Unsolved Deaths Rattle Wisconsin College
tiny dancer
By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer
Posted: Today at 3:27 p.m.
MADISON, Wis. - Three unsolved killings in less than a year share at least
one thread: They've spread fear among college students and downtown
residents in Wisconsin's normally laid-back capital.
A college student vanished in June after a night of barhopping; her body was
found in the woods days later. In January, a 31-year-old man was stabbed to
death with a paring knife in his home near the University of
Wisconsin-Madison in what police called an apparently random act.
And a few blocks away, police on Wednesday found the body of UW-Madison
junior Brittany Sue Zimmermann in the apartment she shared with a boyfriend.
Police aren't saying how she died, only that she was the victim of a
homicide.
They say it's too early to tell whether the three cases are linked. That's
little comfort to wary residents.
"I'm extra scared because of the little bit of information that's been
released," said Christian Caflisch, 23, a recent UW-Madison graduate who
lives less than a block from Zimmermann's apartment. "They are basically
telling us, 'A killer is out there. Be safe.' It's a bit disconcerting."
Madison police on Thursday continued looking for evidence in the
neighborhood - a mix of large old houses packed with students and new
condominiums popular with upscale residents. Several officers remained in
front of Zimmermann's green apartment, interviewing neighbors and
passers-by.
Lori Berquam, UW-Madison dean of students, called Zimmermann's death
"extremely unsettling." She described Zimmermann, who studied medical
microbiology and immunology, as a dedicated student and employee of the
registrar's office who had planned to attend medical school.
"She was a good-natured, friendly individual who really took pride in being
a student here. That's why it's so hard to make sense of this," she said.
"There's been a great deal of concern and a whole lot of emotion about the
horrific nature of this. ... This happened in her home. In the middle of the
day."
The Dane County coroner's office was conducting an autopsy Thursday. Her
boyfriend, who discovered the body Wednesday afternoon, was ruled out as a
suspect.
Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain noted several similarities between the
slaying of Zimmermann and the January killing of Joel Marino, who was found
dead outside his home with stab wounds. Police believe he died trying to
crawl to a hospital.
Both were killed in their homes in the middle of the day. Both were
described as good people unlikely to be targeted.
"There's some similarities, but we don't have anything to suggest
definitively at this point that it's the same person or persons," DeSpain
said. "That's one avenue among the many that will be looked at as both cases
are analyzed."
In the Marino case, police released a sketch of a man witnesses saw in the
area. He is a white man in his 20s, between 5 feet 10 and 6 feet 2 with a
thin build, wearing a knit cap with a UW logo. The state crime lab has
linked DNA from the paring knife used to DNA found on a backpack and winter
cap police believe the assailant discarded as he fled the scene.
The June slaying of Kelly Nolan appeared to follow a different pattern,
DeSpain said, but police are not ruling out a link. The UW-Whitewater
student was living in Madison when she disappeared after a night of drinking
with friends. Her decomposing body was found days later in a rural area
about 10 miles south of the city of about 223,000.
Police do not have a suspect, DeSpain said.
Despite the high-profile slayings, Madison remains a safe city compared with
others its size. Violent crime dropped about 15 percent in 2007 from the
year before, according to FBI statistics.
"Violent crime overall has been down quite a bit, but that's not much
comfort to the people involved in this latest act," said George Twigg, a
spokesman for Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.
Residents said they are frustrated that the killer or killers have so far
eluded police and about what they call a lack of official information. They
said they were locking their doors, looking for suspicious individuals and
avoiding walking alone at night.
Cheyanne Cyr, 20, who walked her dog in the neighborhood Thursday morning,
said she was taking precautions but worried someone could still break into
her house.
"I think it's pretty scary. I was really shocked when I heard about it last
night," said Cyr, a student at nearby Edgewood College. "I would really hope
they would find the person who did it. I mean, are the Madison police doing
their jobs?"
Caflisch said he spent last night at the nearby home of his girlfriend, also
a student, at her request. As he spoke, a police siren sounded in the
distance.
