List of homicides in Wisconsin

This is a list of homicides in Wisconsin. This list includes notable homicides committed in the U.S. state of Wisconsin that have a Wikipedia article on the killing, the killer, or the victim. It is divided into three subject areas as follows:

1. Multiple homicides – homicides having multiple victims.
2. Serial killers – persons who murder three or more persons with the incidents taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them
3. Single homicides – notable homicides involving a single fatality

Among the works dealing with homicides in Wisconsin are Wisconsin Murders by August Derleth and Got Murder? The Shocking Story of Wisconsin's Notorious Killers by Martin Hintz.^[1][2]

Multiple homicides

Listed in chronological order

Incident	Location	Date	Deaths	Description	Sources
Taliesin murders	Spring Green	August 14, 1914	7	Murder of Frank Lloyd Wright's mistress, Mamah Borthwick, and six others by a chef working at the site	[3]
Christopher Scarver	Portage	November 28, 1994	2	Killed Jeffrey Dahmer while in prison, also killed another prisoner at the same time; previously killed a Wisconsin Conservation Corps supervisor in 1990	[4]
Chai Vang	Meteor	November 21, 2004	6	Deer hunting dispute turned into mass shooting	[5]
Terry Ratzmann	Brookfield	March 12, 2005	8	Mass shooting at Living Church of God	[6]
Crandon shooting	Crandon	October 7, 2007	7	Off-duty sheriff's deputy fatally shot six persons, including his ex-girlfriend, at a post-homecoming party and then committed suicide	[7]
Yolanda Brown	Milwaukee	October 16, 2007	2	R&B singer and record producer fatally shot at recording studio	[8]
Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting	Oak Creek	August 5, 2012	8	Mass shooting at Sikh temple	[9]
Azana Spa shooting	Brookfield	October 21, 2012	4	Estranged husband of worker entered spa in suburban Milwaukee, four killed including the wife and shooter	[10]
Aaron Schaffhausen	River Falls	July 10, 2012	3	Father slit throats of his three daughters (ages 5, 8, and 11) the year after divorce from their mother	[11]
Steven Zelich	West Allis	2012–2013	2	Former police officer known as the "Wisconsin Suitcase Murderer"	[12]
Ashlee Martinson	Piehl	March 7, 2015	2	Convicted of murdering her mother and stepfather on the day after her 17th birthday
Kidnapping of Jayme Closs	Barron	October 15, 2018	2	21-year-old broke into house, fatally shot parents, and kidnapped 13-year-old girl for 88 days	[13]
Milwaukee brewery shooting	Milwaukee	February 26, 2020	6	A 51-year-old worker at Molson Coors brewery fatally shot five coworkers and then committed suicide	[14]
Kenosha unrest shooting	Kenosha	August 25, 2020	2	17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot two men and wounded another, using an AR-15 rifle; Rittenhouse claimed self-defense and was found not guilty	[15]
Waukesha Christmas parade attack	Waukesha	November 21, 2021	6	Six killed and 62 injured when the perpetrator deliberately hit participants and observers with his SUV at Christmas parade	[16]

Serial killers

Listed in chronological order by date of earliest homicide

Incident	Location	Date	Deaths	Description	Sources
Ed Gein	Plainfield	1947–1957	2–9	Known as the "Butcher of Plainfield"	[17]
George Lamar Jones	Wisconsin, Mississippi	1972–1997	3+	Serial killer who lived for a time in Milwaukee
Joseph Paul Franklin	Multiple	1977–1980	8–20+	White supremacist killer executed 2013	[17]
Walter E. Ellis	Milwaukee	1986–2007	8–10+	Known as "The Milwaukee North Side Strangler"	[17]
Edward Edwards	Wisconsin, Ohio	1977–1996	5–15+	Six confirmed victims	[17]
Jeffrey Dahmer	Ohio, Wisconsin	1978–1991	16	Known as the "Milwaukee Cannibal"	[17]
David Van Dyke	Milwaukee	1979–1980	6	Burglar who murdered people after tricking them into letting him into their homes	[18]
Lorenzo Fayne	Wisconsin, Illinois	1989–1993	6	Serial killer and rapist who murdered one woman and five children in the states of Wisconsin and Illinois

