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Dennis Koula, Merna Koula: Rich Parents Murdered For Inheritance Money By Greedy Son, Eric Koula, On ID’s ‘The Perfect Murder’

By Traciy Reyes
Published on: 03:11 PST, Aug 16, 2016

Dennis Koula, the wealthy father who was shot dead in his Wisconsin mansion along with his loving wife, Merna Koula, will have his story told on Wednesday’s The Perfect Murder on Investigation Discovery. This season, the Perfect Murder has riveted ID viewers with bizarre cases of crimes that almost went unsolved. The episode covering the Koula case is called “Prescription For Murder,” and will tell the story of how a pair of wealthy parents ended up murdered in the safety of their posh home. Could this be the work of intruders, or is the killer someone much closer to their hearts?

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Murders At The Mansion

The Perfect Murder will detail that in May, 2010, police received a tearful call from Eric Koula, who told operators that he found his parents not breathing. When investigators arrived at the mansion on Fox Hollow Road in Town Of Barre, they found a deceased elderly couple — 68-year-old Dennis Koula and his wife, 65-year-old Merna Koula. Dennis was lying unresponsive in the kitchen, and Merna was at the computer.

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An autopsy report indicated that these deaths were not the result of natural causes. Dennis Koula had suffered a gunshot wound to the head and so had Merna. The couple had been dead for at least three days before they were discovered.

While police worked the investigation, family and friends were devastated by the loss of the Koulas. The La Crosse County couple had worked hard to have the nice life that they had cut out for themselves, and they had planned to spend the rest of their days enjoying it. When news first broke, residents feared that a killer was on the loose and targeting people in their neighborhood, Dale Clements told WEAU.

“It makes everybody a little uneasy in the neighborhood. I talked to them many times out here when they were walking through the neighborhood. They were very, very nice people, you know, can’t say anything bad about them. It makes you really, really think really watching out when you do something outside or whatever. My wife and I were talking about it, yeah, saying, talking to the neighbors it does make everybody uneasy out here, you know, there’s a lot of people out here probably never thought about locking their doors before. They are now.”

However, once police got into the meat of the investigation, the killer was someone much closer to the couple. Eric Koula told investigators that he had stopped by his parents’ home to check on them since he hadn’t heard from them in several days. When it became apparent to investigators that this was an inside job, Eric Koula seemed like a likely suspect. Though this contradicted what everyone else seemed to know about Eric. By all accounts, Eric had a beautiful relationship with his father. In fact, Dennis considered Eric to be his best friend. But as they looked deeper into Eric Koula’s background, they found that he was a man of many secrets, The Perfect Murder will reveal.

Beloved Son Had Secret Debts

They also found out that he had forged his father’s signature on a check for $50,000 to cover an outstanding debt that he had incurred. Soon police began to carve out a motive that suggested that Eric Koula wanted his parents dead so that he could get the inheritance money.

This was the angle that prosecutors used at trial. They painted a portrait of Eric Koula as a man who was not willing to get what he had through hard work as his parents had done. Instead, he wanted it all now and decided that his parents were going to foot the bill.

A jury found Eric Koula guilty of the double murders and sentenced him to two life sentences with no chance of parole. Today, Eric Koula is still doing his time. His appeal was denied, according to NBC-15.

Watch the details of the case tonight on the new episode of The Perfect Murder this Wednesday, August 17, at 9/8 p.m. Central on Investigation Discovery. This year, The Perfect Murder has also aired the Larissa Macriello and the Marc Van Beers murder cases.

The Koula case was featured on an episode of CBS 48 Hours.

[Image via Kaufman Films/Facebook]

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