"Now every siren you hear, you think the worst," he said. "It's very scary."
http://wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/2676730/
JonesieCat
"tiny dancer" <tinyda...@nospamhotmail.com> wrote in message
news:XFbJj.29292$vr3....@bignews2.bellsouth.net...
I have relatives there. Hope they catch whoever it is soon. "Random" - then
I bet all 3 of these murders are related. All the students must be scared to
death, and such a big univ population. Let's see, I'll bet the doer is an
ex-student who's stayed around campus...
jc
tiny dancer
> I have relatives there. Hope they catch whoever it is soon. "Random" -
> then I bet all 3 of these murders are related. All the students must be
> scared to death, and such a big univ population. Let's see, I'll bet the
> doer is an ex-student who's stayed around campus...
>
> jc
Police can't link two killings
By ED TRELEVEN 608-252-6134
April 11, 2008
Madison police said Friday that they have yet to find any links between
Brittany Zimmermann's homicide and another that happened about two months
previously and a mile away.
While it appears that Zimmermann's killer on April 2 broke into her West
Doty Street apartment, police said Friday that they found no signs of forced
entry in the Jan. 28 murder of Joel Marino, which happened at his home on
West Shore Drive.
Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said, however, that police are still
looking at similarities in the two cases. Both people were attacked inside
their homes during daylight hours, neither had any known enemies and neither
was involved in a risky lifestyle that would make them a more likely victim
of a homicide, DeSpain said.
Different detectives are working the homicides, but they are sharing
information with each other, DeSpain said.
Zimmermann, 21, a UW-Madison student from Marshfield, was found dead in her
apartment at 517 W. Doty St. A source close to the investigation told the
State Journal that she had been stabbed. Marino, 31, also was stabbed to
death.
DeSpain said that Madison Area Crime Stoppers has received about 200 tips in
the Zimmermann case. It has received about 25 new tips about the Marino
homicide since Zimmermann's murder, added to about 70 tips that it received
earlier in the case.
Police and volunteers have put up posters in the Downtown area with
information about the Marino homicide and are poised to do the same with the
Zimmermann case.
DeSpain said a poster has been created with Zimmermann's photograph, some
details about the case and a phone number to call with any information that
might be helpful to investigators.
Meanwhile, Madison City Council President Mike Verveer, whose aldermanic
district includes Zimmermann's apartment, said he applauded Police Chief
Noble Wray's decision Thursday to disclose that Zimmermann's killer broke
into her apartment before killing her.
He said that it's good for residents to have a more accurate picture of the
threat the killer or killers pose if they remain at large. The new
information "contributes to more of the edginess and fear," said Verveer who
lives near the homicide scene.
Bassett Neighborhood Association Chairman Peter Ostlind said, however, that
without knowing details about the break-in before Zimmermann's murder it was
difficult to know how to respond to that information.
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/281251
Killings by strangers baffle police
By Patricia Simms
608-252-6492
psi...@madison.com
Kelly Nolan. Joel Marino. Now Brittany Zimmermann. Madison police have been
unable to crack those and two other homicide cases in the last 10 months.
Why not?
Police believe that at least three of the five recent unsolved murders were
committed by strangers. Experts say murders like that can paralyze a
community -- and are generally harder to solve than garden-variety crimes of
passion and rage.
"What 's unique to Madison is not that we have three (high profile)
homicides, " Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said last week. "What 's unique
to Madison is that we have three homicides that have the element of being a
stranger homicide, and it 's taking a little longer to solve. "
The midday killing April 2 of Zimmermann, a 21-year-old UW-Madison student,
slain after someone forced entry into her first-floor apartment at 517 W.
Doty St., came barely three months after the unsolved murder of Marino in
his West Shore Drive home less than a mile away.
Both followed the unsolved slaying of 21-year-old Nolan last June after a
night of partying with friends on State Street. Police are also trying to
solve the August killing of George L. Thomas at a South Side motel
frequented by transients and prostitutes, and the November shooting of Larry
Gardner at a Cypress Way apartment complex marred by three previous murders.
