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Stories here are reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
Wisconsin Rapids woman given eight-year sentence for attack on boyfriend's wife
Girl suspected in Milwaukee murder
Portage woman in court to face charge of murdering her husband
Woman kills the 'other woman' plus that woman's two sons in Milwaukee
Waukesha woman charged in domestic violence case
Oshkosh woman charged with trying to kill husband
No bail reduction in Waukesha for girl accused in murder plot
University of Wisconsin Badgers' running back hospitalized in Madison then charged after girlfriend stabs him
Superior woman accused of stabbing boyfriend
Tomah woman accused of trying to kill former boyfriend in house fire
Arraignment set for Makesstrongmove
Milwaukee woman burned to death after trying to set boyfriend on fire
Milwaukee woman bites off policeman's fingertip in dispute over cat
Accused fingerbiter makes court appearance
Woman pleads to biting off cop's fingertip
Milwaukee woman stabs husband for giving bad haircut
November 23, 1996, Wisconsin Rapids (AP) — A woman convicted of stabbing her boyfriend's wife and setting fire to the couple's garage has received an eight-year prison sentence.
Deborah R. Burt, 22, of Marshfield, pled no contest to arson, armed burglary, and recklessly causing injury in the February 3 rd incidents.
Police say Ms. Burt set fire to the rural Sigel home of Jodee Boyd while Mrs. Boyd's children were asleep inside. She then attacked Mrs. Boyd with a pair of scissors.
Mrs. Boyd told police she discovered smoke in her garage, saw Deborah Burt and tried to telephone 911 from the house.
She said Ms. Burt stabbed her several times and struck her as she tried to rescue her two children from the smoke-filled home.
Mrs. Boyd said she eventually fled to a neighbor's house for help without her children, an infant and a toddler.
“I was fighting for my life,” Boyd told Circuit Judge John Finn. “She shouldn't be able to do this to me and get out of jail the next day.”
In addition to the prison sentence, Judge Finn also placed Deborah Burt on 10 years probation, and ordered her to pay restitution. She would be eligible for parole in two years.
A Wood County Circuit Court jury also awarded Mrs. Boyd more than $400,000 in a civil judgment November 7.
August 17, 1998, Milwaukee (States News Service) — Milwaukee police have taken a 14-year-old girl into custody in connection with the shooting death of a 14-year-old boy. Police say the boy was found shot in the mouth at a north-side home. Police are still trying to piece together a motive in the shooting.
September 17, 1998 (States News Service) — A Portage woman is due in court today to face a murder charge. Police say Patti Weed shot her husband to death earlier this week. Mrs. Weed was released from a hospital last week after treatment for depression. Authorities say she also tried to kill herself earlier this month.
November 13, 1998, Milwaukee (AP) — An 18-year-old woman killed her boyfriend's other girlfriend and the victim's two young sons, authorities said Friday.
The victims were LaShanda L. Hilliard, 29, who was on maternity leave from her job at a health center, and Dennis Peace Jr. and his little brother Taral McCollum. Ms. Hilliard was stabbed several times, and knives were found imbedded in her back and chest, police said. The 5-year-old boy and his 2-month-old brother had been suffocated.
The suspect was arrested Thursday. Her identity was not released pending formal charges, which might not be filed before Monday, prosecutor Ken Berg said.
A landlord found the bodies Wednesday in an apartment.
June 16, 2001 — The names and events in the following story are real. In response the couple now works to combat the system abuses they encountered.
Garret and Paula have been together for a total of 8 1/2 years as of December, 2001. Paula regards herself as having very strong morals and prides herself on being honest. She describes Garret as a very loving and understanding man who has helped her to overcome many obstacles in her life. He, too, is a very honest person who will go out of his way to help anyone.
Paula is a 41-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch, 145-pound mother of three. Garret is 36 years old, 6 foot 2 inches tall, weighs 210 pounds, and is the father of her son. Before beginning her relationship with Garret, Paula was previously married to two abusive men, and had one other relationship with a physically abusive man. One husband was sexually abusive, and the other was verbally, mentally and physically abusive.
After a back injury he received at work, Garret was laid off in January of 2000. He had surgery the following April and has not been able to return to work since. This has placed the entire financial responsibility on Paula. This has caused her a great deal of stress, and Garret to be depressed. A combination that does not work well as many couples have found.
Their descent into the morass of current domestic violence laws starts about 1 AM on June 16, 2001.
After getting off work at midnight, Paula drove home to find that Garret was not there. She then went outside and asked the neighbors if they knew where he was.
