he poked her and yelled at her, but she didn’t wake up. He was scared so he went to wait for his dad on the stairs. At some point he moved to his bedroom to lay in his bed and wait.
Marty Didriksen (Cory’s mom) said that Curtis showed up with Larson and asked her to watch him. As he turned to leave, Marty said that Curtis turned back and said, “Oh, by the way, Cory’s dead.”
Curtis and Cory
Curtis Lovelace was born and raised in Quincy, Illinois. It’s a small town where everyone knows everyone. Very “How’s your mom ‘n’em?” And in this small town, Curtis was the golden child. He was called easy going and a gentleman. He was also described as “fun-loving” and “intelligent.”
Curtis was the center on the high school football team and a hard-working student. He got a football scholarship to the University of Illinois where he was majoring in business administration and was an “All-Big Ten center”. Local journalist and high school sports announcer, Bill Gough said that Curtis even got into a “free agent camp in the NFL with the Patriots.” Unfortunately, his football career came to an abrupt halt when he suffered a knee injury. However, Curtis hadn’t been completely reliant on football; he would have a degree to fall back on.
During college, Curtis began a relationship with Cory Didriksen. The two had gone to high school together, but reconnected during college. Their relationship was long distance at first. Curtis was in college at University of Illinois and Cory was at University of Iowa studying communications. Cory was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on December 7th, 1967 and her family would move to Illinois where she and Curtis would both attend Quincy High School.
Cory was described as “vibrant,” “dynamic,” and “stubborn” (her mom called her stubborn). Marty, Cory’s mom said that Cory had the perfect smile. Once she met Curtis, Cory knew he was the one. Marty remembers – “It was Thanksgiving. We were sitting up on her bed. And we were just kinda talking about things and she said, “Oh, by the way, I’ve met the man I’m going to marry.” Marty told her daughter, “If you love him, that’s all that matters.” And Cory was right- One year after the two graduated college (January 1991), Curtis and Cory got married. Friends said they were “well-matched.”
Curtis went to law school. He was ambitious and had plans. Cory’s plans were more geared toward family. Cory had always wanted a big family. In 1993, the couple welcomed their first child, Lyndsay. Then Logan in 1997, Lincoln in 1999, and finally Larson in 2001.
Lyndsay remembers her mom as loving and involved. She said Cory was in the PTA and was a room parent. Lyndsay said that her mom was always there for their dance recitals, sports games, and anything else they were involved in. Lyndsay also recalled one of her fondest memories of her mom for 48 Hours. She said that her mom loved ABBA and she would always put it on and they would dance around and sing.
Curtis had gotten busy over the years. By 2005, Curtis was working at the State’s Attorney’s office as Assistant State’s Attorney. Then, while working there, he also started his own law firm. Then he was elected as president of the school board, became a captain in the Illinois National Guard (a JAG officer), and an adjunct professor at Quincy University. Friends said that as Curtis got more successful, he got more “arrogant.” They said that he lost friends over this change in behavior.
Things at home were taking a hit as well. He was working all the time and Lyndsay remembers her parents fighting. She says she thought it was normal at first, Curtis would later say that Cory yelled at the kids “weekly or more.” Things would get so heated in the house that, in the months before that Valentine’s day in 2006, neighbors could hear Cory and Curtis’ arguments. They called the arguments “loud” and “contentious.”
What other problems were affecting the marriage?
Cory and Curtis were both alcoholics and Cory, specifically was not taking care of herself. She had struggled with bulimia as well. Both Curtis and Cory’s mom knew about this. Cory’s mom also said that Cory had not been to the doctor in the 4 years since she’d given birth to Larson. Drinking to excess can often make a bad situation worse and that’s exactly what was happening to Curtis and Cory’s marriage. Curtis said, “There was alcoholism in the home — We loved each other, but it wasn’t a perfect marriage and the alcoholism didn’t help that.”
The weekend before Valentine’s Day, Cory had been sick. Curtis said that she seemed to have the flu. Both Curtis and the children report seeing Cory up and about that Valentine’s morning. She was getting the kids ready, making breakfast and packing lunches. Lyndsay remembers saying, “I love you.” when she left for school. Her mother by this point was sitting on the stairs, exhausted.
