WI WI - Christine Rothschild, 18, Madison, 26 May 1968

New Posts

Pink Panther said:
A couple of interesting articles…A class at the UWO seems to have tracked down the "surgeon" and interviewed him:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...udents-investigate-cold-cases/article4193018/

http://communications.uwo.ca/wester..._up_cold_cases_with_student_society-lite.html

http://books.google.ca/books?id=cEy...AjgU#v=onepage&q=Christine Rothschild&f=false
Click to expand...

Interesting articles. They should hand over the case files to Websleuths. We'd have a field day! We'd do a lot better job than the university did. A Madison Capital Times June 26, 1968 article states that

top officials from the university, the Dane County Sheriff's Office and Madison City Police met the following morning, and decided that Ralph Hanson, University police chief, should be their spokesman in matters relating to the investigation. Hanson, whose chief qualification for a murder investigation seems to be that he attended a couple of traffic schools in his native New England, has contributed little public information on the slaying except to call a few press conferences where his principal answer to questions has been "No comment."
Click to expand...

On top of that, the university lost all the files on the case a few years back.

As far as the murder itself goes, it was stated that Rothchild was stabbed 17 times, three of them superficial wounds in the breasts, chest & neck with death caused by a puncture wound to the heart, four broken ribs from the "stabbing instrument", jaw broken on both sides of the face apparently from a direct blow of a fist on the chin, strangled with a piece of cloth ripped from her coat lining and tied in a single slip knot around her neck. Underneath her head was a blood-soaked man's handkerchief. Two of her gloves were forced down her throat. Now that's overkill!
 
Yes. Definitely "overkill". I'd call it a frenzy. Someone must have heard…Unless she had been drugged. How could it have happened outdoors and silently???

ETA - Given that the suspect is now dead, it would be nice if the interview with him could be released. Is there anything that prevents this from happening?
 
In all my research and years of sleuthing, I see overkill happening, usually, in three situations:

1. First kill -- the person stabs a lot, because they're not sure how to kill. The scene is super disorganised and messy, there's usually a lot of evidence lying around.

2. Personal rage -- the killer isn't just killing a person, they're venting their rage at the victim, and often there's signs of staging or 'remorse' (undoing) - I dislike the term 'remorse' used in murder cases like this as it rarely applies where there's such powerful overkill. Shame, perhaps, about losing control, or maybe a self-interested sort of sorrow, over "having" to kill the victim..

3. Serial attacker/rapist/killer who is devolving. There'll be a cluster of overkill murders in his wake, maybe earlier murders that were a lot more organised. Very few start out with murders like this. It's a loss of control... killers who are this out of control tend to get caught sooner or later as they get more and more careless. Sometimes there's staging/posing. Usually to send a 'message' of some sort.
 
Ausgirl said:
In all my research and years of sleuthing, I see overkill happening, usually, in three situations:

1. First kill -- the person stabs a lot, because they're not sure how to kill. The scene is super disorganised and messy, there's usually a lot of evidence lying around.

2. Personal rage -- the killer isn't just killing a person, they're venting their rage at the victim, and often there's signs of staging or 'remorse' (undoing) - I dislike the term 'remorse' used in murder cases like this as it rarely applies where there's such powerful overkill. Shame, perhaps, about losing control, or maybe a self-interested sort of sorrow, over "having" to kill the victim..

3. Serial attacker/rapist/killer who is devolving. There'll be a cluster of overkill murders in his wake, maybe earlier murders that were a lot more organised. Very few start out with murders like this. It's a loss of control... killers who are this out of control tend to get caught sooner or later as they get more and more careless. Sometimes there's staging/posing. Usually to send a 'message' of some sort.
Click to expand...

Another murder ten years later in Dane County where the victim was struck hard in the jaw was Julie Ann Hall, who was bludgeoned to death and buried near Waunakee, WI (Kelly Nolan's hometown) in 1978. Waunakee, WI is 18 miles east of Mazomanie, WI. Julie Hall's nude body was found "FACE DOWN in a shallow stump hole and HAD BEEN COVERED WITH LEAVES AND GRASS." She had been struck hard under her jaw and her body was covered with scratches and bruises. The body was found by a farmer just off Hwy 12 west of Waunakee.

http://www.surroundedbyreality.com/Misc/Crimes/JAHMurder.asp
 
Pink Panther said:
Yes. Definitely "overkill". I'd call it a frenzy. Someone must have heard…Unless she had been drugged. How could it have happened outdoors and silently???