A neighbor lady told her he was at a neighbors trying to calm his friend down after an argument. Paula then went back upstairs and sat down to work at her computer until she heard Garret's voice through the window.
Going outside to talk with him, Paula got the impression that he had been drinking and asked the neighbor's wife if he had. She was told that Garret had a few beers. As Paula divorced her second husband because he was an abusive drunk, she feels very uncomfortable around any man that drinks.
Paula then asked Garret to come upstairs to talk and that is when the night turned into a fight for justice. They began by talking, but with the insecurities she associates with her past relationships, the discussion descended into bickering and acrimony.
During the ensuing argument Paula asked Garret to leave several times but he had no other place to go. Also, in the past Paula had several times told him to leave, then changed her mind and wanted him to stay. As a result, Garret ignored her plea for him to leave.
As the war of words escalated, Paula became so frustrated that she began striking out. When he turned his back on her she slapped him, leaving a red welt outlining her handprint between his shoulder blades. Garret did nothing in his defence at that time.
They continued to argue and Paula's violence escalated.
Paula hit him again, but this time with a closed fist to the left side of his chest. He turned away from her again. She then grabbed his right arm to swing him around so that she could continue to scream in his face, leaving fingernail marks and a bruise on his upper right arm. Again, Garret did nothing to defend himself.
Garret then went into the living room, and Paula followed on his heels. As he was trying to sit down in a chair, she pushed him backwards. Again, he did nothing in his defence.
But at this point he had had enough. He got up out of the chair and was attempting to go to the bedroom to start getting his things together to leave. Paula again struck out. With an open hand, she aimed for his face and connected.
In response, Garret pushed her off her feet and she went flying, landing in the kitchen against the stove. He then walked through the kitchen and into the bedroom to retrieve his things. Charging after him into the bedroom, Paula clenched her fist and aimed for his face. Garret blocked the blow and pushed her onto the bed.
As Garret turned back toward the closet door, with the intent to get his things and leave, Paula kicked him and ran back into the kitchen. There she grabbed the phone and scurried into the bathroom to call 911. She attempted to shut the bathroom door but Garret tried to force it open so he could tell the dispatcher that she had been beating him. However, she managed to force the door closed and locked it.
Garret then went back and continued gathering his things out of the closet. She heard him open the gun safe and start to pack his guns.
The 911 operator asked where he was in the house and Paula told her he was in the closet packing his guns. Quite prudently the dispatcher informed the officers en route that weapons were present.
Garret finished packing his guns and other possessions, walked out of our second floor apartment, and stopped in the downstairs hall to talk to a neighbor.
Paula came out of the bathroom at this point and locked the door to the apartment. Through the door she heard him tell the neighbor that he needed to go back upstairs to get the medicine for his back pain. He asked the neighbor if he would put his guns in the garage for him, and gave him the key.
Paula didn't want Garret back in the apartment so she tried to prop a chair under the door knob but it wasn't tall enough. She then sat down in the chair, propped her feet up on the coffee table, and held the deadbolt lock with both hands so he could not turn his key.
Just a few seconds before the police arrived, Garret broke the lock out of the door, came into the apartment, and got his medicine.
Even though Paula asked the officers to just make him leave, Garret was arrested and jailed. Paula was unaware that the laws had changed so much in the eight years she had been away from her last husband. Thus, she was unaware that if a 911 call was made, someone was going to jail. Police state it as: “You call, we haul, that's all.”
She signed a 72-hour temporary restraining order with the idea it would give them both time to think.
Paula says they have had their disagreements in the past, but they had never turned to violence until that night.
Since then they have found that they live in a very biased society, where a man can stripped of his rights and his pride for simply defending himself against a female attacker.
After the TRO expired, Paula went to the District Attorney's office with Garret to explain the situation and state that she was the perpetrator and he the victim.
When she told the female assistant DA that she had hit, kicked, and slapped Garret, and that he pushed her away simply to defend himself, Paula was escorted out of the DA's office.
When they went to court, charges of dissuasion and battery against Garret were dropped. However, because he had admitted in his statement to the police that he had pushed Paula, he was convicted of disorderly conduct involving domestic violence.
For defending himself from repeated attacks Garret received a sentence of 12 months probation, anger management counseling, no violent contact with Paula, and the loss of his firearms during probation. All of which cost them several thousand dollars they didn't have as Garret is unemployed, further enriched the DV industry, and fixed nothing.