Til Death
After Curtis told Marty, nonchalantly, that Cory was dead, she said she wanted to go with him. She testifies later that he told her everything was taken care of and he left. On his way home, Curtis called his boss, Jon Barnard and told him Cory was dead. Barnard asked Curtis if he’d called 911 yet. When Curtis said he hadn’t, Barnard said he’d call. Some of the first people on the scene were lead detective Jeff Baird of the Quincy police and EMTs Cole Miller and William Ballard. EMT Miller entered the bedroom and found 38-year-old, Cory laying on the bed with the sheets pulled up to about waist high. What was odd was that Cory’s arms were still clenched up at her chest. This would prove to be a point contention for the remainder of this case.
Miller checked for signs of life as he’s trained to do. He reported that he checked the carotid artery pulse (in the neck) and her wrist. He said her wrist was cold and stiff. EMT Ballard later testified that Cory’s arms were resting on her chest and when he pulled them up, they stayed up. He claimed he felt “a bit of rigor mortis” in her arms and that her hands and wrists were cooler than the torso which was warm. Photos of the body were taken between 10-10:20 am and both Baird and the coroner felt Cory’s abdomen noting that it was still warm to the touch, as was her forehead.
Detective Baird described no sign of a struggle, no evidence of a homicide, and he noted “mild rigor” in one arm and moderate rigor in the other. He said that her limbs were still “pliable.” He noted that her body was still fairly warm. “Warm to the touch at both forearm and abdomen.”
When Baird interviewed Curtis at around 10:40 am, he said he felt that Curtis was acting “appropriately distraught.” Curtis told Baird that Cory had asked for a Tylenol in the early morning hours which he gave her. Curtis said that he thinks she threw it up. He was up around 6:30 am and said Cory was still ill so he decided that he’d cancel his classes and stay home to take care of Larson. Coroner Hamilton and Deputy Coroner Jim Keller removed the body from the home. Hamilton put in his report that there was rigor in Cory’s arms and legs.
An autopsy was performed by Dr. Jessica Bowman on February 15th at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Illinois and it was found that Cory had steatosis of the liver or fatty liver disease (fat build up in her liver) that can be attributed to alcoholism. Marty told Detective Baird about Cory’s bulimia and alcoholism. Photos were taken again around 12 pm and more advanced rigor was present, but still not full rigor. Dr. Bowman did find a small cut on the inside of Cory’s upper lip. Detective Baird found out from Lyndsay that her mom had fallen on Sunday, and that’s when she got the cut. Other than that finding, there was nothing else significant reported and her cause of death was marked as “undetermined.” 2 days after her death, Cory Lovelace was cremated and a funeral was held. Curtis had written a eulogy, but was so choked up that he couldn’t read it. The pastor read it for him.
On March 8th, Dr. Bowman signed the autopsy report where she wrote “unexplained trauma of mouth and signs of death inconsistent with the time frame given by history. However, there is marked steatosis of the liver associated with sudden demise, but characteristically diagnosed by the absence of any other findings.” Detective Baird quickly closed the case and the surviving Lovelaces tried to pick up and move forward.
And that’s it, right??? Story over.
But Wait! There’s More!
8 years after Cory Lovelace was found dead in her bedroom, Curtis Lovelace remarried. He and Christine got married on December 26, 2013, and she quit her job in Minneapolis, moved to Quincy and started a pie shop. Christine adopted the boys, but Lyndsay was already 18 and not living with them. Also by this time, Curtis had stopped drinking all together and had been fired from the Adams County State’s Attorney’s office.
That same month, unbeknownst to the newly married couple, patrol cop Adam Gibson was promoted to detective. The rookie detective has told many different ways that he came about reinvestigating the Lovelace case. He once said that he had been perusing old cases and came across this file. He found the “conflicting evidence” interesting. However, he would testify in court that the reason he chose this case was because Dr. Bowman was fired from the hospital when her autopsy opinions became questionable. He also said at another time that he had always been curious about the Lovelace case and didn’t think that Cory’s death looked natural. He got permission from police chief Robert Copely to take another look into the case and while the original detective had ruled that this was not a murder, Gibson disagreed and set out to prove that Curtis Lovelace had murdered his wife that Valentine’s Day back in 2006.
