Hit-and-runs also among the unsolved
MONROE - If the Mark Tobin murder case is still warm, the other unsolved homicides in Green County of the past 40 years are stone cold.
All three were hit-and-run traffic deaths of pedestrians.
The victims were all found at night, in the early morning hours. In each case, the victim was walking on or near the road when an unidentified vehicle struck the victim and then drove off.
None of the accidents were witnessed, and dozens of interviews on each have yielded no leads, according to Green County Sheriff Jeff Skatrud.
Though the cases have gone cold, "we haven't forgotten," he said. But at this point his department is "at the mercy" of anyone willing to come forward with new information.
Skatrud looked through old records - some created when the sheriff's department still used typewriters - for the following basics on each case:
- Amy J. Stewart, 18, rural Brodhead, was found dead on County M, about a fifth of a mile north of Wisconsin 11, at 2:10 a.m. Sunday, June 27, 1982. She had been a passenger in a vehicle with friends when she got out to walk. Her friends' vehicle was down the road in front of her when the accident occurred.
- Daniel L. Potter, 19, Browntown, was found dead on County M on the south edge of Browntown at 12:05 a.m. Thursday, April 6, 1989. At the request of Potter's family and the sheriff, the Department of Criminal Investigation conducted a separate investigation several years later and reached the same conclusions as the original investigation, still unsolved.
- Richard A. Olson, 39, Brodhead, was found dead on Wis. 11/81 near County GG in Spring Grove Township in the early morning hours of Wednesday, Oct. 4, 1995. Olson had just left a nearby establishment and was walking on or near the highway when he was killed.
- Katjusa Cisar
His department's only unsolved intentional homicide, the 2007 murder of Mark C. Tobin, gave him pause.
Was it still warm or had it gone cold?
"It's not cold," Skatrud decided. The two investigators who have worked on the Tobin case from the beginning, Lt. Rodney Hicks and an agent with the Department of Criminal Investigation, are still picking away at it and following a spider's web of sources for interviews.
"Somebody or some people know what happened," Skatrud said, "and they're going to talk."
Tobin, 38, was found murdered in his farmhouse at W7574 Wisconsin 39, northwest of New Glarus, on Nov. 21, 2007.
"That was the day before Thanksgiving," Skatrud remembers. "We were there with the state crime lab 'til the following Friday."
Skatrud won't disclose exactly how Tobin died, only that it was from "violent acts."
While the killer remains a mystery to investigators, the motive for his death is not. They're sure it was related to his illegal business of selling marijuana.
Investigators describe Tobin as a large-scale marijuana grower who cultivated and harvested hundreds of plants in a two-story garage he custom-built, next to the home he shared with his wife, Maureen Waoh-Tobin.
She wasn't involved Tobin's drug-dealing livelihood and wasn't even allowed in the garage where he grew his product, according to Skatrud. She was attending school in Milwaukee when the murder happened. His body was discovered after she didn't hear from him, got worried and asked a friend to check on him.
She's been cooperative all along with investigators, he added.
So has Tobin's father, Monte, a former Wisconsinite now living in Florida. The father put up a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of his son's killer. Phone calls from the Times to his Florida home were not immediately returned this week.
What makes the case so challenging is Tobin's tight-lipped and far-flung contacts. Originally from Milwaukee, Tobin kept his social circle small, and most of his contacts were people "many, many miles away" who have proven to be not forthcoming, Skatrud said.
Tobin had no apparent connection to rural New Glarus, other than picking it as remote location in 2002 for his growing operation.
"He moved here to grow marijuana ... he was definitely experienced at what he did," Skatrud said. Court records show Tobin spent a year in a state prison for marijuana-related convictions from 1993, but his criminal record is otherwise sparse.
The case is unusual for Green County.
"We don't have many whodunits," Skatrud said. "Our homicides - and there's not a lot of them, thankfully - have been domestic violence-related."
Skatrud's detectives aren't giving up yet on finding Tobin's killer.
"They're still poking away at it," he said. "Are we going to hit the right one sometime? I hope so."
Information is still sought in the 2007 murder of Mark C. Tobin, as well as unsolved hit-and-run deaths in 1982, 1989 and 1995. Tips may be submitted to the Green County Sheriff's Department at 608-328-9400 or anonymously via Green County Crimestoppers at 800-I-C-CRIME (422-7463).