By Nan Wisherd
Recently, my cousin Phyllis shared an article with me about a local murder that occurred 65 years ago, and the story rekindled memories of other area murders. Many people believe that Waino, where I live, is a boring backwoods community in northwestern Wisconsin where nothing ever occurs. That's not true.
Murder: Taking the life of another human being. The very thought is horrifying, yet I've known murderers. I've talked to a few of them — even attended school with a future murderer. I've heard stories of area murders that occurred before I was born, prepared tax returns for murderers, and have unknowingly been in a house with a murderer still inside. I know a probable, unindicted murderer who is still on the loose, walking among us, acting normal, like most murderers.
The haunting memories came flooding back to me.
Dad told me the story of a ne'er-do-well who lived in Oulu, Waino's eastern neighbor and Twin Town. He was a well-known thief until the day a farmer saw him sneaking around his outbuildings. Grabbing his rifle, the farmer ambushed and shot him, burying him in a “back forty.” The locals knew what had happened but stayed silent.
Less than 100 yards from my home are the ruins of a shack once owned by two Keilonen brothers who were strongly suspected by most Waino residents of murdering their stepfather before burning his body in his home. As a tax practitioner, I prepared tax returns for an ex-prisoner with a similar story. He grew up in Waino but lived elsewhere when he murdered his wife's lover and set fire to a house with the victim inside.
Another tax client had no intention of becoming a murderer, but he did. Having lunch one day with his best friend, he began toying with his unloaded handgun, which he discovered — too late — wasn't unloaded. He watched his best friend die at close range.
The previous deaths occurred because of, at least in the killer's twisted mind, a theft, an accident, or a crime of passion. Serial killers murder more than once, and many times the victim is previously unknown to the killer. Studies show that many serial killers were adopted, and two murderers that I have known personally were adopted.
I was in grade school and high school with Jim Wenteala, and he seemed to be quiet and pleasant. Jim had been adopted as an infant, and everyone assumed that he was too young to know what was being done. As a 5-year-old, he was discovered choking my cousin Anita. And it was just an accident when he shot his friend in the leg a few years later. Jim moved to southern Wisconsin after high school but returned to Waino a few years later. Following him back to Waino were whispers of violent assaults and an unsolved murder, but he was a member of our community. Right? And everyone liked his parents.
Before long, whispers shared that Jim's parents feared him. Jim bought an old school bus that he drove around, picking up young partygoers and bringing them back home hours later. One night, though, Charmaine Lewis of Iron River was the last passenger on Jim's party bus, and she never returned home. Weeks later, blueberry pickers near a gravel pit south of Brule discovered her buried in a shallow grave following a storm. The police were called, there was little evidence, and no one was charged.
Jim's own death came after his car was found near the same gravel pit where Charmaine's bones had been discovered. Inside the car were two bodies — Jim's and yet another dead female — along with his final scrawled message: “I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE.”
My most haunting murder story, though, would have cost any cat at least four lives. It was in May 1977 when my friend Janet and I stopped at a home along the Brule River. (Janet was the estate manager there with her husband.) We entered the house and soon realized that it had been burglarized. We left after calling our husbands, who arrived soon after and shut a wide-open exterior door that had been closed when we left. The thieves had been in the house with us.
The next month after my employer, heiress Elisabeth Congdon, and her night nurse, Velma Pietila, were murdered in Elisabeth's Glensheen mansion, we knew who had been in the burglarized house: Marjorie Congdon, Elisabeth's adopted daughter.
Marjorie took turquoise jewelry from the Brule house that May morning before throwing a burning pillow into the brush near the house, hoping to destroy it. Rain the previous night snuffed out the flames, though, before the brush caught fire. The house belonged to a member of Elisabeth's legal team who had recently refused Marjorie's request for an advance on her inheritance.
Marjorie's long trail of felonies is documented in the book “Glensheen's Daughter” and includes the story of young Marjorie trying to poison her horse. It doesn't tell of Marjorie beheading her dolls, but it does note her obsession with detective magazines — her textbooks. Mysterious deaths and arson have followed Marjorie for much of her life.
I've cooked for Marjorie. I've talked to her, and I have spent time with all her children. However, I doubt that she would have saved me if I had entered the bedroom where Marjorie waited in May 1977.
