Kriti Mehrotra
It was on the morning of February 13, 2018, when the entire world turned upside down for the Isenberg family in Idaho as patriarch Larry Isenberg suddenly passed away. As explored in NBC’s ‘Dateline: Kill Switch,’ he and his wife of 14 years had actually gone on a romantic boat trip near their own lakeside oasis in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, only for him to never return. The truth is this case was initially believed to be accidental, but as time passed and secrets kept by Laurcene “Lori” Barnes Isenberg started coming to light, she was soon held responsible for her husband’s demise.
Despite an Unconventional Start, Lori and Larry Isenberg Once Seemed to Lead an Idyllic Life
A native of Idaho through and through, Laurcene “Lori” Barnes had always been dedicated to her community and people, which is why she established a career as a non-profit executive. She had actually tied the knot with her high school sweetheart not long after graduation, following which they happily welcomed 6 adorable daughters into the world. However, according to the aforementioned episode, while they seemed to have it all with their family, love, his janitorial services business, and her philanthropic work, the reality was much different behind closed doors.
As per one of Lori’s daughters, her mother strayed from her marriage a few times throughout her union with her first husband, which ultimately ended in divorce. By this point, she was allegedly already romantically involved with Larry Isenberg, whom she’d first met when she was hired as his secretary. It was reportedly in 1988 when Lori had first come across the Timber Executive and married father of two, not long after which they allegedly began a love affair. Then, in the early 2000s, after they had both eventually divorced their respective spouses, they tied the knot themselves.
Lori and Larry blended their families together rather seamlessly, and by 2018, their brood comprised 8 children, 15 grandchildren, and 1 great-grandchild, all of whom they adored. As for their personal standing, while the latter was happily retired, his wife was proudly serving at the North Idaho Housing Coalition to help young people find their first homes. Moreover, they had built a breathtaking homestead, known as Cougar Gulch, nestled into the mountains with its own custom garden while also embracing their free time as empty nesters by traveling across the globe.
Lori Isenberg’s Financial Greed Set Off a Tragic Chain of Events
Considering the lifestyle Lori and Larry led, nobody could have ever imagined they were having financial troubles, and they weren’t. The way the latter had managed his finances, saved, and invested in stocks over the years was comfortably paying for their multiple vacations a year, but the former did have a desire to have separate funds for herself and her children. According to the reports, Larry believed in advising and supporting his children rather than simply helping them, but Lori was different, and she needed to have her own independent money to do with what she desired.
Therefore, the once-renowned non-profit employee ended up embezzling from the North Idaho Housing Coalition over a period of a few years, just to be caught in early 2018. She was actually given the space to explain her signatures on several cheques during a meeting, only for her to claim she had done so because she didn’t want to bother the busy board with such minor issues. She was subsequently placed on administrative leave with pay while they requested an investigation, but all their hopes of her actions just being sloppy bookkeeping soon shattered, and she was fired.
The non-profit estimated that Lori had stolen around $1 million over 3 years by creating false companies and invoices for the state and federal government to pay and pocketing it all. However, once the FBI got involved, they ascertained that she had actually stolen $579,495.75 by submitting invoices in the names of companies she set up in 4 of her daughters’ names. Therefore, 10 days after she reported that her husband had seemingly had a stroke and fallen from their boat on the fateful morning, a search warrant was executed on their home, with her being arrested 4 days later.
Lori Isenberg is Currently Behind Bars for Murder
When Lori was arrested, she was charged with one count of grand theft and 40 counts of forgery, all the while investigations into her husband’s supposed drowning and death continued. It was on March 1, 2018, that Larry was found on a shore after having been washed up, following which his autopsy revealed that there was no water in his lungs. This indicated that he might have suffered a stroke or heart attack before falling into the water, just like his wife claimed, but there was also the fact that he had a lot of Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) in his system. Ultimately, his cause of death was ruled to be from Diphenhydramine toxicity, with him having 7,100 nanograms per milliliter in his blood.
As a result, after an analysis of a juice bottle recovered from inside Lori’s purse on the fateful day revealed traces of the same, she was charged with second-degree murder. However, by this point, Lori had been released on a $75,000 bail, skipped a hearing, and vanished for a while, only to turn herself in to the police on July 25, 2018. Less than a year later, in January 2019, she pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud as well as one count of theft from a federal program in a federal court. For this, she was sentenced to 5 years in federal prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution of $579,495.75 as well as a fine of $20,000.
Coming to the state charges against Lori, she agreed to an Alford Plea in February 2021, meaning she maintains her innocence but accepts that prosecutors have enough evidence against her for a conviction. During her sentencing hearing on May 24, 2021, she claimed that the Benadryl-laced drink was for her and not her husband because she planned on taking her life on that morning. The news of her embezzlement was going to become public, and she claimed she didn’t want to face the way it would ruin her reputation or possibly make her husband leave her. However, the evidence of how she had searched water currents in the months leading up to it didn’t match her claims, so she was handed down 30 years to life in prison. Today, at the age of 71, Lori remains incarcerated at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center in Pocatello, Idaho, where she is expected to remain until at least she becomes eligible for parole on February 22, 2050, when she is in her mid-90s.
