NEWS
SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT: New Trial in Sauk Co. Rape and Murder Case?
Dana Brueck and Chief Photojournalist Curt Lenz
The summer of 1987 was witness to the murders of three local women -- all of the slayings reportedly unrelated to each other.
Two of the cases were solved; two different men sentenced to prison.
But was one of them wrongly convicted?
Or is he indeed a cold-blooded killer who, today, could have a shot at freedom?
In this riverfront village, a closed case still leaves open wounds.
"Some people think absolutely he's guilty. And some people say absolutely no way," Kathy Carpenter says.
"There's no single piece of evidence that makes this case," the special prosecutor said back in 1989.
It is the bizarre murder case of 18-year-old Angela Hackl.
" ...the missing woman had just graduated from River Valley High School... "
The body of the Lone Rock woman was found Monday, June 15th, 1987 in a pine woods. A tire chain around her neck, her naked body hanging from a tree with three bullets in her back...
"I could never figure out why Angie was left this way," special prosecutor Matt Frank said at trial 20 years ago.
It would take almost two years for prosecutors to charge Terry Vollbrecht with the rape and murder of Hackl.
"The sheriff ordered tight security for the initial appearance of Terry Vollbrecht..."
It would take about two hours of deliberations for a jury to convict him in October of 1989.
"It was a circumstantial case, but a very strong circumstantial case," Then-Assistant Attorney General Matt Frank said.
Twenty years later...
" ... it was one we knew had generated a lot of controversy... "
Vollbrecht has a team helping him with a heavy burden.
"As you can see from the boxes, there's a lot of material to go through..."
... the burden of proving what he says is the truth.
"Terry has always insisted that he's absolutely innocent of this crime," Keith Findley says.
UW Law School Professor Keith Findley is co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project. Ten years ago, when the project began, he agreed to take a look at Vollbrecht's claim.
"His case has made it through a rather rigorous screening process to get to this point."
Today, Findley and his students have filed a motion, seeking a new trial for Vollbrecht, based upon new evidence and evidence, he says, withheld at trial.
"There is in fact some pretty important new evidence that has emerged that does support his claim of innocence," Findley says.
At trial, Vollbrecht's attorney, Warren Kenney, wanted to defend his client by introducing evidence against alternate suspects.
"...a police officer and two other men..."
-- a Sauk City police officer at the time and a man convicted of another murder.
But Findley says the court denied Kenney the opportunity, saying he lacked evidence showing a direct connection between the officer and the victim.
"Turns out that evidence did exist and the state had that evidence, it just failed to turn it over," Findley says.
Findley says he and his law students have discovered in reports a witness who says she saw Hackl in the officer's squad car the night she disappeared when the officer responded to a local service station.
"For whatever reason, we don't know, that was never disclosed to the defense, and our allegation in the motion is that was in violation of the rules of due process established by the U.S. Supreme Court."
But initial reports by investigators suggest the witness was unsure of the actual date in June.
Weeks after Hackl's murder, another woman, Linda Nachreiner, was found partially naked, shot to death, in a wooded area of Adams County.
Her murder, combined with the disappearance of Barbara Blackstone in Juneau County and Hackl's death put the area on edge.
"...rumors of a serial killer were rampant..."
Kim Brown of Oxford was convicted of the Nachreiner murder. Findley says Vollbrecht's original defense team was told Brown was at work when Hackl was killed.
"But we found out after trial that in fact, Kim Brown was not at work.
And in fact, was a very viable suspect for a lot of reasons that were never pursued at trial because the defense was derailed by this misinformation."
Hackl was last seen with Vollbrecht, when the two left Hondo's Bar in Sauk City one morning, days before investigators found the teen's body.
"The evidence will show the defendant was familiar with the crime scene."
Vollbrecht testified the two had consensual sex in a marsh area along the Wisconsin river ...
"What did she do...
Well she even got closer to me yet," Vollbrecht testified at trial.
Then, he said Hackl dropped him off at his vehicle downtown, but jurors didn't buy it.
"It became obvious he was an out and out liar," one juror said.
Since trial, analysts have identified Vollbrecht's DNA as well as DNA evidence of other men either on the victim or, on the sleeping bag found at the scene.
"What's really important is that somebody else's DNA is there too," Findley says.
But does what the Innocence Project uncovered warrant another trial?
"This is his best shot... This is his chance to vindicate his claim of innocence," Findley says.
Back in Vollbrecht's hometown...
Kathy Carpenter remembers him as a friend ... as the man who came to fix her lawnmower shortly after the murder ... instead of the man who committed it.
"I hope they can solve it... and get the right answers and find the right person ... cause I really don't think he did it," Carpenter says.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice is preparing its response to the motion... but declined to discuss the case because it is pending.
A spokesman for the attorney general issued a statement, saying...
"Terry G. Vollbrecht stands convicted of first-degree murder and first-degree sexual assault. Since 1989, no reviewing court has seen fit to reverse those convictions."
-- Bill Cosh
Attorney General's Office
Also, the Wisconsin Innocence Project is getting almost 650-thousand dollars in grant money for post-conviction DNA testing.
The grant will allow the project to identify individuals incarcerated whose cases could benefit by DNA testing. In Wisconsin, at least six people have had their convictions reversed by post-conviction DNA testing. The project itself has freed 12 individuals in its 11-year history.
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