Evidence of alternate suspect excluded from 1976 murder trial

For the second time, a Marinette County judge has rejected an elderly Lakewood man’s motion to allow testimony that someone else shot and killed a Green Bay couple in 1976.

Raymand L. Vannieuwenhoven, 84, is scheduled to stand trial starting July 19 on two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of David Schuldes, 25, and Ellen Matheys, 24, at the McClintock Park campground in the Town of Silver Cliff in Marinette County. Matheys had also been sexually assaulted.

The case went unsolved for more than 40 years until, investigators say, modern technology was able to positively match DNA found with Matheys’ body to Vannieuwenhoven in early 2019.

Defense attorneys had filed motions to allow testimony about two other men investigators over the years believed could be suspects in the murders, Mervin Walker and Robert Lukesh. Judge James Morrison denied the motion regarding Walker earlier this spring, saying the defense failed to make the case that Walker had motive, opportunity and a direct connection to the crime — the three factors that previous courts have ruled defenders must show in presenting an alternative suspect.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys also submitted briefs regarding whether Lukesh, who is now deceased, could have committed the crimes, and Morrison held an additional hearing June 3 to take oral arguments.

Defense attorney Travis Crowell said his team’s brief provided 20 bullet points and 24 exhibits — emphasizing that the materials all came from sheriff’s investigators looking into the case — that taken as a whole show that Lukesh could have killed the couple.

As for motive, “He had long stated to other people that he wanted to commit the perfect crime, see if he could get away with it,” Crowell said. “We believe that’s what he did here, and other evidence basically shows that he had the opportunity and the motive and the direct connection to do that.”

The defense has noted that on the afternoon Schuldes’ body was found, Lukesh brought coffee and sandwiches to the investigating officers in part to learn more about the incident. While he was there, he made the comment that he thought it smelled like the odor of a dead woman, and Mathys’ body was not discovered until the next day, Crowell said.

Lukesh was a brutal man who abused family members, he had an obsession with murder, and in later years he described to friends what he believed happened to the couple in detail that suggested he had been there, the defense attorney said.

District Attorney DeShea Morrow countered that DNA testing in the 1990s had excluded Lukesh as a suspect in the sexual assault tied to Matheys’ murder.

Although Lukesh appeared to talk about the crime in a first-person account, he didn’t get his facts straight.

“Most all of those were wrong,” Morrow said. Lukesh talked about a handgun, but they were shot with a rifle. He talked about the suspect chasing the victims down a hill, but there is no hill at the murder scene. He said the murders happened during a robbery, but Schuldes’ watch and camera were found next to the body.

Morrow said all of the defense arguments about how Lukesh could have committed the crime could be made about Walker, whom Morrison had already excluded in the previous ruling.

Morrison issued a written ruling June 4, saying that both sides made compelling arguments but in the end the defense did not make a convincing enough case that Lukesh had a direct connection to the crime.

Citing a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling, Morrison wrote that a “remote possibility, a theory without a direct connection” is not enough to support allowing Lukesh to be introduced as an alternative suspect.

The judge conceded during the hearing that it was a close call.

“What’s clear to me is that Mr. Lukesh was a very, very despicable human being who did unspeakably horrible things to people. No question about that,” Morrison said.

The judge also ruled on a variety of motions regarding jury instructions and other nuts and bolts of the trial. A final pre-trial conference is scheduled for June 22 and a motion hearing for June 23 heading into the July 19 trial. Two weeks have been set aside for the trial.