No charges were ever filed against Paula. She was called by the local women's shelter a few days after Garret was arrested. She tried to explain to them that she was not the victim but had initiated the violence. The shelter worker informed Paula that she should change the statement she had made to the police at the scene. Paula couldn't see any sense in changing her initial representation as she had told the police exactly what happened. She made that clear to the shelter worker. The phone call ended when Paula told her that she didn't need their help.
However, a few days later, Paula received another call from the same shelter. After a brief but heated conversation, she ended that call by calling them a “bunch of discriminating hypocrites,” and has not heard from them since. DV counselors and victim's advocates have separately told us that from 90-99% of the women caught in these situations, as was Paula, want nothing to do with the system. And the decreasing number of calls to 911 for domestic disturbances bear that out. People are now more afraid of the system and police than they are of their intimate partners.
© 2001 The Freeman
Friday, December 21, 2001 — A Brookfield woman has been charged with disorderly conduct after she allegedly scratched her ex-husband and left vulgar messages at the home of the man's new girlfriend.
Kim Greco, 41, was charged with disorderly conduct and violating a restraining order this week — misdemeanors that carry 90-day jail penalties.
According to the criminal complaint, police were notified about Greco after she refused to leave her ex-husbands residence August 24. Her ex-husband reported Greco scratched him in the forearm when he tried to prevent her from re-entering the house.
After an argument, Greco allegedly called a woman who was seeing her ex-husband and left vulgar messages, despite the fact the woman had received a restraining order against Greco June 18, the complaint said.
Assistant District Attorney Lesli Kasten said women-on-men violence seemed to be increasing in Waukesha County. Part of that might be because victims are starting to fight back, but in other cases it is also possible that women were the aggressors, she said.
© 2001 WISC Channel3000.com
Tuesday December 18, 2001 — A woman accused of trying to kill her husband by setting their Oshkosh home on fire faces first-degree attempted murder charges.
Jan Pagel, 48, was charged with one count of attempted homicide and one count of arson from the incident, officials said.
Pagle allegedly set a recliner in the home on fire, helped her son escape, and then left her sleeping husband inside the burning home.
Dan Pagel crawled to safety beneath the thick smoke that filled the second-story apartment.
© 2001 The Freeman
Friday, December 21, 2001 — A county judge Wednesday refused to reduce bail for a 17 year-old girl accused of masterminding a plot to kill her estranged boyfriend.
Kristina Vogt, of Dousman, was freed from the county jail after her family posted a $100,000 cash bond August 21. Vogt is charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit murder for her role in the April 3drive-by shooting of Miguel Valdez. The victim is the brother of the alleged intended target, Ramiro Valdez. Miguel Valdez is recovering from his injuries.
Michael White, 19, of Milwaukee, was convicted of the same two conspiracy counts last month. Vogt's trial is set to begin in January.
Vogt's attorney, Bill Marquis, argued Wednesday the Vogt family Scraped together “every penny they had” and even used funds from Vogt's grandmother's retirement account for Vogt to make bail. He asked for a bail reduction to $75,000, which Assistant District Attorney Mark Langholz opposed.
Portions of this article © 2000 Channel 3000.com
Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
Madison — University of Wisconsin Badger running back Anthony Davis was hospitalized in Madison Sunday morning, November 3, 2002, after being stabbed in the leg during an altercation with his former girlfriend, Tiffany Spears, age 22. Madison police arrested Ms. Spears and took her to the Dane County Jail on a charge of recklessly endangering safety in what police are calling a domestic dispute.
Davis (pictured, left), a sophomore, was admitted to the hospital around 5:30 a.m. for treatment and observation. He was released from the hospital Monday to recover at home.
Following the Badger's loss to Iowa Saturday, detectives say Anthony Davis told Tiffany Spears that their relationship was over. Early Sunday morning, police said Spears arrived at Davis' campus apartment and demanded to talk. Police said Ms. Spears was upset about their break up.
“He was in bed,” said Larry Kamholz of the Madison Police Department. “There was some argument about him wanting to end the relationship that he had with her. She apparently was upset over that and didn't want it to end, and so she got into an argument with him and eventually she got upset enough where she grabbed a knife and began swinging at him, and eventually stabbed him.”
Police said Mr. Davis got a butcher knife with a 6-inch blade away from Tiffany Spears (pictured, left), but she then grabbed a smaller knife with a 3-inch serrated blade and hit him in his left thigh.
More details came out in court Tuesday, November 5 th , about the stabbing incident. Tiffany Spears made her first court appearance and was charged with second-degree reckless endangering safety and aggravated battery. Both are felonies.
