Fairfax County Police Watch: Cop crime wave continues: Bond set at $1 million for cop charged in case with ties to Rochester

WEST ALLIS, Wis. (KTTC/AP) -- Bond has been set at $1 million for a former police officer suspected of killing two women and hiding their bodies in suitcases dumped in southern Wisconsin.

Steven Zelich, 52, is charged with two counts of hiding a corpse in a case that brought investigators to Rochester. Zelich appeared on video but didn't speak during a hearing Friday in Walworth County Circuit Court.

Zelich's lawyer, Travis Schwantes, asked for a far lower bond, noting his client hasn't been charged with homicide. But District Attorney Daniel Necci said he expects homicide charges to be filed where the women were killed. Investigators allege the women were killed elsewhere in Wisconsin and in Minnesota

According to the criminal complaint, Zelich is accused of stuffing the remains of two women in suitcases he left along a southern Wisconsin highway. The complaint goes on to say he met his victims online, bound and killed them and carried their bodies around in his vehicle for months.

On June 5, a highway worker discovered the two suitcases beside a road in Geneva, Wis., about 50 miles southwest of Milwaukee. On June 12, evidence brought investigators to Rochester where one victim, Laura Simonson, 37, of Farmington, Minn., was seen checking into the Microtel Inn and Suites with Zelich back on Nov. 2. Zelich checked out alone the next day.

Police said Rochester could have served as a common meeting point, as Simonson was from Farmington, and Zelich is from the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis.

Zelich's apartment in West Allis was searched Wednesday, as neighbors watched. They describe him as a man who kept to himself, was quiet, and never stopped to talk.

Investigators said Zelich was involved in bondage and sexual fetish websites, where he may have been looking for a sex partner. Police said they don't know if that's where he and Simonson first met. Meanwhile, the second woman killed is still unidentified.

The complaint says Zelich killed one woman in Wisconsin in late 2012 or early 2013 and the other in Minnesota last November. It says he hid the first body in his home, then later stored it with the second body in his vehicle.

Both women were found bound, and their bodies had started to decompose. One had a ball gag in her mouth

Zelich was a patrol officer for 12 years with the West Allis Police Department before resigning in 2001.

We'll have the latest on this story on KTTC.com and the NewsCenter

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.