David Pietz Murder Trial: 4 Women Testify About Intimacy With Accused Killer

Sept. 19, 2013 — -- At the trial of a Washington state man accused of killing his wife, four women testified this week that they'd had intimate relations with the accused killer, creating an image in stark contrast to that of the loving husband he claimed to be.

Martin David Pietz is accused of killing his wife, 32-year-old wife Nicole Pietz, who vanished from her home in 2006. Detectives with the King County Sheriff's Office Major Crimes Unit arrested Pietz in March and charged him with second-degree murder.

At his trial this week, four women -- Renee Stewart, Samantha Duffy, Sabrina Lucia Strieck and Julie Hansen-Freeman -- took the stand to say that they had been intimate with Pietz while he was married.

Nicole Pietz Murder Trial: Mother Confronts Alleged Killer in Court. Read more here.

Strieck, a former co-worker, testified that she and Pietz began their relationship back when he was engaged.

"I asked him why he was getting married, and he said that at that point it was too late to back out of it," she said.

Nicole Pietz's body was found strangled in a wooded area shortly after she disappeared more than six years ago. Prosecutors said her husband killed her because he was unhappy in their marriage. Prosecutors built a case that relied heavily on circumstantial evidence and DNA.

On Wednesday, Stewart, who Pietz met at a gym, testified that he'd told her that he'd twice slipped the drug Ecstasy into his wife's drinks.

"He told me that he would put it in her Red Bull," she said. "He was just trying to loosen her up to get her to do a threesome."

Jurors heard something completely different from Pietz in court -- an audio recording of his interview with police in which he said he never used drugs, and had virtually no sex drive.

"I don't have much of a libido," he told police in the interview. "She was usually, yeah just kind of opposite roles of what the stereotype is."

Pietz's voice sounded calm during the interview. He said he feared that his wife, a recovering alcoholic, might have overdosed on medication. He has pleaded not guilty and continues to deny any involvement in her death. The trial is set to continue through October.