Single homicides

Incident	Location	Date	Description	Sources
John McCaffary	Kenosha	July 23, 1850	Convicted of drowning his wife in a cistern, his execution was botched, leading to the abolition of capital punishment in Wisconsin
Little Lord Fauntleroy	Waukesha	1921	Unsolved murder of young boy found floating in a pond
Arthur "Buddy" Schumacher	Wauwatosa	1925	Unsolved murder of 8-year-old boy; later the subject of the 2012 book Murder in Wauwatosa: The Mysterious Death of Buddy Schumacher
Jack Zuta	Delafield	August 1, 1930	Organized crime figure fatally shot at a roadhouse
Sterling Hall bombing	Madison	August 24, 1970	Bombing at University of Wisconsin as protest of connections with military research during Vietnam War, a physics researcher was killed and three others injured
Murder of Lisa Ann French	Fond du Lac	October 31, 1973	9-year old girl murdered and sexually assaulted by neighbor while trick-or-treating alone
Murder of Christine Schultz	Milwaukee	May 28, 1981	Former Milwaukee police officer convicted for the murder of her husband's ex-wife; she escaped in 1990 in an episode that inspired the slogan "Run, Bambi, Run"
Murder of Amber Creek	Burlington	1997-02	Teenager who ran away from a youth shelter; suspect convicted of her murder 34 years later
Murder of Traci Hammerberg	Grafton	December 15, 1984	18-year-old murdered while walking home from a party; murderer identified 35 years later
Murder of Susan Poupart	Lac du Flameau	May 20, 1990	Unsolved murder of 29-year-old Native American woman
Jesse Anderson	Milwaukee	April 21, 1992	Convicted of murdering his wife Barbara Anderson; was then murdered along with Jeffrey Dahmer in prison by Christopher Scarver
Murder of Alfred Kunz	Dane	March 4, 1998	Unsolved murder of a Catholic priest found in church with his throat slit
Death of Julie Jensen	Pleasant Prairie	December 3, 1998	Husband convicted of murdering his wife; conviction later overturned; notable for admission into evidence of a letter written by deceased expressing suspicion of husband's intentions
Murder of Glenn Kopitske	Winnebago County	July 21, 2003	Thrill killing of a bipolar 37-year-old man
Murder of Teresa Halbach (Steven Avery, Brendan Dassey)	Manitowoc County	October 31, 2005	Photographer murdered by man who hired her to photograph a minivan, later the subject of the Netflix series Making a Murderer
2006 Weston High School shooting	Cazenovia	September 29, 2006	Student fatally shot high school principal
Murder of Cha Vang	Green Bay	2007	30-year-old Hmong man shot and stabbed by James Nichols who had expressed racial animus to Hmong people
Murder of Erika Hill	Fitchburg	2007-02	15-year-old girl was victim of long term abuse and starvation, then beaten, stabbed and asphyxiated by mother
Murder of Amy Yeary	Campbellsport	2008-08	18-year-old woman murdered in 2008, body was unidentified for 13 years, aka "Fond du Lac County Jane Doe"
Murder of Hussain Saeed Alnahdi	Menomonie	October 31, 2016	24-year-old student from Saudi Arabia beaten to death outside a pizzeria in downtown Menomonie
Killing of Ee Lee	Milwaukee	September 19, 2020	Woman raped and murdered by two teenage boys on video in front of nine other youths
Murder of Shad Thyrion	Green Bay	February 21, 2022	24-year-old American man killed during sexual intercourse and then dismembered.
Killing of Lily Peters	Chippewa Falls	April 22, 2022	10-year-old girl raped and murdered, her 14-year-old cousin was arrested and is being tried as an adult
John Pier Roemer	New Lisbon	June 3, 2022	Juneau County judge fatally shot by a man convicted in his court six years earlier
Death of Sade Robinson	Milwaukee	April 1, 2024	19-year-old woman killed and dismembered.