WI :mother charged with concealing a corpse
Jojoz
really interesting.... very strange
~Jojoz
-----
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/aug01/vrana04080301.asp
Many knew of girl's death, but no one told, police say
Twins' mother charged with concealing a corpse
By DAVID DOEGE
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Last Updated: Aug. 3, 2001
Angela Velzka-Lawrence
Photo/File
Angela, 15, had been missing from her south side home since last July.
Photo/Karen Sherlock
Angela Velzka-Lawrence lived and died in hojmes on this street, the 2500
block of S. 28th St.
Related Coverage
Experts: Charges against mother called appropriate
Shane Patrick Pfennig told police his story on Sunday.
Susan Marie Vrana drove the van to Crivitz, police say.
Recent Coverage
Mother: Believes girl's death was accidental (8/3/01)
Suspect: Teen bragged about killing (8/1/01)
Police say: Girl shot in gun game (7/31/01)
Susan Marie Vrana's children telephoned her at work last summer and told her
to hurry home, there was a problem. When she got there and asked what was
wrong, they sent her upstairs.
Vrana walked into her twin boys' bedroom and found a neighbor girl,
15-year-old Angela Velzka-Lawrence, slumped on a futon with a bullet hole in
her forehead, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday. The complaint
lays out this account:
It was an accident, one of her 15-year-old sons insisted. The gun should
have been empty.
He cried. He screamed. He begged.
Don't call the police! They won't think it was an accident!
She didn't. Instead, Vrana gathered the twins, their two sisters and two
friends, and drove to an adult daughter's home, where they spent six hours
drinking and wondering how to handle the situation.
"What am I gonna do?" she asked. "How am I gonna take care of this?"
"Dump her," suggested the boy who shot her.
"If you (expletive) up, you should take care of it," said her daughter's
boyfriend, Shane Patrick Pfennig.
The solution, it was eventually agreed, lay more than hundred miles north
where a relative was building a new home.
Pfennig, Vrana, one of her sons and his friend set out with Angela's body
wrapped in plastic and bound with duct tape. They arrived in rural Marinette
County as the sun was rising and buried her son's trouble in a shallow
grave, where it remained until this week.
That, according to the criminal complaint filed Friday against Vrana and
Pfennig, is how Velzka-Lawrence's disappearance remained a mystery for a
little more than a year.
That it remained a mystery that long seems astounding since the four who
carted the body to northern Wisconsin weren't the only people who knew that
the teenage girl died on July 13, 2000, according to authorities.
The complaint indicates that at least nine others - five adults and four
minors - had varying amounts of information about what happened to
Velzka-Lawrence.
Silence broken
But it wasn't until last month that anyone broke the silence to police.
The complaint indicates an anonymous caller telephoned police July 12 after
seeing a WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) news report that day about the one-year
anniversary of Angela's disappearance. He told police she may have been
accidentally shot and that the Vrana family was trying to cover it up.
Also last month, an inmate sent a letter to police saying he had information
about the disappearance that he was willing to share in exchange for a
reduction in the prison sentence he was serving. He had gotten the
information thirdhand from his girlfriend, who knew Pfennig, according to
the complaint.
When detectives spoke to Pfennig on Sunday, he told detectives the whole
story.
The unusual case was reviewed this week by prosecutors in both Milwaukee
County Circuit Court and the Children's Court Center in Wauwatosa.
Charged Friday with hiding a corpse were Vrana, 41, of the 12000 block of W.
Dearborn Ave., Wauwatosa, and Shane Patrick Pfennig, 25, of the 700 block of
Marshall Ave., South Milwaukee. Vrana was being held Friday evening at the
Milwaukee County Jail. Her bail is set at $15,000. Pfennig is free on
$15,000 bail.
Neither of Vrana's sons has been formally charged, although a prosecutor
said earlier this week that he planned to issue a homicide charge next week
against the twin believed to have shot Velzka-Lawrence. Assistant District
Attorney Steven Licata has said he is considering charging the boy with
second-degree reckless homicide while armed with a dangerous weapon, felon
in possession of a firearm and possession of a dangerous weapon by a child.
Licata also said the boy's twin brother might be charged in the case as
well.
Other possible charges
Assistant District Attorney Meagan Carmody said that three other juveniles
believed to have seen Velzka-Lawrence's body also could face charges in
Children's Court. They include the juvenile alleged to have helped bury the
body.
That juvenile lives out of state, but his identity is known, Carmody said.
"There apparently were a lot of people who knew or were told about this,"
Carmody said. "I do not have confirmation that the other people saw a body,
knew that a body had been buried or where it had been buried."
Local sheriff's deputies and Milwaukee police used a cadaver-sniffing dog to
find the body about 10 miles north of Crivitz on Sunday. The body was
removed from the Marinette County site Monday afternoon.
The complaint gives the following account of how Velzka-Lawrence died and
how her body wound up in a shallow grave:
When she visited the Vrana home in the 2500 block of S. 28th St., on July
13, 2000, several teenagers were there, some smoking marijuana. In the
second-floor bedroom, she settled on the futon with one of the twins while
his brother walked around the room getting high from a marijuana cigar.