The stories of murders and murderers swirled around as I stared at the story from 1961, remembering…
In 1961, Brule didn't celebrate its actual centennial, because, in 1861, there were many more land speculators than settlers in Brule. Despite this, the centennial celebration generated plenty of enthusiasm with men growing beards for the longest beard contest, former Brule residents making plans to reconnect with friends and family, and kids looking forward to spending lots of time at the carnival. Even Governor Gaylord Nelson planned to attend. The centennial was to be celebrated from Thursday through Sunday, July 6-9.
Julia Mikkola was a 72-year-old widow from a small home on an isolated dirt road that ran from the junction of Clevedon Road and County Highway FF a few miles north of Brule in Waino. Julia was reported missing on Friday morning, July 7, after one of her sons stopped by to visit and found a puddle of blood in her bedroom and a trail of blood leading outside. After notifying Douglas County Sheriff Deputies, searchers reached her home. Blood drops were discovered near a gate about a mile from Julia's home, but Julia was missing.
Suspicions abounded, and Brule was overrun with many workers, strangers, and residents. The centennial celebration came and went, replaced by a hollow sense of dread and sadness. It seemed there were two people to blame: an ex-con whom Julia had accused of stealing from her several times, and Jerry Kukkonen, a local man who had been missing much of the time. A card with a picture of a man was found near Julia's home, and the sheriff's deputies questioned many people, including Jerry Kukkonen, who was questioned because of a missing trunk mat.
The search for Julia continued with scores of people scouring the area. My cousin Phyllis remembered the day when she and her mother were alone in their home along Clevedon Road. Her father was out searching for Julia when a man suddenly popped out of the woods. After their bolt of fear, they realized that the stranger was also in the search party.
Julia was found on Saturday, July 8, by James Swanson and Lawrence Gruebele, local men who were driving slowly along Clevedon Road, looking for clues. Less than three miles from Julia's home, they noticed a set of tire tracks that veered to the road's edge. After checking more closely, they determined that the thin grass leading into the woods bent. Julia's nude battered body was only 30 feet off the road where her killer had unceremoniously dumped her. Her face had been bludgeoned so badly that it was nearly beyond recognition.
Now, the hunt began for Julia's murderer. More cars and trucks were stopped and searched. One man had blood on his boots, and blood was discovered in a woman's back seat. More than 200 people were questioned; others came forward with clues they hoped would lead to the killer, who might still be in the area.
With no solid leads and no arrest, Sheriff Quist requested a lie detector machine. On July 20, the machine and experts from the state crime lab arrived, and an initial list of men under suspicion were ordered to appear. One by one, the men were questioned and, at the end of the day, only one man remained, and he was in jail.
Jerry Kukkonen grew up along Clevedon Road less than two miles from his grandmother's home. He was listed as a loner. When Julia's battered body was discovered July 8, 1961, Jerry was living in the adjacent town of Cloverland. After his confession, he was sent to prison. His wife divorced him, and the community breathed a sigh of relief.
But Jerry Kukkonen was a serial killer, and his story was not finished.
Brule's centennial celebration was forever tinged by Brule's most horrific murder which, decades later, still conjures up memories. My memories include Aunt Syl Aho Plattzer, who grew up within sight of the Kukkonen farm. Countless times, she told the story about when she drove the big pink Cadillac and headed down Clevedon Road to Lake Superior. Mikkola was taken to her body as we approached the Kukkonen farm and began to cry, and “This,” (she always ended with a long pause), “was the home of Killer Kukkonen!”
We all crowded as close to the windows as possible in terrified silence. Jerry was a shadow, the man who we were expecting to see. Julia's ghost running for her life with Jerry close behind. The scenario and our reactions never changed, though, no matter how many years Aunt Syl took us down Clevedon Road.
Whispers years later told of Jerry meeting two women at a bar south of Brule, killing both women, and setting the bar on fire to mask their murders. (This happened before his arrest.) Jerry's younger sister remembered seeing him hurrying outside their grandmother's home before her murder. One of my cousins rode with him to Little League practice, and a woman considered herself lucky because she had commuted to work with Jerry and survived. After serving his time, Jerry was released from prison, remarried again, and killed his second wife.
My friend Lorean had a story, too. Shortly after her grandmother's body was discovered, Lorean's grandmother woke up one night to find a man in her bedroom, but soon realized that the man was her son-in-law.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I'm just checking your windows to make sure they're locked. There's a killer on the loose, you know,” Jerry Kukkonen replied.