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Frank Buschauer was convicted of first-degree murder on August 23, 2019, in the drowning death of his wife, Cynthia Hrisco, in South Barrington, Illinois, and sentenced on November 8, 2019, to 25 years in prison. Illinois law requires him to serve the sentence in full.

Cook County Judge Joseph Cataldo found Buschauer guilty after a trial without a jury. Before trial, a Cook County judge suppressed his March 2000 statements and evidence taken from his home but ruled his April 2013 statements admissible. The Illinois Appellate Court reversed the suppression ruling on February 16, 2016. On September 19, 2022, it affirmed the conviction, rejecting his claims that police withheld information about an arrest warrant when he waived his rights and that Hrisco's statements to friends were wrongly admitted. No later appeal has been publicly reported. His son has said publicly that he believes his father is innocent.

Buschauer, a chemical engineer, lived with Hrisco and their infant son, adopted from Russia, in South Barrington, a Chicago suburb. Her friends later told police the couple had argued for about two years over construction of their home. Prosecutors said Hrisco wanted to sue Buschauer's cousin, who built it, over poor workmanship and cost overruns of up to $200,000; Buschauer refused. One friend told police Hrisco said he once grabbed her around the neck. Four days before her death, Hrisco told that friend she was afraid of him.

Buschauer called 911 at 2:25 a.m. on February 28, 2000. South Barrington Officer Bryant Haniszewski arrived about five minutes later and found Hrisco, 47, on the floor beside the master bathroom's whirlpool tub, which was still full of hot water and running. Buschauer said he went to bed around 9:30 p.m., woke when his son cried, reached under the foamy water, felt her body and pulled her out. The medical examiner found she drowned, with hemorrhages on her neck, scalp and left eye and abrasions and contusions to her nose and chin. The manner of death was left undetermined. A physician from the Cook County Medical Examiner's office who reviewed the autopsy called the death very suspicious, citing a neck hemorrhage and scalp hemorrhaging more consistent with asphyxiation than drowning.

Two Illinois State Police special agents interviewed Buschauer for more than 13 hours at the Hoffman Estates police station on March 6, 2000. He gave inconsistent accounts of finding Hrisco, could not explain why none of the objects around the tub were disturbed, and said he could have killed her but did not remember doing so. The next morning, he told the agents he would not talk without an attorney. The death investigation closed in mid 2000. Buschauer later moved with his son to Wisconsin.

The case reopened about a decade later. Reviews beginning in 2010 included a crime scene reconstruction and a forensic re-enactment in the bathtub. Experts concluded Hrisco died of a homicidal drowning, and the medical examiner then ruled the death a homicide. On April 24, 2013, Buschauer, then 64, was picked up in Walworth County, Wisconsin, and interviewed at the Walworth County sheriff's office. That afternoon, he was formally arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

The recording is dated April 24 on the tape. Detectives re-read Buschauer his rights, refer to the 2000 state police interviews and handcuff him at the end, matching the April 24, 2013 interview.

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Part 2 of 4 of the recording described above.

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Part 3 of 4 of the recording described above.

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Part 4 of 4 of the recording described above.