A Murder Wrecks a Remodeling Business
(‘Frozen Assets,’ Forensic Files)
Local TV commercials starring small-business owners have an innate charm in spite of, or maybe because of, their low production values.
The folksy ads become part of a community’s sense of place and security, particularly in the case of Al Zullo Remodeling Specialists, who for decades told homeowners that “one call does it all.”
MaryAnn Clibbery and George Hansen were partners in the Loves Park, Illinois, company, named after the original owner, Anthony “Al” Zullo.
Retiring type. Before he died in 2000, he decided to leave the business to MaryAnn and George to reward their loyalty. She had started there as a secretary in 1959, and he got on board at some point in the 1960s, according to reporting from the Randolph County Herald Tribune.
By 2004, MaryAnn, 69, was thinking about retiring from the business.
But she never got the chance. Her business partner bludgeoned her to death in a back hallway of Al Zullo first.
Caring boss. For this week, I checked on George’s whereabouts today (he’s still alive) and looked for more information about the victim’s life and also what happened to the business after one owner died and the other traded his white button-down for an unfitted light-blue prison-issue shirt.
So let’s get going on the recap of the 2008 episode “Frozen Assets” along with extra information from internet research:
At Al Zullo Remodeling Specialists, George Hansen handled sales and MaryAnn Clibbery did the finances. MaryAnn was known for her kindness to workers and sometimes fronted them their wages with her own money if they got in a jam, according to Forensic Files.
Quintets of kids. Born MaryAnn Romain, she had grown up in a family of five children who lived in the projects in Chicago, then moved to a house with no hot water in Rockford, Illinois, according to the Beloit Daily News. An obituary for MaryAnn’s father notes he owned a Gulf station for 15 years, so perhaps things improved financially for the family.
MaryAnn went on to have five children of her own and two marriages. At least one of her husbands left her widowed and it’s not clear whether she divorced the other or he passed away. By 2004, she was unmarried but had a long-term serious boyfriend.
Background information on George Hansen is skimpy except for the fact that he was married with children. An employee named Raymond Beardsley told the Beloit Daily News that he had a temper and could become “unhinged.”
Bereft boyfriend. Still, on the surface, everything looked great at the local institution until the early morning of Dec. 22, 2004. George and co-worker Randy Baxter discovered MaryAnn’s body when they showed up for work. Randy called 911 and reported MaryAnn wasn’t breathing and rigor mortis had set in.
Investigators determined she sustained three blows to the back of the head plus other blunt force trauma inflicted during two separate attacks.
Harold “Gene” Sundeen, her boyfriend of 12 years, was heartbroken. “I remember the dress she wore for our first date,” he told the ID network’s Murder in the Heartland. “It was blue with white polka dots.”
Convenient suspect. MaryAnn’s son Robert Cleere, who also appeared on Murder in the Heartland, recalled that he was working on his mail route when his supervisor told him about his mother’s murder.
Her well-attended funeral mass took place at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church.
Police at first focused on Kevin Doyle, an employee MaryAnn had recently let go after he messed up on a job. He had kept a set of keys to the business.
Drank and drove. But there was also the matter of MaryAnn’s relationship with George. In everyday business life, they didn’t get along quite as well as they seemed to in the commercials. According to Forensic Files, George felt MaryAnn didn’t deserve the partnership Al Zullo left her.
When questioned by police, George denied any conflict and gave an extensive alibi: The night of the homicide, he enjoyed several vodka-and-Squirts at the Backyard Bar and Grill with his wife, followed by some Brandy Old Fashioneds at Singapore Bar and Grill, where he bought a $50 gift card for MaryAnn. Then, he took his granddaughter to Safety First Driving School and visited a tanning salon before heading home.
Witnesses confirmed George’s alibis.
Canary jumper. But things fell apart for George after a citizen notified police about a black garbage bag sitting on top of some ice on Rock River.
It contained a hammer, gloves, MaryAnn’s tan suede purse, and a yellow sweater.
The sweater, which had originally belonged to founder Al Zullo — and was kept around the office for whoever caught a chill — had MaryAnn’s blood on the outside.
Evidence cornucopia. Skin cells found inside the collar of the sweater matched George’s DNA profile.
Likewise, the gloves contained MaryAnn’s blood on the outside, George’s DNA inside.
Forensic Files didn’t mention it, but MaryAnn had already had at least two suspicious brushes with death before the murder.
Sneaked-in sedation. According to Fraud Magazine, on one occasion, the brakes in her car failed right after George had borrowed it. Another time, someone set fire to a sofa MaryAnn was sleeping on.
But if MaryAnn was snoozing at the office, it didn’t necessarily mean she was lazy. Police found the remains of the prescription sleep medication Zolpidem in her mug at the office. George used to deliver coffee to MaryAnn in the cup, and employees had seen her asleep at her desk.
He had good reason to keep MaryAnn a little woozy. She was investigating him.
Risky rendezvous. That year, some of the Christmas cards received from vendors and subcontractors included notes saying that they hadn’t been paid. MaryAnn discovered George was pocketing the money owed to them. He falsified the books to hide his theft, which totaled around $100,000.
MaryAnn had told police and her doctor about her suspicions, according to Fraud Magazine.
The day she died, MaryAnn stayed late at the office to confront George about the embezzlement. It’s not clear why she chose to meet alone with him after the frightening incidents. (Her friend Linda Cleveland recalled that over breakfast at Johnny Pamcakes — not a typo — in early December 2004, MaryAnn said that she feared something bad was on the horizon.)
