A Florida mom is accused of murdering her husband—a former Memphis Grizzlies executive—and waiting until the next morning to call police. Police say she claimed her spouse stabbed himself during an argument, then had a heart attack.
According to court records, 45-year-old Danielle Justine Redlick even checked a dating app on her phone before she finally dialed 911 over the death of 65-year-old Michael Redlick, who worked for the University of Central Florida.
The Winter Park woman was arrested Wednesday and charged with second-degree murder with a weapon and tampering with evidence in connection to her husband’s Jan. 11 slaying. On Thursday, a judge ordered Redlick held without bond.
An arrest affidavit paints a gruesome picture of a crumbling marriage turned deadly at the couple’s $1 million, lakefront home in Orange County.
Before Michael was killed, he joked to a friend that his wife “is crazy but as long as I hide the steak knives everything will be fine,” the document states.
That friend told police that Michael and Redlick were living in separate houses, but that Michael had moved back in with his wife in December. The confidant called Michael that month and jokingly asked if he was still hiding the knives.
“Oh yeah,” Michael replied, according to the friend.
Police found Michael dead on Jan. 12, after Redlick, an unemployed communications professional, called 911 at 9:28 a.m. and told the dispatcher that there had been a “tragedy at her home,” the affidavit alleges.
When the operator asked Redlick if she’d just found her husband, she allegedly replied, “No, actually, it happened last night.”
Redlick claimed the couple had a fight around 10:30 p.m. and that Michael stabbed himself, so she bolted to the bathroom to hide. But when she emerged to check on him, he was unresponsive and lying in a pool of blood.
The victim had tried to choke and suffocate her first, she said. According to Redlick, when she reached for a knife, he screamed, “What are you gonna do, stab me?” The husband then grabbed the blade and knifed himself, she claimed.
She told the dispatcher her husband came to the bathroom door and started yelling about sending her to jail. When she heard him moaning, she left the bathroom to check on him and slipped on his blood. The victim was “out of it,” she said.
“I woke up and I was sitting next to him and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do,” Redlick told the dispatcher, according to the affidavit.
Redlick said her children weren’t home that night. Asked if the couple had been drinking, Redlick answered, “He was.”
She said she waited 11 hours to call 911 because she was on probation, court papers allege. “I was afraid and I didn’t think anyone would believe me and I was just trying to get him to wake up,” Redlick added.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, Redlick was on probation from a January 2018 encounter which led to charges of resisting an officer without violence and disorderly conduct. She wasn’t allowed to drink as a condition of her probation.
When police arrived the next morning, they saw three black vehicles in the residence’s circular driveway, and found a disheveled Redlick standing in front of a garage near fire department personnel, the affidavit states. Her wrists were bandaged.
Winter Park Detective Pamela Woehr noticed several broken eggshells in the driveway, as well as inside and outside of the victim’s vehicle.
Inside the house, Michael’s body was on the floor, surrounded by saturated towels and bloody footprints. The detective noticed the foyer had circular marks in blood, as if someone had tried to clean up the scene, court papers state.
Police also found a large, bloody serrated knife in the kitchen’s entryway, and three knives, which appeared to have blood on them, in the sink. Near the stairs, cops found blood-soaked towels, a mop and bucket full of pink liquid. Detective Woehr noted a strong smell of bleach in the house, and a blood trail coming from the master bedroom.
Investigators searched the family’s trash to find a McDonald’s container with blood, along with a receipt showing a quarter pounder and fries were purchased on Jan. 11 at 9:43 p.m.
According to the affidavit, an autopsy revealed bruising on the victim’s left arm that was consistent with defensive wounds, and there were no signs of a heart attack. His body also lacked bruising to his chest that’s often observed if CPR is performed, authorities noted.
The medical examiner ruled Michael died of a stab wound to the torso that was not self-inflicted, and the manner of death as a homicide, court papers state.
