Here are 7 unsolved murder cases in Wisconsin you may not have heard of
The longer an unsolved case lingers, the harder it is to solve.
But many police and sheriff’s departments refuse to give up on the crimes — sometimes decades old — re-examining case files, conducting new interviews and submitting evidence for DNA analysis in hopes of finding the person responsible and bringing families closure.
These seven unsolved cases from Wisconsin range from 1963 to 2008, taking place in Fond du Lac, Kewaunee, Outagamie, Portage, Sheboygan and Winnebago counties. The youngest victims were 18 years old, while the oldest was 90.
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Janet Raasch, Stevens Point, 1984
Janet Raasch, a 20-year-old student at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, was last seen alive the morning of Oct. 11, 1984.
Her body was found a little more than a month later by two hunters about 15 miles away from campus in a wooded area near State Highway 54.
Although the body was too decomposed to determine an exact cause of death, it was determined she likely had been strangled.
Raasch, who grew up on a small farm outside Merrill, had been studying business at the university.
Early on in the case, detectives with the Portage County Sheriff’s Office had a strong suspect, but prosecutors refused to bring charges due to what they considered weak evidence.
An anonymous letter sent to the sheriff’s office in 2013 suggested detectives look in a different direction to solve the case. They have since urged the author to come forward, hoping it will lead them to other people who may provide new leads.
READ MORE: Janet Raasch's murder mystery endures for decades
Edward and Frances Cizauskas, Jalopy Jungle murders, Sheboygan, 1988
Edward and Frances Cizauskas were found murdered on the morning of Nov. 30, 1988, in a barn at their scrap metal business, Eddie’s Jalopy Jungle, in the Town of Sheboygan.
The couple, who were both in their 70s, lived in a house on the property. They were well-liked members of the community, officials said.
Detectives with the Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department believed a robbery or burglary led to the murders.
Detectives said they believed they know who killed the couple and were close to solving the crime years ago, but so far no one has been charged.
They continue to work on the case and feel there are still people in the area who have information that could help them solve it.
In 2021, the FBI became involved in the case in an effort to close it.
Stephen Kappell, Oshkosh, 1965
Stephen Kappell, a freshman at the Wisconsin State University at Oshkosh, disappeared from his dormitory on Sept. 28, 1965.
The 18-year-old’s body was found three weeks later in Miller’s Bay in the city’s Menominee Park. He had been severely beaten, with his hands and legs bound and a 30-pound rock attached to his body. The cause of death was left undetermined after a coroner’s inquest could not decide on whether it was homicide or suicide.
Until Kappell’s family contacted the Oshkosh Police Department in 2014, detectives had been unfamiliar with the decades-old case. No files on the case existed at the Police Department. Detectives learned all they could through Kappell’s family and newspaper reports.
Since posting information on Kappell’s death, detectives have received tips about who they should talk to but have not come up with any solid leads.
They continue to search for someone who might have first-hand knowledge about the circumstances surrounding Kappell’s death.
READ MORE: Nearly 50 years later, man's death remains mystery
Cecilia and Ann Cadigan, 1991, Casco
Neighbors found elderly sisters Cecilia and Ann Cadigan of Casco fatally stabbed and brutally beaten with a pool cue in their farmhouse on the evening of Nov. 16, 1991.
Ann, who was 90 years old, was slumped over in her favorite chair. Cecilia, who turned 85 on the day of their murders, was found under an upended couch. Both their purses were missing.
After five years of following up on suspects, authorities charged Beth LaBatte and Chuck Benoit, a couple who had committed a rash of burglaries and thefts across northeastern Wisconsin.
LaBatte was tried and convicted of the murders in 1997 on circumstantial evidence and prisoners’ testimony. Benoit was found not guilty at his 1998 trial.
In 2005, after a push from the Wisconsin Innocence Project, it was discovered that LaBatte’s DNA was not found on any evidence from the crime scene. DNA that had been extracted from one of the recovered murder weapons and one of the victims was instead found to have come from an unknown male attacker.
LaBatte’s conviction was overturned and charges were formally dismissed. A year later, she died in a car crash.
Since that time, the Kewaunee County Sheriff’s Department has not developed any new leads in the case. The department hopes that the FBI’s nationwide DNA database CODIS will one day reveal the killer.
READ MORE: Cadigan sisters' murder case languishes despite DNA
Amy Marie Yeary, Fond du Lac County Jane Doe, 2008, Ashford
On Nov. 23, 2008, three hunters came across the badly decomposed body of a young woman partially submerged in a frozen creek in the town of Ashford in Fond du Lac County.
She was dressed in a strapless black and pink top, pink bra and blue jeans. She wore no shoes or socks.
An autopsy determined she was between 15 and 21 years old, 5 feet 1 inch tall and 120 pounds with light brown to dark blond hair that was 12 to 14 inches in length. Her death was believed to be a homicide, taking place between July and September.
Three years after she was found, the unidentified woman was buried in a cemetery near Waupun.
In 2018, her body was exhumed for forensic testing and a new composite of her was released featuring six different profiles. In 2021, through the use of genealogy research, she was identified as Amy Marie Yeary of Rockford, Illinois. She was 18 years old when she died.
Investigators learned after her identification that Yeary was a victim of sex trafficking and had spent time in Chicago, Beloit and Milwaukee.
Detectives continue to investigate the case and hold out hope that they will one day be able to discover the circumstances surrounding her death.
Betty Rolf, 1988, Appleton
Betty Rolf of Appleton left for work in the early morning of Nov. 6, 1988, planning to walk the 10 blocks to her job at a banquet hall. The 60-year-old woman, described by her family as having “a heart of gold,” never arrived.
The next day, after she was reported missing, a police officer walking the route she would take to work checked under an overpass and found her body wedged behind a concrete abutment. She had been beaten and sexually assaulted, dying of asphyxiation.
No arrests have ever been made despite a DNA profile that was later developed from evidence left at the scene. The sample was used to eliminate people connected to Rolf, and no matches came up when it was entered into the FBI’s nationwide CODIS system of known offenders.
Despite more than 33 years having passed since the murder was committed, the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department has not given up on the case and investigators continue to search out new leads in an effort to solve the crime.
Wayne Pratt, 1963, Oshkosh-Neenah
On June 13, 1963, Wayne Pratt was found murdered in a gas station he operated along old Highway 41 between Neenah and Oshkosh. He had been stabbed 53 times.
Pratt, 24, who had been watching TV in his nearby home that evening, noticed a white car pull up to the station and walked over to attend to the customer.
When he failed to return home, his wife went to the station, where she found him lying face-down in the storage room partially covered by a blanket. She called the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department, which soon initiated a manhunt but without success.
Sheriff’s officials have said there is strong evidence that all the stab wounds weren’t inflicted during a single attack. The multiple attacks along with the amount of violence and the blanket being placed over Pratt’s body suggest the attacker knew him, they said.
Detectives began re-examining the case in 2012 and since that time have conducted new interviews and submitted evidence for DNA analysis.
Deterioration of evidence over the decades has made it harder to solve the murder, but detectives hope that advancing technology will eventually lead to a break in the case. In the meantime, they continue taking tips and following leads.
READ MORE: 55 years and counting: Police still seek answers to 1963 gas station murder
D. Kwas can be reached at dkwas@jrn.com. Follow on Twitter at @DKwas1.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin unsolved murders, true crime cold cases you may not know
