PUBLIC SAFETY

Headless body case in Speedway highlighted on Investigation Discovery

Vic Ryckaert
IndyStar
A story about Cynthia Albrecht in the Oct. 30, 1992 edition of The Indianapolis Star.

The tragic, gruesome slaying of a Speedway chef who catered to IndyCar drivers and celebrities captivated Central Indiana and the racing world more than 20 years ago.

A headless body. An estranged husband. A divorce about to be finalized.

It took authorities five years to file murder charges against Michael Albrecht, a race car mechanic who thought he had a rock solid alibi for the night his wife Cynthia disappeared in 1992.

This tale of murder, money and race cars will be featured in Investigation Discovery's "On the Case with Paula Zahn" in an episode scheduled to air 10 p.m. Sunday.

Cynthia Albrecht, 31, disappeared Oct. 25, 1992, the day before her divorce was to be finalized. Three weeks later, deer hunters in Newton County found her nude and headless body under a thin shroud of leaves and twigs.

Cynthia worked as a chef for Penske Racing. She traveled the country, catering to drivers, sponsors and celebrities including, according to a press release, Donald Trump, General Norman Schwarzkopf and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Michael Albrecht, her soon-to-be-ex-husband, was a prime suspect, but he'd remain free for the next five years.

A friend swore Michael was in Milwaukee, Wisc., on the night Cynthia disappeared. The lead investigator, Speedway Police Lt. Bill Jones, didn't believe the alibi. Jones pursued the case for years and collected a solid trail of evidence that ultimately brought a killer to a courtroom, said Larry Sells, a former Marion County deputy prosecutor who tried the case.

Cynthia Albrecht- file photo

By 1997, Sells said the case was growing cold. With each passing year, Sells said it became harder and harder to bring Michael to justice.

"I was so honked off that no other prosecutor would file the case," Sells, now retired, told IndyStar. "They didn't have the guts to file it. I always had more guts than brains."

Money was the motive, said Sells, who has co-authored a book on the case that he said should be released this year. Michael had taken out a $50,000 life insurance policy on Cynthia, Sells said, and he was afraid that he would not be able to collect after the divorce was final.

Then-prosecutor Scott Newman agreed with the investigators and filed murder charges. In June 1997, police arrested Michael at a BMW dealership in Decatur, Ga., where he worked as a mechanic.

Police also arrested Michael's alibi witness, a painter from Milwaukee named William Filter, in August 1997. Facing a possible felony conviction for assisting a criminal, Filter recanted.

"Filter broke down and cried when he changed his story and told us that Albrecht admitted he had killed Cynthia," Jones, the Speedway police investigator, told The Indianapolis Star in a story published Sept. 4, 1997.

"I think it finally got to him. He had been carrying it around inside himself for a long time and couldn't deal with it any longer."

During the trial, Filter testified that Michael had talked about killing his wife and decapitating her body before she had disappeared. Filter admitted he had lied to protect his longtime friend.

Albrecht had been in Milwaukee, but Filter said he returned to Indianapolis that night. Filter, Sells said, told police that Michael showed up on his job site in Wisconsin not long after Cynthia disappeared.

Filter, Sells said, asked Michael:  "Did you do it?"

"Yes," Michael told him, according to Sells. "She's in the trunk. You want to see her?"

Michael Albrecht

Filter did not look in the trunk, Sells said.

The 1998 trial received heavy media coverage in Indianapolis.

Michael Albrecht maintained his innocence throughout. Defense lawyers said he was the subject of a "witch hunt" and they cast suspicion on another man who had briefly dated Cynthia.

"I did not kill my wife, Cynthia," Michael Albrecht said in a written statement released by attorney William V. Barteau just days after her body was discovered. "I had nothing to do with the disappearance or death of Cynthia, directly or indirectly."

Indiana State Police questioned Michael for more than five hours, Barteau, his attorney in the divorce case, told The Indianapolis Star and The Indianapolis News at the time.

"There seemed to be a vendetta against Michael. They chased him around the country," Barteau, now 83 and retired, told IndyStar Tuesday in a telephone interview.

The couple was parting amicably, Barteau said, noting he still thinks Michael Albrecht was wrongly convicted.

"I never thought he did it. He told me he didn't and I believed him."

A jury found Michael Albrecht guilty of murder and a judge handed him a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison.

Michael still claimed innocence at the sentencing hearing. In his first public comments about his wife's murder since his arrest, he called his conviction "a grave injustice" and told Cynthia's loved ones he was sorry for their pain, adding, "I've shed my share of tears."

The judge gave Sells a chance to cross-examine Michael.

He had one question: "Where is Cynthia's head?"

The appellate courts have upheld Michael Albrecht's sentence, which he continues to serve in the Plainfield Correctional Facility. His earliest release date is June 4, 2023.

Call IndyStar reporter Vic Ryckaert at (317) 444-2701. Follow him on Twitter: @vicryc.

"On the Case with Paula Zahn"

• What: "On the Case with Paula Zahn" will feature the 1992 murder of Penske Racing chef Cynthia Albrecht of Speedway in an episode titled "Racing to Justice."
• When: 10 p.m. Sunday, April 10, on Investigation Discovery.