In an interview with the state’s Department of Children and Families, Redlick said that she was in the kitchen eating McDonald’s that night when her husband got angry, took a bite of the burger, and spit it in her face.
Michael then grabbed her arms and pushed her to the ground, Redlick claimed. She said that when she stood up, her husband allegedly pushed her head onto the stove and covered her nose and mouth when she tried to break free.
Redlick said she grabbed a kitchen knife from the drawer and motioned as if to stab him, but that Michael took the knife from her and stabbed himself, the affidavit says.
She claimed that after she ran to the bathroom, she heard Michael outside the door and that he repeatedly said “Sam Katie,” a reference to the movie Cape Fear, which they’d watched recently. Then Michael went quiet, she says.
Redlick claimed she tried to resuscitate her husband and that he began vomiting. (The medical examiner found no signs of vomit.) She said she fell asleep next to him after pushing his chest for a long time and becoming exhausted, the document states.
The next morning, Redlick started cleaning up blood on the floors. She didn’t know what to do, she allegedly told police, so slit her wrists in the kitchen before dialing 911. (A paramedic noted her wounds were no longer bleeding when EMS arrived, the affidavit says.)
Police say they obtained a search warrant for Redlick’s phone, and that it appeared she deleted all the messages between her and the victim before calling cops.
Investigators also obtained a search warrant for Redlick’s account on a dating application called Meet Mindful. Redlick was reviewing her messages on the app on Saturday, Jan. 12, around 7:22 a.m.—two hours prior to dialing 911, phone records showed.
A toxicology report indicated Redlick had alcohol in her system when police arrived, and police noted a large number of empty wine bottles were found in an outside recycling bin.
Witnesses told police the Redlicks had a troubled relationship, and that Redlick allegedly had a drinking problem.
One witness told cops that Redlick was at a youth football game in the hours before her husband’s alleged murder.
The witness said Redlick arrived alone at 8:05 p.m., after the game had already started. She began yelling at her son as they were leaving, the witness added. At one point, the person heard Redlick say, “It’s been a weird night.” According to this witness, Redlick and her husband had a very “on-again, off-again relationship.”
The witness told police that Redlick had “turned” on her after drinking. During one outing, the witness claimed, Redlick had five drinks and started to swing her fists at her for no reason, prompting the witness to call police.
Meanwhile, a second witness said that Michael used to talk about his marriage, which the witness described as “rocky,” court papers allege.
Michael told this witness that Redlick had “outbursts and exhibited anger,” the affidavit states.
A third witness told police that she’d seen Michael with a black right eye, and she saw bruising on his arm in early January.
The affidavit also describes law enforcement encountering Redlick in previous years.
Michael had called police on Redlick in February 2018, saying she was a danger to herself and to others. When Winter Park cops arrived, Michael told officers his wife had been drinking and they’d argued but that she was now asleep.
In January 2018, Seminole County deputies arrested Redlick for allegedly pushing and trying to punch a paramedic and for attempting to bite a deputy. (Court records show she pleaded no contest to resisting an officer without violence and disorderly conduct. A warrant was issued on Jan. 22, 2019 alleging she violated probation by drinking alcohol.)
Winter Park police encountered Redlick in October 2016 regarding an argument between her and her husband. At the time, Redlick claimed Michael pushed her and she needed to document it for her court proceedings. According to police, Redlick refused to write a sworn written statement and left the building.
On social media, Redlick seemed like a doting mother, posting photos of her son’s baseball games and her daughter at homecoming. She described herself as “multimedia communications professional” and published a website called Share the Worth Photography.
In one of the only public Facebook posts mentioning her husband, Redlick called her relationship with Michael “the constant in my life.”
“Happy birthday Mike.....the one thing that I can say has been the constant in my life, ever changing yet always constant is you and your love,” Redlick wrote on May 1, 2013. “A partner you have been in this fox hole of life. My heart 4ever and eternal…”