Ex-dairy princess released from prison
Esker convicted in 1990 of killing another woman
WAUSAU – The former 1989 Marathon County dairy princess convicted of killing another woman in Rib Mountain over a mutual love interest was released from prison Tuesday.
Lori K. Esker, now 50, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1990 for strangling 21-year-old Lisa Cihaski.
The Wisconsin Parole Commission approved Esker’s request for discretionary release June 27, according to a statement from the Department of Corrections. Esker was released from the Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center in Union Grove on Tuesday morning, a spokesperson from the correctional center said.
Cihaski’s mother found her daughter’s body on the morning of Sept. 21, 1989, in her car parked in front of the former Howard Johnson hotel in Rib Mountain where Cihaski had worked as an assistant sales and catering manager. Police arrested Esker on suspicion of murder about a week after Cihaski’s body was found. According to Daily Herald reports, she said she killed Cihaski because she was jealous. Cihaski was dating and planned to marry Esker’s former boyfriend, dairy farmer Bill Buss.
Esker waited in the motel parking lot for Cihaski to finish work, and the two women got in Cihaski’s car. Esker told Cihaski she was pregnant with Buss’ baby and the two women began fighting, according to Daily Herald reports.
Esker told detectives she thought Cihaski was going to kill her and grabbed a belt that was in the backseat of the car and strangled her. Esker then went back to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, where she was a student, and destroyed the belt in her dorm’s incinerator.
A jury convicted Esker of first-degree murder in 1990, and a Marathon County judge sentenced her to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Esker requested a new trial, claiming her confession to detectives was involuntary. Her request was denied.
The case garnered national attention and was the first instance of a woman killing another woman in Marathon County, according to Daily Herald reports. The case was made into a movie in 1995 called “Beauty’s Revenge.”