Kathy Pinna
Glamor was fatal lure for call girl
Family mourns end of life full of trouble
GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN - Kristi Hoenig didn't try to hide her life as a big-city call girl from fiends and family. In fact, she seemed proud to have made it from a humble two-bedroom Cape Cod in this working class mill town to a $2,500-a-month apartment on Chicago's Gold Coast, even if the folks back home didn't approve.
"She said the was leading the life only a queen could ask for," said Ashley Hoff, a childhood friend who last spoke with Hoenig months ago. At the same time, she was paying a steep price. Family and friends also heard too-frequent tales of arrests, rapes, and beatings.
On the morning of Feb. 26, Hoenig's whirlwind life came to a grisly halt. A phone call to her escort service led her to the suburban Addison home of Gary Schuning, 23.
Police say Schuning had already stabbed his mother to death when he made the call for a prostitute. Not long after Hoenig arrived, police say, Schuning stabbed her to death as well. He had been charged with the two murders.
In the years leading up to her death, friends and family in Green Bay felt they could do little but watch as Hoenig's life spiraled into drug use and risky behavior. But a comment she once made to her best friend gave a glimmer of hope that Hoenig still held onto her small-town roots: She worried that if she died, no one would attend her funeral. She wanted to know that people cared.
Apparently they did.
More than 70 friends and family members gathered in a viewing room at a Green Bay crematorium Friday to big farewell to Hoenig, who lay in repose in a pink turtleneck, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. On her shirt was a button bearing a picture of herself as a smiling young girl and the words "Someone Special." She held a rosary in her clasped hands.
In an interview, Hoenig's mother, Rosie Hoenig, talked about her daughter's life, how Kristi had been sexually abused by acquaintances as a child, got caught up with the wrong crowd as an adolescent, starte using drugs and eventually became a prostitute. She said Hoenig accepted responsibility for the choices she made in life and bristled at the thought of others judging her.
"We are not to judge"
At the funeral, Rev. Ron Belitz of Prince of Peace Parish in Green Bay alluded to her struggles. "I challenge you to try and place yourself into the life Kristi was dealt, and to know that we are not to judge," Belitz told the crowd. "God takes car of that."
By all accounts, Kristi Hoenig didn't regret her lifestyle. The weekend before she died, Hoenig had her mother come to Chicago and showed off her luxury apartment. overlooking Oak Street Beach. On a recent visit home, she told a neighbor about a $5,000 purse Jesse Miser, the man accused of being her pimp, had bought her.
"She was not interested in stopping," said Jeffrey Granich, an attorney who represented Hoenig in many of the 27 arrests and 10 convictions she'd amassed since 2002. "She was not interested in changing her life . . . One time she said, 'What do you want me to do, go work at Wendy's for minimum wage?' "
Rosie Hoenig worked shifts at a Green Bay paper mill and raised her two children alone. Kristi Hoenig's sister, Kim Marshall, is nearly 13 years older and often served as a fill-in mother. "I remember her always wanting to be under my feet, just seeing what I was doing," Marshall said. She was just a cute little girl."
When Kristi Hoenig was 9, her sister married and left home. That's when Kristi's life began to unravel. At age 12 she was smoking marijuana and trying other drugs, her mother said. At one point she backed a family car through a close garage door, prompting her mother to call the police, who charged her with property damage.
A troubled teenager
. . . the article goes on to describe how Kristi stole alcohol and stayed out and fought with her mother. She got her first pimp at age 15 and he turned her into a stripper and then a prostitute. At age 18, she dropped out of school and moved to Chicago.
About two years before she died, she met Miser and became part of his escort service. By all reports, she cared for him and her cared for her, donating money towards her funeral.
- Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) Sunday March 5th, 2006 on pages 1 and 3.
GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN - Kristi Hoenig didn't try to hide her life as a big-city call girl from fiends and family. In fact, she seemed proud to have made it from a humble two-bedroom Cape Cod in this working class mill town to a $2,500-a-month apartment on Chicago's Gold Coast, even if the folks back home didn't approve.
"She said the was leading the life only a queen could ask for," said Ashley Hoff, a childhood friend who last spoke with Hoenig months ago. At the same time, she was paying a steep price. Family and friends also heard too-frequent tales of arrests, rapes, and beatings.
On the morning of Feb. 26, Hoenig's whirlwind life came to a grisly halt. A phone call to her escort service led her to the suburban Addison home of Gary Schuning, 23.
Police say Schuning had already stabbed his mother to death when he made the call for a prostitute. Not long after Hoenig arrived, police say, Schuning stabbed her to death as well. He had been charged with the two murders.
In the years leading up to her death, friends and family in Green Bay felt they could do little but watch as Hoenig's life spiraled into drug use and risky behavior. But a comment she once made to her best friend gave a glimmer of hope that Hoenig still held onto her small-town roots: She worried that if she died, no one would attend her funeral. She wanted to know that people cared.
Apparently they did.
More than 70 friends and family members gathered in a viewing room at a Green Bay crematorium Friday to big farewell to Hoenig, who lay in repose in a pink turtleneck, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. On her shirt was a button bearing a picture of herself as a smiling young girl and the words "Someone Special." She held a rosary in her clasped hands.
In an interview, Hoenig's mother, Rosie Hoenig, talked about her daughter's life, how Kristi had been sexually abused by acquaintances as a child, got caught up with the wrong crowd as an adolescent, starte using drugs and eventually became a prostitute. She said Hoenig accepted responsibility for the choices she made in life and bristled at the thought of others judging her.
"We are not to judge"
At the funeral, Rev. Ron Belitz of Prince of Peace Parish in Green Bay alluded to her struggles. "I challenge you to try and place yourself into the life Kristi was dealt, and to know that we are not to judge," Belitz told the crowd. "God takes car of that."
By all accounts, Kristi Hoenig didn't regret her lifestyle. The weekend before she died, Hoenig had her mother come to Chicago and showed off her luxury apartment. overlooking Oak Street Beach. On a recent visit home, she told a neighbor about a $5,000 purse Jesse Miser, the man accused of being her pimp, had bought her.
"She was not interested in stopping," said Jeffrey Granich, an attorney who represented Hoenig in many of the 27 arrests and 10 convictions she'd amassed since 2002. "She was not interested in changing her life . . . One time she said, 'What do you want me to do, go work at Wendy's for minimum wage?' "
Rosie Hoenig worked shifts at a Green Bay paper mill and raised her two children alone. Kristi Hoenig's sister, Kim Marshall, is nearly 13 years older and often served as a fill-in mother. "I remember her always wanting to be under my feet, just seeing what I was doing," Marshall said. She was just a cute little girl."
When Kristi Hoenig was 9, her sister married and left home. That's when Kristi's life began to unravel. At age 12 she was smoking marijuana and trying other drugs, her mother said. At one point she backed a family car through a close garage door, prompting her mother to call the police, who charged her with property damage.
A troubled teenager
. . . the article goes on to describe how Kristi stole alcohol and stayed out and fought with her mother. She got her first pimp at age 15 and he turned her into a stripper and then a prostitute. At age 18, she dropped out of school and moved to Chicago.
About two years before she died, she met Miser and became part of his escort service. By all reports, she cared for him and her cared for her, donating money towards her funeral.
- Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) Sunday March 5th, 2006 on pages 1 and 3.