Police said that during the altercation Anthony Davis punched Spears in the face and Mr. Davis, originally from New Jersey, was charged with simple misdemeanor battery.
Mr. Davis' attorney, Charles Giesen, filed a motion Thursday, November 14 th to get the charges thrown out, saying the criminal complaint does not show he committed any crime.
Davis' attorney says the running back can't be faulted.
“We're going to ask the judge to set an unfair hearing, and ask the judge to find that because he was acting in self-defense, protecting himself in his own home, that criminal charges be dismissed.”
Giesen says Anthony Davis came within an inch of being killed in the attack and had the right to defend himself.
© 2004 Duluth News Tribune
Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
April 27, 2004 — A Superior woman was arraigned on substantial battery charges Monday in Douglas County Circuit Court. Brandy Rose Smith, 25, pled not guilty to the charges.
Ms. Smith is accused of stabbing her boyfriend, Christopher Bunten, in the leg on March 29. According to the criminal complaint, the incident took place after Ms. Smith learned Bunten had slept with her close friend, with whom they were living.
Initially, Mr. Bunten told officers with the Superior Police Department that he had been jumped near North Fifth Street and Catlin Avenue by three males. Bunten said he called Ms. Smith to take him to the hospital and did not realize he had been stabbed.
After an investigation of the area where Bunten claimed he was attacked and Hammond Spur, where he said he called Ms. Smith from, police did not find any blood at either location.
Superior detective Kirk Hill and Bill Braman reinterviewed Mr. Bunten, at which time he gave officers his girlfriend's phone number.
Brandy Smith's friend, Rhonda Wagner, answered the phone and told police that Smith stabbed Bunten in the car, then drove around for 15 to 20 minutes before dropping him off at St. Mary's Hospital in Superior. He was transferred to St. Mary's in Duluth for surgery. Before going into surgery, Bunten told police Smith stabbed him.
Wagner said the three of them had been snorting meth the night before and Ms. Smith was out of control, according to the complaint.
Brandy Smith also pled not guilty to possession with intent to sell marijuana in a separate case.
Trial has been set for May 25. A hearing will be held Thursday to consider modifying bail. Ms. Smith remains in the Douglas County Jail after $500 cash bail was ordered March 30.
[Ed. note: In similar circumstances a man's bail would be in the range of $50,000 to $200,000.]
Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
April 30, 2004, Sparta (AP) — Bond of $10,000 has been set for Dawn Makesstrongmove, 33, accused of trying to kill her former boyfriend by starting his house on fire in 2002.
Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Steven Abbott set the bond Thursday for Dawn Makesstrongmove of Tomah on charges of attempted first-degree intentional homicide, arson and four counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety.
The criminal complaint said Ms. Makesstrongmove used at least gasoline to light the back of Brady Twobears' house on fire April 19, 2002.
© 2004 Abstracted from story by Bob Kliebenstein Tomah Journal
Friday, May 14, 2004 — Dawn Makesstrongmove, 33, was in court Monday for a preliminary hearing. After listening to testimony from four witnesses, Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Michael McAlpine ruled there is probable cause in the case against Makesstrongmove.
Ms. Makesstrongmove also faces one count of arson of a building and four counts of reckless endangerment for a house fire she is accused of setting April 19, 2002.
According to the criminal complaint, Ms. Makesstrongmove set fire to Brady Twobears' home at 28371 Grosbeak Avenue in an attempt to kill Mr. Twobears. He was not home at the time the fire was set. But Mr. Twobears' mother, Barbara Twobears, and three of her grandchildren were home at the time. All four escaped without injury.
Barbara Twobears testified that Dawn Makesstrongmove called the Twobears home between 11 PM and midnight the night of the fire in 2002. “I recognized her voice and her tone,” Barbara Twobears said.
Ms. Makesstrongmove denied trying to contact Brady Twobears the night of the fire. But according to her cell phone records, a call was placed from her cell phone to Twobears' house around 11:42 PM, approximately 90 minutes before the fire. When that information was revealed to Makesstrongmove, she became “pale and started crying.”
Brady Twobears testified he was at a girlfriend's house in Black River Falls the night of April 19, 2002, when he received a call his house was on fire. Brady Twobears said he had had an affair with Dawn Makesstrongmove, but had not had any contact with her for a couple of years prior to the fire.
A police dog detected fire accelerant on the rear of the house. Monroe County Police Officer Scott Perkins, who also serves as a fire investigator for the department, testified he found a nozzle for a gas can, charcoal lighter fluid, and bleach outside the Twobears home the night of the fire. There were also several derogatory words written on a back screen door of the home.
