Death of UW-Madison student from Marshfield likely homicide

[undeterred]

By Kevin Murphy
For the Wausau Daily Herald

MADISON -- Police are investigating the death of a 21-year-old Marshfield woman as a homicide.

Police say Brittany Sue Zimmermann, 21, a University of Wisconsin-Madison junior who was majoring in medical microbiology and immunology, was found dead at about 1 p.m. Wednesday in a downtown apartment.

Police received a 911 call prompting them to go to Zimmermann's apartment, where her body was found, said Joel DeSpain, a department spokesman. Police then canvassed the area to talk to anyone who might have information regarding Zimmermann or suspicious activity in the area.

The Dane County coroner also went to the homicide scene and will perform an autopsy today that should establish the cause of death, DeSpain said. Police had no suspects and weren't releasing any information about evidence recovered or statements taken as of Wednesday afternoon, DeSpain said.

Doty Street is a few blocks off the Capitol Square and is in a neighborhood where many UW students reside during the school year. Police remained in the area Wednesday evening investigating the apparent murder, which would be the third this year in Madison, said DeSpain.

Detectives are unable to rule out that it may have been a random act, according to the police report. An AP Scholar with Distinction Award winner, Zimmermann graduated from Marshfield High School in 2005. She was a student employee of the university's Registrar's Office, according to Dean of Students Lori Berquam.

http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080403/WDH0101/804030617/1981

[CatholicEdHead]

1. I saw it this morning, really sad

That is 3 unsolved murders in Madison since last year according to NBC 15.

http://www.nbc15.com/

[undeterred]

2. Police have not released much info.

They had the whole area blocked off yesterday afternoon for a "death investigation". This is downtown/campus, a good neighborhood. Her boyfriend apparently found her in the middle of the day when he came home. Why?

[ewagner]

3. It was the talk

of the coffee shop this morning in Marshfield.....

sad..

very, very sad.

:cry:

[undeterred]

4. Police have no suspect, but are questioning street people in student's death

SANDY CULLEN, CHRIS RICKERT AND PATRICIA SIMMS
608-252-6137
[e-mail]

Madison police are focusing on the large transient population in the Bassett neighborhood as one element in their search for the killer of a 21-year-old UW-Madison student whose body was found Wednesday in her West Doty Street apartment.

"We've got people we are looking for," said Lt. Joe Balles. Balles and neighborhood residents said homeless or transient people regularly approach people for money in the area. "The students are seen as a target-rich environment," Balles said.

While it has not been determined that it was a homeless person who killed Brittany Sue Zimmermann in her first-floor apartment at 517 W. Doty St., Balles said, "You have to look at the environment this happened in." "It's like a party down here .... the transient people, we are arresting them every day," Balles said.

John Lange, a maintenance worker at Mental Health Center of Dane County at 625 West Washington Ave., said he knows most of the homeless people the neighborhood, told police that he saw a "very intoxicated" man at mid-day Wednesday who was "getting in people's faces" for money.

Police found Zimmermann's body in her apartment after receiving a 911 call at about 1 p.m. Wednesday.
Kim Heeg, Zimmermann's aunt, said her niece's boyfriend, Jordan Gonnering, 22, also a UW-Madison student, found her body in the first-floor apartment they shared, and that he called police.

Investigators have concluded that Zimmermann's boyfriend is not a suspect in the case. He has been — and continues to be — very helpful in providing information to the detective team, a police spokesman said.

No suspect has been identified. Anyone with information that may help lead to an arrest are encouraged to call the Madison Police Crime Stoppers line at 608-266-6014. Police believe the person who killed Zimmermann is still in the Downtown neighborhood where her body was found Wednesday.

"Whoever's responsible for this thing, they're in the area around here," Balles said. "People are fearful as rightly they should be," he said. City and university police are urging students and other residents to take safety precautions. Balles said police from the two agencies will be pairing up today to patrol the Bassett neighborhood where Zimmermann was killed. "We're going to put large numbers of foot patrols out in this area," Balles said.

Forensic investigators from the state Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation also will be coming in to assist in gathering evidence, Balles said. Today's trash collection in the area was halted, and police will be going through all of the garbage in the neighborhood to search for evidence, Balles said.

Dane County Coroner John Stanley has not released the cause of Zimmermann's death. An autopsy was being conducted this morning. But a source familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be identified, said that Zimmermann had been stabbed. Police have not ruled out the possibility that the Zimmerman's killing was a random act, said police spokesman Joel DeSpain.

"There's every indication there's a killer among us," said City Council President Mike Verveer, who lives half a block away from the green shingle two-flat where Zimmermann was killed. "It's a very tragic, scary situation," Verveer said. "I think all of us who live Downtown have reason to be concerned."