And just like that, on January 3, 2014, one week after Curtis Lovelace got remarried, Detective Gibson began his homicide investigation. Gibson had Dr. Jane Turner of St. Louis take a look at the reports and she felt that Cory had been suffocated by a pillow that had been left on top of her with her arms around it. Later the pillow was removed and because rigor had set in, Cory’s arms stayed in that position. Dr. Turner also believed that Cory was murdered at least 10-12 hours before Curtis called 911.
Based on this report from Dr. Turner, Curtis Lovelace was indicted on August 27, 2014. He was arrested and placed in jail on a $5 million dollar bond. His family scraped together every bit of money they could and hired private counsel at over a million dollars. Curtis went to trial and after 2 weeks of testimony and evidence presentation, the trial ended in a hung jury and the judge declared a mistrial on February 5, 2016. The jurors could not agree on the element of Cory’s arms being in that clench position. If she was killed the night before as the prosecution claimed, how did the kids remember seeing her awake and moving around in the morning. Special Prosecutor Edwin Parkinson was not letting this go. He promised to retry the case and the second trial was scheduled for May 31, 2016.
In preparation for the next trial, a motion was granted to change the location. The first trial had been held in Quincy. Members of the jury knew the Lovelaces, which was always going to be the issue in this small town. Everyone knows everyone and gossip reigns supreme. The second trial was relocated to Springfield and began a year after the 1st trial. Marty Didriksen testified to Curtis’ callous way of telling her that her daughter was dead, the Lovelace boys testify that they saw their mother that morning, and by far the most explosive testimony came from Erika Gomez, Curtis Lovelace’s 2nd wife…..
Who is Erika Gomez You Ask?
Six months after Cory’s death, Curtis Lovelace begins dating one of his students at Quincy University named Erika Gomez. SIX MONTHS. Lyndsay told 48 Hours that her dad came to the kids and talked to them about him dating again, and she said she was “shocked.” In hindsight, Curtis Lovelace says that Erika was a rebound and that he was lonely. He admits that he regrets his relationship and marriage to Erika.
2 years after they began dating, Erika and Curtis got married. Lyndsay was 14-years-old by now and said that Erika viewed the kids’ deceased mother as an “enemy,” and she had an unnatural hatred of the late Cory Lovelace. Erika would say awful things about Cory, and Lyndsay wouldn’t stand for it. She would tell Erika to cut it out, and then Erika would punish Lyndsay while Curtis did nothing to stop her. Lyndsay and Erika’s contemptuous relationship came to a head one Christmas Eve when Cory’s family invited the Lovelace family over for dinner. It had been Cory’s favorite holiday, and they wanted everyone to be together.
This was hard for Lyndsay and she started crying. Then Erika walked in and told Lyndsay they were leaving now. Lyndsay took a couple of minutes to calm down and pull herself back together and then went to join her family. Erika, Curtis, Logan, Lincoln, and Larson had left. Without Lyndsay. Cory’s family was furious and this became the impetus for the destruction of the Lovelace family unit.
Back at their house, Erika had thrown all of Lyndsay’s belongings into the street and destroyed her room. Lyndsay moved in with Marty. In 2013, Erika and Curtis got divorced. Curtis said he tried to make the split amicable and peaceful, but that was not Erika’s style. Later, when he was married to Christine, Erika’s sister was caught on video at a pet store buying a rat. Then her friends released the rat in Christine’s pie shop.
Back to Trial - The Erika Show
When Erika Gomez was called to testify, she took the opportunity to go HAM. On the witness stand, Erika just started slinging accusations at Curtis. She said she had seen him get rid of evidence and use the kids to get rid of evidence. She accused him of using her social security number to steal money from her accounts, sexually assaulting her, poisoning her (she said her hair was falling out and her nails had lines the white lines). And after she threw out the poisoning accusation, the attorney called her out and said she had been told she was not supposed to mention that because there was no evidence of it. In fact, Gibson had talked with Erika many times during the 2nd investigation and when she told him about the poisoning they got her hair tested since poisons could stay in the hair for up to a year and a half. The tests were negative.
Trial - Detective Gibson’s “Investigation”
Also called to the stand was Detective Adam Gibson who had almost unilaterally decided to reopen the case as a homicide investigation. He did not come out looking so great though. During his time on the witness stand, the defense accused him of “doctor shopping” and committing Brady violations. This accusation was backed by a surprising amount of evidence.
