KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A former
Wisconsin police officer killed a 19-year-old college student from Oregon
during a choking game that went too far, hid her body in a suitcase she brought
to their sex date and then kept her body in his refrigerator for months,
according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday.
Steven Zelich, 52, of West
Allis, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide — the Wisconsin
equivalent of murder — in the 2012 death of Jenny Gamez from Cottage Grove,
Oregon. Zelich also is a suspect in the death of a Farmington, Minnesota,
woman.
The women's bodies were found
in June in suitcases left along a rural highway about an hour southwest of
Milwaukee. According to court records and testimony, Zelich told investigators
that he met the women online, killed them accidentally during dates for sex and
hid their bodies until they began to smell. Then he dumped them on the
roadside, where they were found by highway workers mowing grass.
Kenosha County District
Attorney Robert Zapf said he chose to charge Zelich with the most severe crime
possible because he didn't believe the deaths were accidents.
"Killing two women over
the span of 15 months under the circumstances in which the defendant
acknowledged, by gagging them with a ball gag in the mouth, ropes around the
neck, hands tied behind their back, blindfold over their face. He may call that
accidental. I call it murder," Zapf said.
Zelich's attorney, Jonathan
Smith, said Zapf would have to prove that his client meant to kill the women,
and that could be more difficult if they died during consensual sex. He also
noted no homicide charges have been filed yet in the Minnesota woman's death.
"The fact of the matter
is, he's charged with the death of one individual in Kenosha County, at this
point, and that's the death that we're going to focus on," Smith said.
Zelich was charged previously
with two counts of hiding a corpse in Walworth County, Wisconsin, where the
bodies were found. He faces an additional charge of hiding a corpse in Kenosha
County, which Zapf said is separate and based on Zelich's actions the day Gamez
died.
A Walworth County detective
testified in June that Zelich told investigators he met Gamez at a Kenosha
County hotel in 2012 and killed her accidentally during rough sex. Zelich then
put Gamez's body in a suitcase that he stored for more than a year in his home
and car, Walworth County Sheriff's Detective Jeffrey Recknagel said.
The other victim has been
identified as Laura Simonson, 37, of Farmington, Minnesota. Zelich told
investigators she died in November at a hotel in Rochester, Minnesota,
Recknagel said. No charges have been filed yet in Minnesota.
Zelich eventually moved Gamez's
body to the trunk of his car, where he also was storing Simonson's body, a
criminal complaint said. He dropped them in Walworth County in early June after
they began to smell, Recknagel said.
Zelich worked for the police
department in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis from February 1989 until his
resignation in August 2001, following an internal investigation that found he
stalked women while on duty and used his position to get access to their
personal information. His resignation allowed him to avoid discipline and pass
state background checks for a private security officer's license. He was
working as a licensed private security officer when he was arrested June 25.
