Two dead wives, one husband: Investigators revisit decades-old cases in Kentucky and Oregon

Two wives. Two mysterious deaths. Two decades and nearly 2,000 miles apart.

The common denominator: the same husband.

“To lose two wives in both mysterious kinds of ways is a bit peculiar,” an Oregon neighbor said.

Both Joyce Bridges and Astrid Bridges died many years ago, Joyce in Louisville and Astrid many states away in Oregon.

In 1972, Joyce Bridges and her family moved to a new Louisville neighborhood. It was an opportunity for a new life in a new home.

But on July 5, she was found dead there. For decades, her death was deemed an accident.

Then, more than 40 years later, the past was unearthed.

Last week, LMPD posted new details about Joyce’ cold case. Investigators said “new information” led them to exhume her body in 2015.

A new autopsy determined her death was a homicide.

One of the homeowners in this neighborhood spoke to Kentucky sister station WLKY on Thursday and said that also in 2015, they got a mysterious knock at the door from a woman who said she used to live there as a child.

She said she wanted to see the inside because her mother died there. For years, she thought it was an accident until she learned otherwise.

Astrid died at her home in Oregon on July 2, 1993.

Investigators said that while her case was also ruled an accident, it was always considered suspicious.

“We did hear that his first wife had mysteriously drowned in a bathtub and then this wife falling off a ladder,” the same neighbor said.

This week, police in Oregon called their husband, John Bridges, a suspect in Astrid’s death. They said a warrant has been served to his Missouri home.

So far, no charges have been announced, and nothing confirms whether the husband has or will be charged.

The investigation remains ongoing.