Trial to begin for Winter Park woman accused of killing husband

The trial for Danielle Redlick, the Winter Park woman accused of stabbing her husband, a prominent member of the University of Central Florida’s faculty, to death during an argument at their home more than three years ago will start today with jury selection.

Redlick, 48, is charged with second-degree murder and evidence tampering in the death of 65-year-old Michael Redlick, whose body was found at the couple’s Temple Drive home Jan. 12, 2019.

Attorneys for Redlick, who has pleaded not guilty, have said she was acting in self-defense after her husband tried to strangle her. But authorities say the nature of his wounds and her behavior afterward — cleaning the killing scene, checking messages on a dating app and researching suicide, while waiting hours to call police — show otherwise.

She faces a maximum punishment of life in prison if convicted as charged.

The jury selection process is expected to run until Wednesday, said Julio Semino, a court administration spokesperson for the Ninth Judicial Circuit. The trial will likely last through the following week, he said.

Prosecutors declined to comment. Redlick’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.

Danielle Redlick previously filed for divorce in 2018, calling the marriage “irretrievably broken,” but her petition was dismissed after a judge found Michael Redlick had not been properly served with divorce papers, court records show.

When Redlick called 911 on the morning of Jan. 12, 2019, she initially told a dispatcher her husband had suffered a heart attack.

“He’s stiff and he’s been wounded and he might have had a heart attack,” Redlick told the dispatcher, court records show. “I don’t know.”

Then her story changed, with Redlick claiming Michael Redlick had stabbed himself with a kitchen knife during an argument over infidelity.

“We had an altercation and he stabbed himself, and I ran and hid in the bathroom, and when I came out, I was trying to help him and saw he was lying in blood, and then I tried to help him and I couldn’t,” she told the dispatcher, according to the records.

“... I tried to help him and I woke up and I was sitting next to him and I was trying to figure out what to do.”

But investigators determined Michael Redlick’s wounds were inconsistent with self-inflicted injuries and found his wife tried to clean the crime scene before calling for help 11 hours later.

Winter Park police officers who responded to the Temple Drive home found Redlick crying, with blood on her neck and cuts to her wrists, so they took her to an Orlando hospital. During an interview with detectives at the hospital, she described a rocky relationship plagued recently by infidelity on both sides.

“We had had some issues and, last year, he basically cheated on me and it was a big, long, drawn-out thing,” she told detectives. “And we finally came around to living together again and possibly trying to work it through, but I think that really wasn’t happening and, in my mind, it was inevitably going to probably separate again.”

Redlick said her husband discovered messages between herself and another man Jan. 10 and got drunk, becoming belligerent. He followed her around the house so she locked herself inside a bathroom but he broke down the door, she said.

After an argument that upset their children, Danielle Redlick left and returned home after her son texted his mother that his father had passed out.

The next day, Redlick said her husband became physically aggressive and battered her so she armed herself with a serrated knife for protection, according to an interview between Redlick and an investigator with the Florida Department of Children and Families.

Redlick claimed her husband grabbed the weapon from her hands and “began making stabbing motions towards himself,” records show. Redlick told the investigator she ran to the bathroom and closed the door.

After her husband fell silent, Redlick said she opened the door and followed a blood trail to the living room where she found her dead husband, according to the records.

Investigators, though, found Redlick dialed “911911” on her phone more than 20 minutes after the fight began at 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 11 but canceled the call, evidence records show. She also checked her messages on the dating application MeetMindful and researched suicide, including searching for “how long does it take to bleed to death after slitting your wrists.”

She eventually called 911 at 9:28 a.m. — nearly 11 hours after her first attempt.

Redlick