Another boy also was in the room when the pacing twin grabbed a handgun off
the top of a television. The ammunition clip had been pulled out, so the boy
figured the gun was empty.
"Do you think I'll do it?" he asked as he aimed at Velzka-Lawrence.
"You would do it," she replied.
After the gun discharged, the boy "checked" the girl, called her name, then
dropped the pistol and raced downstairs. Before running outside with his
brother, he told a sister who was chatting on the phone what had happened.
When the twins returned with a friend, the other boy who had been in the
bedroom was downstairs putting an ammunition clip in a gun. It is unclear if
it was the same gun that killed the girl. The boy shot himself while
handling the gun and then said he would call police from a pay phone and say
he'd been shot in a robbery attempt.
After calling her mother, the girl who had been on the phone also summoned
her boyfriend to the house.
Mother comes home
Vrana arrived home and calmed her son who shot the girl. Then she telephoned
an adult daughter and told her she needed to talk to Pfennig. Vrana and her
other children drove to her daughter's South Milwaukee home.
"We had an accident," the boy who shot Velzka-Lawrence explained when he
arrived with his mother, siblings and a friend.
Pfennig said Vrana eventually revealed that Velzka-Lawrence was dead but
didn't explain how she died.
Call the police, Pfennig said he suggested.
She's been dead too long, Vrana said.
For six hours, over drinks, they considered the next move.
How Crivitz was settled upon as a burial site is unclear. The boy who shot
the girl said it was Pfennig's idea. Pfennig said it was Vrana's idea and
Vrana said it was everyone's idea.
Vrana returned home in her van, along with the son who shot the girl, his
friend and Pfennig.
Pfennig claimed he didn't realize that "Ang" was really dead until the
teenage boys dragged her body past him while he was in the Vrana kitchen
getting a beer. Others contended that Pfennig helped haul the body out of
the house.
Minutes later, they were headed north with Vrana driving, Pfennig seated
beside her, the boys behind them and the body in the cargo area.
Dawn was breaking when the van stopped on an unpaved road, in a wooded area
outside Crivitz.
"Hurry up," Pfennig said as he helped the boys dig the grave.
Vrana waited in the van.
Pfennig refused to help pull the body out of the car.
"Help us," the boys asked. "It's heavy."
Pfennig relented when the boys stumbled going over a log. All three shoveled
dirt over the body while Vrana wept in the van. When the body was covered,
the four returned south.
Back in Milwaukee that afternoon, Vrana encountered the dead girl's mother,
Tina Drapp, who asked if Vrana had seen Angela.
No, Vrana replied.
--== Life would be much easier if I had the source code ==--
Dan Hartung
jojozsd@hotmail.[SPAMBLOC]com says...
> I don't remember if this whole thing has been posted or not ...but it's
> really interesting.... very strange
*shudder* I've been following this for a few days now ...
> She didn't. Instead, Vrana gathered the twins, their two sisters and two
> friends, and drove to an adult daughter's home, where they spent six hours
> drinking and wondering how to handle the situation.
"Handle" meaning, here, anything but the right thing.
> That it remained a mystery that long seems astounding since the four who
> carted the body to northern Wisconsin weren't the only people who knew that
> the teenage girl died on July 13, 2000, according to authorities.
>
> The complaint indicates that at least nine others - five adults and four
> minors - had varying amounts of information about what happened to
> Velzka-Lawrence.
This is the most shocking and disturbing part. Not one of these people
had a conscience, or a thought for the girl's family? I wish there were a
way they could all go to jail.
> "There apparently were a lot of people who knew or were told about this,"
> Carmody said. "I do not have confirmation that the other people saw a body,
> knew that a body had been buried or where it had been buried."
Shades of _River's Edge_ ....
> Another boy also was in the room when the pacing twin grabbed a handgun off
> the top of a television. The ammunition clip had been pulled out, so the boy
> figured the gun was empty.
>
> "Do you think I'll do it?" he asked as he aimed at Velzka-Lawrence.
>
> "You would do it," she replied.
So much for the initial stories of her playing Russian roulette. What
about the story that one of the twins shot her again to "finish her off"
or "put her out of her misery"?
> When the twins returned with a friend, the other boy who had been in the
> bedroom was downstairs putting an ammunition clip in a gun. It is unclear if
> it was the same gun that killed the girl. The boy shot himself while
> handling the gun and then said he would call police from a pay phone and say
> he'd been shot in a robbery attempt.
Couple of firearms geniuses here.
> How Crivitz was settled upon as a burial site is unclear. The boy who shot
> the girl said it was Pfennig's idea. Pfennig said it was Vrana's idea and
> Vrana said it was everyone's idea.
So much finger-pointing -- someone's bound to lose an eye.
> Pfennig claimed he didn't realize that "Ang" was really dead until the
> teenage boys dragged her body past him while he was in the Vrana kitchen
> getting a beer. Others contended that Pfennig helped haul the body out of
> the house.
This seems to contradict the earlier paragraphs. He was at the party the
whole time?
Some party. _Very Bad Things_ in real life.
--
Dan Hartung * dan [at] dhartung [dot] com
Lake Effect weblog: http://www.lakefx.nu/
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