News 06.13.16
13 June 2016 News
One person is killed following a one vehicle accident in Green Lake County. The accident happened Friday morning around 2:25am on Forest Street in the Village of Kingston. Investigation shows the vehicle operator, a 54-year-old Marquette man, was northbound on Forest Street, left the roadway and entered a ditch. The vehicle then struck a tree. The man was transported to Waupun Hospital where he was later pronounced deceased. Police say speed and alcohol may be factors in the crash. The name of the man has not yet been released.
Evidence that an over the road trucker was familiar with the area of where the body of a teenage girl was found in Fond du lac County will be allowed at trial. Dennis Brantner is scheduled to go on trial starting today in the 1990 murder of Berit Beck. The Sturdevant teenager was abducted from the Fond du lac Forest Mall parking lot and her body was found in a roadside ditch near Waupun. Despite protests from the defense Judge Gary Sharpe says testimony will be allowed from several witnesses who will speak to Brantner’s familiarity with the area where Beck’s body was found. At a motion hearing last week prosecuting attorney Dennis Krueger told the court that during an interview with detectives Brantner denied any specific knowledge of the area where the body was found. But Kreuger says when Brantner worked as a service technician for SureFire, he serviced air conditioners at two residences on Willow Road, right around the corner, less than a quarter mile from where Beck’s body was found on Brown Road. Investigators say Brantner lived in Brandon, Waupun and Ripon from the mid 1970s up to 1989, a year before Beck was killed. Brantner was arrested after new DNA technology matched his fingerprints to prints found in Beck’s van. The trial is scheduled to last three weeks.
A handful of Wisconsin prison inmates have started a hunger strike in hopes of forcing an end to long-term solitary confinement. The Industrial Workers of the World, a labor union working to draw attention to the strike, announced last Monday that at least seven inmates at Waupun Correctional Institution and Columbia Correctional Institution had pledged to stop eating on Friday. A Department of Corrections spokesman says that “several” inmates started to refuse food. He says the agency would monitor their condition to ensure their health and safety. He didn’t indicate how many inmates are involved.
Police say a man was killed and a woman hurt in a shooting in Appleton. The shooting happened early Saturday. Officers were called around 2:45 a.m. to a home and found a man and a woman who were both injured. The 43-year-old man died at a hospital. The woman was treated and released. Police say the shooting is being investigated as a homicide. The names of the victims have not been released. Sgt. David Lund says police do not believe the shooting was the result of a domestic dispute, but rather a disturbance that included people the man and woman knew. Police are searching for other people who were at the home when the shooting happened.
Authorities have released without charges the live-in boyfriend of a 31-year-old woman whose body was found in a field in northeastern Wisconsin last month. The man walked out of the Brown County Jail Friday without speaking to reporters. Brown County District Attorney David Lasee says he’s not comfortable that authorities have enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, so he’s not comfortable bringing charges. The release came a week after sheriff’s officials put out a call for witnesses to come forward. The body of Nicole VanderHeyden was found May 21 in a Bellevue field, about three miles from the couple’s home. Prosecutors say VanderHeyden had been strangled and beaten. Authorities are still waiting for evidence results from the state crime lab.
Groups advocating for voting rights have filed a motion in federal court asking that Wisconsin voters having trouble obtaining the required photo identification be able to cast ballots anyhow. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty filed a motion Friday seeking the order from U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman. The groups want people who face a “reasonable impediment” to obtaining photo identification to be able to cast a ballot anyhow by signing an affidavit stating why they were having trouble complying. Reasons would include lack of transportation, not having a birth certificate, disability or illness and family responsibilities. A federal appeals court in April ruled that the groups could seek such an order. The state Department of Justice objects to the request.
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