Hard landing. Police believe George was wearing the yellow sweater while beating MaryAnn with a hammer during an argument over the missing money. After the initial attack, George opened some drawers to make the place look ransacked, then realized MaryAnn was still alive and beat her again, the authorities theorized.
He stuffed the evidence into the garbage bag and included her purse so the attack would look like a burglary that turned into a homicide. But police would find that nothing else was missing from the office.
George threw the murder bag off the Roscoe Road bridge into the Rock River. But it landed on the ice (John Lotter and Thomas Nissen). A witness saw George’s white truck with its “Zullo 51” vanity license plate driving back and forth on the bridge. Police believe he was trying to figure out how to retrieve the bag but gave up.
Tablet tattler. Investigators found out that the business had a $150,000 life insurance policy on MaryAnn, which would have come in handy for George to pay off the vendors and subcontractors he cheated.
On Dec. 27, 2004, Loves Park police interrupted George’s game of video poker at Croc’s Pub to arrest him. He reportedly didn’t ask for a reason or make any comment. His pants pocket contained a single pink pill, which was identified as the same sleeping aid found in MaryAnn’s mug. (George’s sister would later admit to investigators that she had been illegally selling the prescription drug to him.)
The evolution of the quaint hometown business into a hub for murder and betrayal shook up the community. “These were people who had been in their homes, and it just gave everyone a horrible feeling,” Jessica Olstad, a former Wptz-TV Newschannel 5 reporter who covered the case, told ForensicFilsNow.com.
Some other dude did it. With so much forensic evidence pointing his way, George changed his story.
He now said he stopped by the office to look for his gloves around 7 p.m. on Dec. 21, and saw MaryAnn lying dead. Because the yellow sweater, hammer, and gloves that some anonymous evildoer used in the attack were associated with George, he was afraid he’d be blamed, so he panicked and covered it up (Brad Jackson) by disposing of the evidence, he said. Then he retrieved his granddaughter from driving school and stopped off for a sandwich.
At the trial in 2005, prosecutor Margie O’Conner asked George why he didn’t come to MaryAnn’s aid when he saw her lying on the floor the evening before Randy Baxter notified authorities.
“It was the dumbest and worst thing I ever did,” Hansen told the court.
Courtroom cool. George also claimed MaryAnn was in on the financial crimes and that he had no motive to kill her because they needed each other to keep the scam going.
“All I remember is wanting to go over the rail and strangle that guy,” MaryAnn’s brother Robert Romain — who was sitting just a few feet away from George at the trial — told Murder in the Heartland.
In a dramatic moment, after testifying about finding MaryAnn “in a big scab” of dried blood, Randy Baxter became so rattled that he needed to take a break before looking at the crime scene photos, the Beloit Daily News reported.
Wily guy. Despite emotions running high, “it was the most civil trial I’d ever covered, eerily quiet,” Jessica Olstad recalled. “MaryAnn’s boyfriend sat there every day. He was incredibly friendly, but not boisterous and certainly didn’t seek the limelight.”
In her closing statement, Margie O’Connor warned the jury about George’s guile: “He made his living as a salesman” and “is trying to make the sale of his life.”
Assistant Public Defender Frank Perri maintained that George was guilty only of “stupidity” and “selfishness” and that the contents of the garbage bag added up to nothing more than circumstantial evidence — there was no blood in his car.
Somber but satisfied. A jury didn’t buy it and convicted him of first-degree murder.
According to the Rockford Register Star, after the verdict: Hansen’s family and friends filed out of the third-floor courtroom tight-lipped and headed straight for the elevators, trying to avoid TV cameras and other media. Clibbery’s family and friends walked out looking somewhat haggard but relieved.
Lengthy sentence. Outside the courthouse, George Hansen’s 35-year-old daughter sobbed and told the media that her father had been convicted without evidence.
During the sentencing proceedings on October 13, 2005, MaryAnn’s boyfriend as well as her brother Louis Romain and her daughter Charmaine Shelf addressed the court about their painful loss.
Winnebago County Judge Daniel Doyle gave George a 60-year sentence.
Major disconnect. Meanwhile, what about the fate of Al Zullo Remodeling Specialists — a staple service whose friendly low-budget commercials became part of Loves Park’s identity?
Well, George’s crime rendered it unsalvageable, leaving creditor Amcore Bank and vendors unpaid.
The bank sued in an effort to get the $92,000 Al Zullo owed for a loan, according to the Rockford Register Star, which also noted that just one month after the murder, phone calls to the business were greeted by an answering machine with no room for messages and no forwarding number.
Still slim. The newspaper also reported that one homeowner who paid Al Zullo in full for renovation services was “hounded” for money that the business owed to a lumber provider. Homeowners with half-finished construction work were out of luck. With MaryAnn gone and George about to begin a life of strip searches and Nutraloaf, the business ceased to exist.
Today, the man who brought about its demise is better known as inmate #R47647 at the Pontiac Correctional Center. The Illinois Department of Corrections notes that George has a projected parole date of Dec. 23, 2064 — when he’s 123 years old.
Unrequited love. In the meantime, he has kept his 5-foot-7-inch body tattoo-free and trim at 139 pounds, according to the state’s DOC website.
As for MaryAnn’s boyfriend Gene Sundeen, who Forensic Files watchers will recall for his grief during his on-camera interview, he never remarried. He died a single man in 2019 at the age of 89.
You can watch the Murder in the Heartland episode “Bad for Business” on Hulu. It’s also on YouTube, but there’s a $1.99 fee to watch it in standard definition.
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR
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