"It is more than we would normally have, " Wray said. "The good thing is
that we have so few -- we are able to dedicate our resources to dealing with
them. "
Type of homicide
Wray bristled when asked about the string of unsolved murders. "(Solving
this case) has nothing whatsoever to do with the ability, the organization,
the focus, the expertise " of the Madison Police department, Wray said. "It
has more to do with the type of homicide this is. "
Madison police believe Zimmermann didn 't know her killer, and Wray said
police have found no motive for the crime.
"You are literally out in a dragnet pulling in people, checking out leads, "
he said. "We have been contacted by so many people. All of those things have
to be followed up. "
On Thursday, Wray reluctantly revealed the murderer had broken through
Zimmermann 's door, and added, "We have not established it was a sexual
assault that occurred. "
Wray defended police reluctance to reveal details of Zimmermann 's murder.
"We are not divulging a lot of information because once it gets out, it 's
going to be hard to prove this particular case. More and more what we are
finding in homicide investigations is that we are having to rely more on
forensic evidence and less on the interviews because so much information
gets out there. "
Frightens community
Zimmermann 's is the kind of murder that frightens a community. In most
murders, experts say, victims have a relationship with their killers.
For example, on June 25, 2005, 27-year-old Tina A. Campbell was shot and
killed in her Fordem Avenue apartment. The next day her former boyfriend,
Walter Fudge, 55, turned himself in. He later pleaded no contest to
first-degree intentional homicide.
Not so with Zimmermann, police said.
"(Stranger murders) raise our fear levels because they appear more random '
and indeed may be, in the sense that the victim was not sought out
specifically but time or place circumstances placed them in the offender 's
path, " said UW-La Crosse criminologist Kimberly Vogt.
Vogt said it 's harder to solve stranger murders -- police often lack
witnesses or clues from people who knew the victim.
"I think that because of the widespread popularity of crime shows where
murders are solved quickly, we have come to expect the same in real life, "
she said. "This is often difficult because we might have forensic evidence .
. . but this does not ensure that we will be able to quickly identify an
offender. "
Difficult to solve
Tom Caywood, professor of criminal justice at UW-Platteville, said his
research in Milwaukee revealed that the victim knew the killer in 71 percent
of the cases he studied.
"Family members account for 21 percent of offenders, friends 50 percent, and
strangers 28 percent, " Caywood said. "... in general, the victim knows the
offender. "
Murder by strangers is different. "If there are no witnesses, no easily
identifiable evidence, (and) it 's not a family member or friend, then it
takes a lot of investigative resources to develop leads, " Caywood said. "If
leads are not developed and no suspect is identified, then it is extremely
difficult to solve. "
Police spokesman Joel DeSpain said the Zimmermann slaying is particularly
disturbing.
"This is a puzzling case in the sense that police do not have a motive, "
DeSpain said. "That 's given the community more reason for concern. "
The emergence of stranger murders in Madison may be a growing pain, Vogt
said. "Bigger cities allow more opportunity for strangers to interact with
us unnoticed, " she said.
"Although Madison is growing, I think what you are really seeing is just a
statistical blip, ' " she said. "If the trend were to continue for several
years in a row, we might be concerned, but in reality it is very common to
have several unsolved homicide cases in cities of even modest size. "
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/281396
Peter Dworkin
>> I have relatives there. Hope they catch whoever it is soon. "Random" -
>> then I bet all 3 of these murders are related. All the students must be
>> scared to death, and such a big univ population. Let's see, I'll bet the
>> doer is an ex-student who's stayed around campus...
>>
>> jc
>>
How does one solve a death rattle?
--
Anyone who has ever heard what Santayana said is condemned to hear it repeated.
Good Luck to anyone trying to learn Aramaic.
Kindest Regards,
Peter
JonesieCat
"Peter Dworkin" <pe...@pdworkin.com> wrote in message
news:ftuh9t$154$1...@reader2.panix.com...
I give up.
jc