Annette Cahill is charged in the 1992 murder of Corey Wieneke
AP
03/01/19
An Iowa grandmother will stand trial Monday in the 1992 beating death of her former boyfriend in a case built largely on an alleged confession heard by a child.
The trial of Annette Cahill of Tipton will test the state’s ability to get a conviction in an old homicide case in which investigators have no physical evidence.
Instead, the case may hinge on whether jurors believe a woman who says she was nine when she overheard Cahill confess to killing bartender Corey Wieneke weeks after the slaying.
Cahill has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Wieneke, whose body was found in his rural West Liberty home in October 1992. If convicted, she faces life in prison.
Cahill, 56, is an unusual defendant. She has no criminal record and works for the Police Law Institute, an Iowa-based company that helps train police officers.