After playing Big Ten football at the University of Illinois, Curtis Lovelace married his high school classmate Cory Didriksen in 1999. He went on to become a prominent attorney, a state prosecutor, and he and Cory had four children. On Valentine’s Day 2006, Cory was discovered dead in their bed. The autopsy ruled the cause of her death as “undetermined.” In 2013, a new detective Adam Gibson, reopened the case and discovered that Cory had been suffocated. Curtis Lovelace was arrested in 2014. He pleaded not guilty to killing his 38-year-old wife. In February 2016, a jury was deadlocked. A judge ordered a new trial for Lovelace which is set for May 31.
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Three of the four Lovelace children say they saw their mother alive before Curtis took them to school that morning. Curtis says Cory was suffering from flu-like symptoms. When he returned from school to the home with the youngest child (his 4-year-old son), that’s when Curtis said he found his wife dead in their bed. 48 Hours will air its investigative report on February 20 at 10pm on CBS.