Gibson had talked to Coroner Keller after he was given permission to reopen the case who said that he had been trained that it takes several hours for there to be visible dehydration in the lips and eyes which were present in the autopsy (he believed her dehydration was “quite advanced”), that the smell when he entered the room was strong meaning she had been dead for a while and that she was in full rigor. He also told Gibson that the lividity was darker purple meaning it was older.
On January 6th, 2014, Gibson went to the Assistant State’s Attorney’s office and talked to Barnard about the call he got from Curtis that morning back in 2006. Then Gibson swung by Gary Farha’s office who also worked there with Cory. Gibson asked Farha about Curtis’ behavior as Farha felt he’d been “threatened” by Curtis Lovelace when Curtis didn’t get an interview for Chief Public Defender. Farha said that Curtis was “in a rage.” Barnard doesn’t remember anything like this happening or any other time that Curtis seemed really angry.
This same day, Gibson talked to the paramedics and firefighters that had been at the Lovelace house that morning. One of the 1st responders said he put EKG leads on Cory to check for a heartbeat. Gibson’s reports about what William Ballard (the EMT) smelled in the house stated that Ballard smelled an “odor in addition to alcohol,” but at trial Ballard testified that the smell was “only alcohol and not a deceased person.” Gibson emailed a doctor in Scotland to ask if it was possible for suffocation to cause spasming or “instantaneous rigor.” Gibson told him that Cory was in full rigor. The Scottish doctor said that he thought Cory’s time of death was consistent with the state of rigor. Gibson communicated with this doctor via email and did not document what he learned from this doctor.
Detective Gibson’s doctor shopping and Brady violations were confirmed by all the emails that he deleted on January 8, 2015, but were retrieved by the defense. Gibson had deleted these emails and thus withheld the evidence within them. When they had started the trial, the defense put in a FOIA request and found out about all the emails that Gibson deleted. He claimed that they all delete their emails because of limited space, but deleted emails are saved on the main server. Not only did Gibson delete all his emails, he also didn’t document many of the conversations and reports he participated in.
One of the emails recovered was from a doctor Gibson had consulted with that stated that he [the doctor] didn’t feel like this would be a good murder case because the cause of death was listed as undetermined. Gibson started his investigation with 1 suspect and a desperate need to prove his theory. One of his first interviews had been Erika, but other than her widespread and erroneous claims, in the 8 months that he investigated none of the regular motives. There were no life insurance policies on Cory and there were no secret lovers. Plus, Cory was the one that took care of the kids so without her, he was a single father with 4 kids.
At the January 6, 2014 meeting with the Adams County Coroner, Gibson did not request a report from the coroner and didn’t provide his own summary of what they talked about for the official files. It was reported that he said either verbally or by email, “I will not cover the findings in my report.” Then he found Dr. Scott Denton who also told him that his case had some serious holes. The autopsy report mentioned the cut on Cory’s lip which could have been caused by suffocation, but if it had been, it would have been a fresh injury and would have bled. Dr. Denton said that there was no blood on the pillows as he would have expected. Another big clue to suffocation is petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes, but that was not noted in Cory’s autopsy report. Dr. Denton also brought up the fatty liver. Cory’s liver was twice as large as a typical liver and this alone could have caused her death.
In fact, one of the articles cited 2 studies that reinforced the death by liver failure case. One study was from France in 1992. Doctors reported that there are definite risks for people who are not eating and are drinking heavily. They stated that some of these patients died of no other apparent cause other than steatosis of the liver. “No obvious cause of death was found in these 4 patients. Shortly before their death, the 4 patients had increased their ethanol and decreased their food intake.”
Another was from Japan where the article had very similar results with 11 patients. The 11 patients died without warning and it was found on autopsy that they had steatosis. “Death followed several days of uninterrupted drinking often with little dietary intake.” Gibson didn’t want to hear that so he left Dr. Denton and found Dr. Shaka Teas in Chicago. On March 17, 2014, Dr. Teas talked with Detective Gibson at length and once again told Gibson that there was no evidence to prove a homicide had occurred. Dr. Teas did tell him that there was actually plenty of evidence that pointed to the failing liver. When she asked to know what Dr. Denton’s findings were, Gibson refused to share that information with her.