A partially burned cigarette was found near the gas can. The complaint states that DNA from that cigarette matches Ms. Makesstrongmove's. “Evidence is clear that (Makesstrongmove's) DNA was found on two cigarette butts,” said Monroe County District Attorney Dan Cary. “The defendant deliberately set fire to the house. She went there to commit death by torching the house.”
During a follow-up interview with Dawn Makesstrongmove February 11, 2004, Tester said Ms. Makesstrongmove said she was at a meeting at the Kickapoo Reserve in LaFarge the night of the fire. Makesstrongmove said she had stopped at The Depot Tavern and Club 21 to hang flyers for the Kickapoo Reserve cleanup day. Driving on back roads, she came across fire trucks at the intersection of Grosbeak Avenue and County Highway PP, and gave that as the reason she was at the scene of the fire.
Dawn Makesstrongmove faces a maximum prison sentence not to exceed 160 years and fines not to exceed $40,000.
June 8, 2004 (AP) — A woman died of burns Tuesday after trying to light her boyfriend on fire, police said.
Police and fire officials found the 31-year-old woman standing in front of her apartment building early Tuesday with second- and third-degree burns over 90 percent of her body, Sgt. Kenneth Harris said.
“She got into an argument with her boyfriend and she attempted to douse him with lighter fluid and in dousing him, she doused herself,” Harris said. The woman used a cigarette lighter to ignite the fire, he said.
The woman died at a hospital several hours later. Harris said her 57-year-old boyfriend, who lived at the apartment, was treated and released with minor injuries, but was arrested on a drug-related charge.
Their names were not released.
© 2006 WISN-themilwaukeechannel.com
December 11, 2005 — A woman bit off a Milwaukee police officer's finger when he tried to arrest her Sunday, investigators said.
The officer was called to a dispute on 66 th and Lawn streets.
Police told WISN 12 News that the officer was by himself when he took the call about a dispute between a woman who sold a cat to a man and the man, who wanted his money back.
Pamela Greenlee, 40, called police herself. She said the man was refusing to leave without his money.
Things escalated to the point the officer was allegedly elbowed by Ms. Greenlee.
When he tried to handcuff her, they tumbled to the ground, and she apparently bit off the tip of his right ring finger.
The police chief said it just demonstrates the unpredictability of their jobs.
“It's a dangerous line of work. This actually happens. I won't say frequently, but it happens much more than I would like to see where officers get injured in the line of duty just trying to do their jobs,” Milwaukee Police Chief Nan Hegery said.
Ms. Greenlee is a former Milwaukee police officer. She served for one year in the late 1980s before she resigned.
The district attorney late Monday charged her with battery to a police officer and resisting arrest.
Surgeons at Froedterdt Hospital were unable to re-attach the end of the finger. They said it was too badly damaged.
The injured officer is identified as 43-year-old Lemuel Johnson.
December 21, 2005 — A woman accused of biting off part of a police officer's finger will stand trial.
Pamela Greenlee stuck her tongue out during a court appearance Wednesday where she pled not guilty to battery and obstruction charges.
Police said Greenlee, who was once briefly a police officer herself, was fighting with a man over the sale of a cat.
They said when Officer Lemuel Johnson tried to handcuff her, she bit off the tip of his right ring finger.
Johnson is going through therapy once a week. He has been on the force 11 years and hopes to be back at work soon.
March 20, 2006 — A woman who was charged with biting off part of a police officer's finger as he arrested her in December, pled no contest this morning to a felony count of battery to a law enforcement officer.
Pamela Greenlee, 40, of the 5300 block of N. 66 th St., faces up to three years in prison and three more on extended supervision when Milwaukee County Circuit Judge David Hansher sentences her in June. Under terms of the plea deal, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Shomin will recommend only that she serve some prison time but won't suggest a specific term.
Prosecutors dropped a second charge, a misdemeanor count of resisting or obstructing an officer.
June 1, 2006 (AP) — Milwaukee police say a woman stabbed her husband after he gave a male relative a bad haircut.
Police Captain Timothy Burkee says a 24-year-old man was cutting a relatives hair Tuesday night and apparently wasn't doing a great job.
Burkee says the haircutter's wife took offense for some reason and stabbed her husband in the chest with a knife.
The victim's condition was not immediately available but Burkee says he was hospitalized and is expected to survive.
The 20-year-old wife has been arrested.
Police say the man who got the bad haircut wasn't involved in the fight.
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