Man convicted of drowning his wife in South Barrington talks prison life on TV show
A new true-crime TV episode paints a picture of what life is like for Frank Buschauer at an Illinois prison, while his family maintains he did not kill his wife 21 years ago.
“Sometimes I think it’s harder for you guys than it is for me. I have no stress, really. I don’t clean the dishes. I don’t cook. I sit around and read books,” Buschauer tells his son, David, by phone on “Evil Lives Here: Shadows of Death.”
Buschauer was convicted in 2019 of drowning his wife, Cynthia Hrisco, in a whirlpool bathtub at their South Barrington home. The “Evil Lives Here” episode, which is slated to be available to stream Sunday on the Discovery Plus platform, uses police footage and photos; Buschauer home movies; interviews with law enforcement and Buschauer’s family; and fictionalized re-enactments to recall the case.
Buschauer and Hrisco were said to be having marital troubles at the time of her death in February 2000. When officer Bryant Haniszewski responded to Buschauer’s 911 call, he found Hrisco on the floor next to the tub. Buschauer said he pulled his wife from the tub after discovering her there, but Haniszewski said Buschauer’s clothes weren’t wet and items around the tub were undisturbed.
“His story just wasn’t making sense. I think that everybody else that was there, including the investigator and the evidence technician also felt that same way, that it required substantial follow-up,” Haniszewski says on “Evil Lives Here.”
An initial investigation found Hrisco died by drowning, but the manner of her death was undetermined. Authorities reopened the case a decade later and concluded Hrisco’s injuries indicated a struggle. Buschauer was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in 2013 and convicted six years later, after a bench trial. Now 72, he’s serving a 25-year sentence at Menard Correctional Center in southern Illinois.
Buschauer’s family says Hrisco’s death was a terrible accident. “There wasn’t any evidence, and there isn’t any evidence because he’s innocent. And I can’t understand how anyone could think that he was a monster, a killer. He didn’t kill her,” said Linda Berck, Buschauer’s sister.
“I’m very hard-pressed to figure out why such an innocent, gentle, kind man wound up on the wrong side of a murder investigation‚” said David Buschauer, who performs a song about his family’s troubles on “Evil Lives Here.”
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