Gibson wasn’t getting the results he wanted and asked Dr. Teas not to write a report. However, she’s no dummy and instead of not writing a report, she did write him a lengthy email that summarized what they had talked about. She said “Part of the reason I sent him that email was when I asked him what Dr. Denton said, he wasn’t being really forthcoming. So, I’m not going to get caught committing a Brady Violation.”
Other doctors would say that the position Cory’s arms were in could be due to her having a seizure at the time of death. Det. Gibson finally found the doctor he’d been looking for in Dr. Jane Turner. He presented the information to her so she had Gibson’s reports, photographs, and opinions to make her decisions. She had never been in the room with Cory’s body as opposed to the original lead detective and the EMT and the kids who saw Cory alive that morning. Dr. Turner decided that Cory had been suffocated 10-12 hours before, and that was exactly what Gibson had wanted so he kept her report.
Defense Attorney John Loevy accused Detective Adam Gibson of creating a crime where there was none. They called pathologist, Dr. William Oliver (who had previously testified in the OJ Simpson case) who said he has “no doubt” that Cory died from “alcohol withdrawal” and “acute liver failure.”
A Rare Event - Curtis Takes the Stand
In a risky move, the defense called Curtis to take the stand and he told the story of finding Cory with her eyes open and she was pale. He was emotional, but not hysteric – very believable. In the end the Lovelace boys all testified, but Lyndsay didn’t. She had become less of a supporter of her dad. She doesn’t fully believe he did it, but she feels like she can’t trust her memories of that day enough to be certain. She originally said that she remembered saying goodbye and “I love you” to her mom, but that space in her brain has become a kind of blackhole.
In closing statements, prosecutor Edwin Parkinson would claim Curtis’ motive was that Cory was an alcoholic and yelled at him and snapped. Parkinson also brilliantly said, “…he committed a stupid crime. Mr. Smart Smart Man over here.” The jury would deliberate for only 2 hours before coming back with a verdict of not guilty. Jurors would tell 48 Hours that the prosecution had not made its case beyond a reasonable doubt. They weren’t all sure if it was natural causes or murder, but there just wasn’t enough to convict him.
Post-Trial
Curtis and his family were so relieved at this verdict. They could finally move forward. He and Christine were concerned about moving back to Quincy where the gossip mill had not died down and may never fully stop.
Christine told 48 Hours, “I cannot even begin to explain to you what it’s like to go to the local market and have people pointing at you and talking behind their hands, or having them even cut us off and say, ‘Look, there’s the — the Lovelace Family,’ or ‘There’s the killer family.’…Our lives will never be the same, and we have to figure out how to carve out a future. How to carve out a career for Curt, for myself.”
Christine and Curtis want to reconcile with her, but that is going to take a lot of rebuilding. Lyndsay says she wants to be the kind of woman her mother was.
Curtis is still seeking justice though stating, “It bothers me. To be called a murderer — to be publicly accused of — of such a horrible act.” He feels that the prosecutors should have never brought this case to trial. In search of that justice, Curtis filed a federal lawsuit in 2017 against Detective Adam Gibson, Police Chief Robert Copley, Sgt. John Summers, Lt. Dina Dreyer, Coroner James Keller, former Assistant State’s Attorney Gary Farha, the City of Quincy, and Adams County.
There are 11 separate claims covering all the Lovelaces (except Lyndsay).
- Due process violation
- Malicious prosecution
- Unlawful detention
- Conspiracy to deprive constitutional rights
- Failure to intervene
State law claims;
- False imprisonment
- Intentional infliction of emotional distress
- Malicious prosecution
- Civil conspiracy
- Respondeat superior
- Indemnation
Unfortunately, the last news on this case was the October 2020 articles saying that it was ruled that the case will proceed. No decision has been made, but Curtis Lovelace and his family have a great deal of proof that the justice system failed them and actively plotted against them. Adam Gibson in specific.
Jim Keller resigned as coroner, but as of now Adam Gibson is still a detective in the Quincy Police Department. IN FACT, he was named Elder Service Officer of the Year by Illinois Attorney General Kwane Raoul in September 2019 (The Facebook post on the Quincy Police Department’s page: “Det. Gibson was nominated for his tireless work in tracking down those who prey on the elderly, both financial and physically. He is an invaluable asset to our agency and the surrounding area.”). The city of Quincy wants the lawsuits dropped.
