A chance encounter almost 16 years ago led a Green Bay teen to cross paths with two men in Abrams, and the end result was murder. That’s what special prosecutor Vincent Biskupic told an Oconto County jury Wednesday in the intentional homicide trial of Peter Hanson, 52, of Oconto Falls.
In his opening statement, Biskupic said 19-year-old Chad McLean's death “can only be described as senseless,” claiming Hanson shot McLean in the head with a .22-caliber gun Hanson modified and showed off to neighbors before Feb. 22, 1998, when McLean was last seen alive.
Biskupic said Hanson and his longtime buddy, Chuck Mlados, were drinking beer with McLean and McLean’s friend, Cory Byng, at the home of Byng’s relatives that Sunday in Abrams. Byng and McLean, friends since grade school, had been scouting for fishing spots in Oconto County before stopping in Abrams. Although McLean arrived with Byng, he left with Mlados and Hanson when it was evident Byng was not sober enough to drive back to Green Bay.
Biskupic said what happened over the next few hours was the senseless murder of a young man who had direction in his life by a man who was drunk and high on marijuana.
Hanson’s attorney, Jeffrey Jazgar, countered by saying there’s no physical evidence in the case to link his client to the crime.
“I don’t know how Peter Hanson and Mr. Mlados, in the condition they were supposedly in, would have been able to commit the perfect crime and conceal all physical evidence,” Jazgar said.
Mlados, 54, of Oconto Falls, is scheduled to go on trial in February.
When McLean wasn’t reported missing for five days, Hanson and Mlados had time to get rid of evidence, clean everything and concoct a story, Biskupic said.
“This gap of time … ultimately serves as a golden opportunity for the defendant and his buddy to do a number of things,” he said.
He said the jury would hear about Hanson’s efforts to deceive law enforcement and blame others for the murder, but would also hear about confessions Hanson reportedly made to a friend and to two inmates who shared a cell with him in the Oconto County Jail.
Jazgar encouraged the jury to weigh the credibility of Hanson’s friend and the inmates, saying a jailhouse discussion about the homicide charges is different than an admission of guilt.
Biskupic told of McLean’s perfect attendance at work and how he was in line for a bonus. He said even with a lot of beer in him, he was focused on “I want to get back to work.”
“Chad’s life had direction … and it had promise,” Biskupic said.
The first to testify in the trial was McLean’s mother, Carol Neilson, who fought back tears as she told about the life her son was living in 1998.
McLean lived in an apartment with two friends. Because he chose not to have a driver’s license, McLean rode with a longtime friend of Neilson’s to a mill job McLean loved. When that friend said McLean hadn’t been to work in three days, Neilson began making phone calls and knocking on doors before going to the Green Bay Police Department on Feb. 27, five days after he was last seen.
For nine years, family and friends put up posters in hopes of finding who killed McLean.
Neilson broke into tears as she looked at photos of those posters and a billboard the family used to try to find the killer. She finished her testimony by recalling how three police officers visited her home in March 1998 to say her son’s body had been found in the Pensaukee River by a woman walking her dog.
Ten women and four men were selected for the jury; two will be chosen as alternates before deliberations begin.
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