The homicide is the city's second this year, following January's fatal stabbing of Joel Marino in his South Side home, which police said also could have been random. No one has been arrested in Marino's death, which police believe occurred at the same time of day that Zimmermann's body was discovered.

Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said that while police cannot rule out a connection, at this point in the investigation there is no reason to believe that Zimmermann's killing is related to the murder of Marino or of Kelly Nolan, a UW-Whitewater student last seen on State Street before her body was found in a wooded area in the town of Dunn last summer. Officials have still not released the cause of Nolan's death. In the wake of Zimmermann's death, Madison and university police will be pairing up to patrol Downtown with an "unprecedented visible presence," Verveer said.

Heeg said Zimmermann, who is from Marshfield, met Gonnering the summer before she enrolled at UW-Madison, where she was a junior majoring in medical microbiology and immunology. She wanted to work in the medical research field. "She was always very smart," Heeg said. Gonnering transferred from UW-Stevens Point to UW-Madison last year to be with her and the two "were planning to have a life together," Heeg said.

Heeg said her niece went to class to take an exam Wednesday morning and would have gotten home around noon. She said there was nothing going on in her life that would have suggested she was having problems with anyone. "I can't think of one person who wouldn't have liked her," she said. "She only wanted to do good in the world."

Zimmermann's family gathered in Marshfield on Wednesday to mourn the loss of the young woman Heeg described as someone who loved life and "thought that she could make a difference in the world." "She's the kind of girl who gives a dollar to the homeless guy," Heeg said.

She said her niece last called home Tuesday night, worried about the exam. She said Zimmermann felt guilty because she could not attend her great-grandmother's funeral on Tuesday because of her school commitments.

Zimmermann is survived by her parents, Kevin and Jean, and a brother, Matthew, 16. Heeg said the family was told very little about the investigation on Wednesday. "Everything is being kept under wraps," she said.

Police were investigating whether there was a connection between Zimmermann's death and an incident just before 1 p.m. Wednesday in the 500 block of West Washington Avenue in which a man entered a house shared by several UW-Madison students. The man left quickly after one of the students told him to leave, other residents of the house said.

Wray said patrols will be increased in the Bassett neighborhood, where Zimmermann was killed, and in any other areas indicated by the investigation, in the coming days. Residents who see anything suspicious should "call police, and we will come," he said.

For Verveer and other residents of the Bassett neighborhood — which includes many students and is not known for violent crime — the homicide hit extremely close to home. "I'm numb," said Verveer, who has lived in the neighborhood for 16 years, since he was a student. He is planning a neighborhood meeting for Saturday to update residents on the investigation. "This is a little too close to home, too close to the Capitol," said UW-Madison student Lou Dodger, 22, who lives on South Bassett Street.

Victor Villacrez of Verona, who used to live in the neighborhood and now owns a rental property there, said he went to check on his tenants after hearing about the homicide. Verveer said he believes Zimmermann is the first UW-Madison student to be killed Downtown since 1996, when Jonathan Daniel, 19, was slain in an off-campus apartment on University Avenue.

Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz pledged to provide "all of the support the Madison Police Department needs" to find Zimmermann's killer. We are a very strong community. We are a safe community," Cieslewicz said, adding that is "little comfort in the wake of a tragedy of this magnitude."

Police are asking that citizens with information that may help lead to an arrest call the Madison Area Crime Stoppers line at 608-266-6014. State Journal reporters Deborah Ziff and Quinn Craugh contributed to this report. Check for updates at madison.com/wsj and read tomorrow's State Journal.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/280001

This is so terribly sad. It must be very difficult for students coming from the relative safety of other places in Wisconsin to suddenly have to deal with random homicides happening where they live in the middle of the day. Peace and comfort to all who knew her and to her fiance and family.

[dragonlady]

5. What every parent tries not to think about

Dragondaughter lived a block from there a couple of years ago.

[midnight]

6. I have a couple of thoughts. First-Very Sad.

Secondly, does it seem that more college students have been a target over the last four or five years?

[undeterred]

7. Cops mum on any link between murders

Madison police detectives continue to pursue leads in two recent unsolved murder cases, police spokesman Joel DeSpain said today, but are still uncertain whether the cases are linked in any way.

"We have two investigations ongoing and a lot of resources devoted to each," DeSpain said. While officers probing the murder of UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann are sharing information with those investigating the murder of Joel Marino, there is nothing to indicate their murders are connected.

"Until we get some forensic evidence or find some suspect or suspects," DeSpain said, such a link cannot be established.

"Certainly, there are similarities" between the two killings, he said.

Both Zimmermann, 21, killed in her West Doty Street apartment on April 2, and Marino, 31, killed in his West Shore Drive home on Jan. 28, were murdered in the early afternoon by an intruder. Both were stabbed.

