Woman charged with killing husband on northern Idaho lake

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - Two years after a man died in northern Idaho's Lake Coeur d'Alene, his wife has been charged with his murder.

Search crews recovered the body of Larry Isenberg, 68, in March 2018, a month after he fell into the water during a boat ride.

Lori Isenberg, 66, is accused of planning to kill her husband by intentionally creating the situation in which he was submerged in the lake and died, court documents say.

She was booked into the Kootenai County Jail Monday on suspicion of murder with a $2 million bond, The Spokesman-Review reported.

Isenberg's charges also cite poison, lying in wait or torture as potential factors in the killing. Larry Isenberg's body contained lethal levels of Benadryl, according to the Spokane County Medical Examiner's Office.

A week after her husband died, Isenberg wrote a letter to friends and family detailing the events, which was obtained by The Spokesman-Review.

The couple took the boat out Feb. 13 to see the sunrise, the motor stalled, Isenberg wrote, and her husband fell overboard while leaning over the motor. Isenberg wrote that she tried to reach her husband but tripped over a space heater, hitting her head.

Isenberg said she eventually found her husband's phone and called for help. She told a detective she waited two hours because she didn't want to leave the area where her husband fell into the water.

Isenberg was later charged with embezzling half-a-million dollars from her former employer, the North Idaho Housing Coalition. She pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud in January 2019 and was sentenced to 5 years in federal prison for embezzling from the organization.

Four of Lori Isenberg's daughters have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud for taking money from their mother that was embezzled.

Investigators also discovered handwritten changes had been made to Larry Isenberg's will to give 80% of his estate to his wife's six daughters and 20% to his own two children.

Isenberg has continually been under investigation for her husband's death, including a Jan. 31 grand jury indictment that eventually led to the murder charges filed this week.

Isenberg was brought to Kootenai County in Idaho from the SeaTac federal detention center in Seattle, according to court documents. It wasn't immediately known if she has a lawyer.