Dubuque police have released notes left by a man who was found dead while he was out on bail on charges of killing his wife. 34-year-old Bret Zartman had been charged with strangling Carol Zartman May tenth and leaving her body to be found in a running car in the garage of the family home. Zartman had been released on three-quarters of a million dollars bond when he was found dead in a running vehicle in the same garage June 23. Assistant Dubuque police chief Terry Tobin says for over a week, investigators held the notes he left. An officer says they’re not releasing contents of the notes, but then adds that one was a confession that Mr. Zartman had killed his wife. Assistant Chief Tobin says some of the notes Zartman left gave funeral instructions but at least one clearly stated that he’d murdered Carol Zartman, and assistant chief Tobin says that closes the case. He says the note confirms what police believed all along, and they filed charges against him because of the certainty that he’d killed his wife– and though at the time Zartman had entered a court plea of not-guilty, they’re taking his admission in the note as a confession to the crime. The couple’s four children are being cared for by their mother’s sister.Tobin calls it “a tragic case” for the families of both Zartman and his wife, and says now there are four young kids with no living parents. While police say none of the notes or recordings were addressed to them, they say the messages confirm their suspicions about the case all along.