Police said the person who killed Zimmermann last week broke into her campus-area apartment, adding a new detail to the events leading to her death.

Zimmermann and Marino were involved in numerous community activities and "there was nothing in the behavior of either of them which would put them at risk," DeSpain said.

Although police have not said how Zimmermann died, sources have reported she was stabbed to death. Dane County Coroner John Stanley reported last week that "initial physical observations indicate that her death was due to a complexity of traumatic injuries."

In an effort to protect the investigation, police previously refused to say how the killer got into the apartment. Such details are often kept under wraps so detectives can determine whether potential suspects are lying during questioning.

DeSpain said Thursday that about two dozen people have been brought in for questioning in the murder, many of them from the transient community that frequent the Bassett neighborhood where Zimmermann was killed in the apartment she shared with her fianc . He has since been cleared as a suspect.

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/281242

3 unsolved cases involving young people downtown/close to campus in less than a year... but motive is unclear so its hard to say if they are related. (Kelly Nolan disappeared while walking downtown near the bars late at night.)

[undeterred]

8. 911 chief acknowledges dispatcher erred in handling Zimmermann call

Dane County 911 Center Director Joseph Norwick this afternoon admitted it was a mistake for an emergency dispatcher to not return a call from Brittany Zimmermann's cell phone on April 2, at about the time she was killed.

"Hindsight is a great thing," Norwick said after a long day of fielding questions and criticism about a dispatcher's failure to follow policy. Norwick confirmed today that the call came in from Zimmermann's cell phone, but the 911 operator didn't hear anyone on the line, so the operator hung up, then got busy and failed to call back.

In hastily called press conferences earlier today, Norwick and Madison Police Chief Noble Wray blamed each other for the lack of response. Norwick also said Madison police had told the call center not to refer cell phone calls that were hangups because of the difficulty of locating addresses.

Wray, however, said the 911 center mishandled the call and ignored evidence in the call "which should have resulted in a Madison police officer being dispatched." Wray said he didn't know yet whether dispatching a police officer would have prevent Zimmermann's death. He also said he immediately called for an internal investigation of what happened, but after a month, there has been no report.

Neither Wray nor Norwick would talk about the length or content of the call made from Zimmermann's cell phone. But Wray said dispatching a police officer after the call "would have been consistent with both Madison Police Department policy and national 911 standards. "The 911 center did not call back to the telephone number, MPD was not notified of the call, and no officer was sent," Wray said.

Wray said he will meet with 911 officials. "Just like you, I am asking questions as well," he told reporters. Norwick would not reveal the length of the call or how long it was before the operator hung up. Operators are supposed to call the number back when there is a hangup or there is no voice on the line, but the operator had two other 911 calls waiting and didn't call Zimmermann's phone back, he said.

When a 911 hang-up call is from a landline, Norwick said, police officers are automatically dispatched to the address even when the operator doesn't reach anyone after calling back. But when the 911 call is from a cell phone, they are not, Norwick said. Norwick denied the 911 Center has tried to cover up the operator's oversight. "I don't think there is anything to apologize for at this time," he said. Norwick said the dispatcher has not been disciplined.

The body of Zimmermann, 21, of Marshfield was found by her fiancee around 1 p.m. April 2. At the request of Madison police, the 911 center has refused to release any information about calls related to the slaying.

The 911 center gets a high volume of accidental or erroneous phone calls each day, Norwick said in a press release. On the day Zimmermann was killed, 115 of these so-called "hang-up" calls were received, and 83 of them were from cell phones, which don't display the caller's address on 911 equipment, he said.

"These calls can range from children playing with phones, buttons inadvertently bumped on phones left in coat pockets or purses, or crime victims looking for help," Norwick said in the release.
Norwick said his agency has notified Madison police several times that it is willing and able to dispatch police when these cell calls come in, but Madison police have asked that 911 not dispatch them.

Under current policy, Norwick said, if dispatchers answer a 911 call and can't determine if it's an emergency, the dispatcher calls the number back. At the request of police, officers are only dispatched if the call comes from a landline phone, he said. Dispatch equipment tells operators the addresses of calls from landline phones, but with cell phones they might be able to determine that the call came from a certain block, or a stretch of road a mile long, Norwick said.

Wray said cell phone technology is more precise than that, and disputed Norwick's statement that police asked the dispatch center not to tell them about cell phone hang-up calls.

Zimmermann's death is the fifth unsolved Madison homicide in the past 10 months. Two have occurred Downtown, inside homes, during the day, apparently by strangers. Four weeks after Zimmermann was killed, police have repeatedly said they had no suspects.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/284206

This is really sad- and its frightening when you consider how many people no longer use landline phones.