Looking at Matthew Gretz (Kira Simonian)

Matthew Gretz is the husband of Kira Simonian. Simonian was a graduate student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. On June 28, 2007, Simonian’s landlord found her dead in her Minneapolis apartment. She was 32-years-old and an art student. Police are not saying exactly how she died, but they are calling the case a homicide and they are saying there are “multiple causes of death”. No one has been called a suspect, yet no one has been ruled out either.

That leaves us to look at Gretz. Where was he the night before and the day that Simonian was found dead?

According to news reports, he left town for business on Thursday morning before Simonian’s body was found later that evening. So, I would think by the time line, if reports are accurate, Gretz could still be a suspect.

Read more Gretz has only spoken publicly one time that I am aware of and there is only a tiny snippet of him speaking at a vigil held for Simonian several weeks after her death.

Does it tell us anything?

We know he is not lying in this video simply because he doesn’t say anything that is worthy of a lie. He makes the most generic statements which I personally find a bit odd. Usually at vigils, people talk personally about the loss of someone they love. That’s not to say that Gretz did or did not say more personal things. We really can’t discern this from the tiny snippets of vigil shown in this clip. He may have and the camera crew may not have caught it, or showed it on TV — which would be odd in itself. I would think the camera crew was looking to get him talking emotionally about Simonian, wouldn’t you? With that, we have to wonder and ask is this all he said at the vigil? If this is all he said, I’d find it perplexing.

What Gretz does say is this:

“Since my wife was murdered, everyday it gets a little bit harder in some ways…But it’s kinda days like today or moments like this: seeing your faces and seeing your support and knowing were all in this together, that makes it a little bit easier.”

He continues:

“I know that we all appreciated Kira in different ways. It’s not just my loss, it’s friends losses, it’s student’s losses, it’s neighbors losses. Going forward, let’s tell good stories about Kira because that’s what she would have wanted.”

Can we glean anything from this?

We can glean, at this point, Gretz is not in denial about his wife’s murder by the fact he uses the word “murder”. It’s a strong word. If Gretz were to try to play the part that he couldn’t accept her death , I would find that odd and contradictory — but we don’t know how Gretz is behaving at this point. If we did, we could see if his behavior is consistent. That’s key.

I do find the fact that he says, “…everyday it gets a little bit harder in some ways…But it’s kinda days like today or moments like this…” interesting. These statement shows that Gretz is having some confusing and conflicting feelings.

Things are getting harder “in some ways”? They either do, or do not get harder after the murder of a loved one. When emotions run high, things become stark black and white. I can accept either answer, but I would expect a definitive answer. You either will or will not face challenges — but you don’t face them “in some ways” at a highly volitile time in your life. It’s a half-baked answer. It’s odd. It’s unusual. It’s a raised-eyebrow but nothing more.

I would like to ask Gretz what has gotten harder in some ways? His answer might be telling.

Gretz goes on with his wishy-washy response when he says “But it’s kinda days like today…” It kind of is, but it isn’t? This is another odd answer. It’s unusual. This response doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Either you find solace in the gathering of Simonian’s friends, or you don’t. You don’t sort of find solace, do you?

Is he not finding solace– but trying to act like he is?

I also find Gretz’s word choices odd here when he says, “It’s not just my loss, it’s friends losses, it’s student’s losses, it’s neighbors losses. ” This statement lacks personal connection. It’s almost as if Gretz is distancing himself. You have to wonder. It’s just unusual again. I would expect to him to say something like, “It’s not only my loss, but your loss too. We all lost…”.

And last, when I watch Gretz talk, I see fear in his eyes and in his face. He looks frightened: really frightened. You can see he is trying to comfort himself by rubbing his chest. His voice quivers and he sounds as if he is out-of-breathe when he starts talking. Why? Is it due to the cut of the video, or is this how he started talking? I’d be curious to know. It would give me more information because if this is how he started talking, his voice pitch is strange.

Can I determine why he is frightened? No. I can only speculate. Why would he be afraid? Well, he could be deathly afraid of the person who murdered his wife, if he is a victim here. If that is the case, would he go to or hold a vigil after dark in the same neighborhood — a block away — if he feared for his life? That makes me ask the question who organized the vigil? I’d be interested to know.

All these answers would give me more definition.

Perhaps Gretz would be the type to push his fears aside and go to a vigil to honor Simonian. I can’t determine that from the little I know about Gretz. He doesn’t hit me as the type to take risks for his safety when I look at him, but I could be wrong. That’s simply just a guess.

Another scenario is that Gretz is an extremely shy guy — and going to this public vigil was too much for him. Could that be why he was afraid? When I watch Simonian’s video on CrimeBlog.us, I see Simonian was a strong character. I don’t believe such a timid guy would be attracted to someone like her, if that was the case. She hits me as the type to make him deal with situations — not avoid them. With that, I don’t believe Gretz was that shy and hence simply afraid of being on TV.

I’d be interested to talk to Gretz to ask him why he was so afraid. I think his responses would tell us a lot.

We can only guess at this point what is going on inside Gretz’s head. I’d love to ask him some questions, but I am not sure if I would like the answers I got back.

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Update:

September 2007:
Matthew Gretz has been arrested.

June 2008
Gretz Confesses
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