FARIBAULT, Minn. (WCCO) — The wife of a Faribault man accused of killing a woman from Ohio believes there’s more to the story than what police have made public.
Rice County formally charged Jason Nisbit with second-degree murder Monday. According to the criminal complaint, he showed police where to find the body of Chelsea Martinez.
“He’s pretty much a vulnerable adult and there’s a lot more to this story then they’re letting out,” wife Gina Nisbit said.
Gina Nisbit stands behind her husband. Jason Nisbit was arrested Friday at their Faribault home where he lives with his wife and parents. The 39-year-old is accused of murdering Chelsea Martinez.
“They’re portraying my husband as a monster and he’s not,” Gina Nisbit said.
The 26-year-old’s body was found in a culvert across from Shager Park. Police located her abandoned car there last week. According to the criminal complaint, the Ohio mother traveled to Minnesota and Rice County to meet Nisbit, where the two talked about suicide. It said on August 1 they walked to the wooded area where Nisbit tied Martinez up, strangled her and cut her throat. Nisbit later admitted he killed her and led police to her body.
Gina Nisbit said the two met on the internet site “Experience Project.”
“It’s where you can go to explore, any kind of curiosity, and kind of out of the norm type of thing,” Gina Nisbit said.
Rice County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chief Jesse Thomas said the internet offers a way for people to be secretive.
“They can meet different people online where they can converse and nobody knows what’s going on,” Thomas said. “By the time you find out what’s happened, it’s just too late and you can’t help victims.”
Gina Nisbit believes her husband had a hand in Martinez’s death, but she doesn’t call his actions murder.
“The only way I believe it would have happened would be if he was forced into giving her assistance in some way,” she said.
Gina said her husband told her he tried to talk Martinez out of taking her own life, and that she had a plan of how she wanted Nisbit to kill her, and he eventually crumbled.
A judge set Nisbit’s bail at $1 million. He’ll be back in court later this month.