ETA - Given that the suspect is now dead, it would be nice if the interview with him could be released. Is there anything that prevents this from happening?
Click to expand...

You're aware of the "knockout games" going on today where you're approached and someone just lashes out and knocks you out with their fist? I'm thinking that happened in this case. You get punched so hard your jaw breaks, you'll probably get knocked out, too. No defense against that.
 
http://www.badgerlink.net/

The Madison Capital Times December 24, 1975 reports: Murder Suspect Investigated for Rothschild Killing Madison Police detectives are continuing an investigation into the possibility that a murder suspect being held in a Milwaukee jail might have been involved in the 1968 murder of Christine Rothschild.
Authorities here still have not determined where Richard O. Macek, 28, was on May 26, 1968, when Rothschild's body was found near Sterling Hall on the University of Wisconsin campus.

The article goes on to say that Macek, of Illinois, is charged with the murder of Paula Cupit, 24, a maid who was killed at the Abbey Resort in Fontana, Wis., last year. The article also states that he faces charges of rape, sex perversion and assault on a Holiday Inn maid in Wauwatosa, (WI) in 1974.
 
Oh gosh, Macek was a piece of work, alright...

"A native of McHenry, Illinois, Macek was 26 years old when he launched a two-state murder spree in 1974. On August 15 of that year, in Fontana, Wisconsin, he cornered Paula Cupit, a 24-year-old hotel maid, in one of the rooms she was assigned to clean, beating her and stabbing her in the heart before he began to gnaw and mutilate her body. Two months later, in Wauwatosa, the "Mad Biter" struck again, raping another maid, but his second victim survived to offer police a description of her assailant. Macek shifted back to Illinois, murdering 26-year-old Nancy Lossman and her three-year-old daughter, Lisa, at Crystal Lake, before the end of the year. In July 1975, he invaded a Woodstock laundromat, battering a 20-year-old woman and leaving her for dead. "

http://www.crimezzz.net/serialkillers/M/MACEK_richard_o.php

I wonder if they ever figured out where he was at the time of Christine's murder..

However, looking at her case (and I have lifted the following from Winward's first post on page 1) :

"Chris was found dead behind the front bushes of Sterling Hall late on Sunday, May 26th. She had been stabbed 14 times with a surgical instrument, her jaws were broken, ribs broken, strangled with the lining of her coat and her gloves were shoved down her throat. Her head was staged on the killer's hankerchief. No sexual assault and no signs of struggle as her boots were not scuffed, etc."

It just doesn't sound like Macek, IMO.
 
I think Winward's suspect, described in the post I'll link below is probably the culprit, here. It all seems to fit, and he'd be my no.1 suspect for sure. I do not know how he was never arrested.. I think many Universities in general have a LOT to answer for, when it comes to student safety/justice for killers VS keeping up appearances..

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...y-of-Wisconsin-May-1968&p=7543173#post7543173
 
Ausgirl said:
I think Winward's suspect, described in the post I'll link below is probably the culprit, here. It all seems to fit, and he'd be my no.1 suspect for sure. I do not know how he was never arrested.. I think many Universities in general have a LOT to answer for, when it comes to student safety/justice for killers VS keeping up appearances..

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...y-of-Wisconsin-May-1968&p=7543173#post7543173
Click to expand...

Winward posted this information that she got from Christine's friend Linda.
 
I wonder if Neil's description fits the one of the suspect in the Madison Capital Times September 16, 1972? The article states a detective said the suspect appears to be a "weather depressive." Interesting term.
 
Ausgirl said:
"A native of McHenry, Illinois, Macek was 26 years old when he launched a two-state murder spree in 1974. On August 15 of that year, in Fontana, Wisconsin, he cornered Paula Cupit, a 24-year-old hotel maid, in one of the rooms she was assigned to clean, beating her and stabbing her in the heart before he began to gnaw and mutilate her body. Two months later, in Wauwatosa, the "Mad Biter" struck again, raping another maid, but his second victim survived to offer police a description of her assailant. Macek shifted back to Illinois, murdering 26-year-old Nancy Lossman and her three-year-old daughter, Lisa, at Crystal Lake, before the end of the year. In July 1975, he invaded a Woodstock laundromat, battering a 20-year-old woman and leaving her for dead."
Click to expand...


It's interesting that Woodstock and Crystal Lake, IL are right near Wonder Lake, IL. which figures in to two unsolved murders in Wisconsin of Marie and Theodore Jost.

Someone continued to pay property taxes in Marie's name up until 1990, however, sending the payments from a post office box in Wonder Lake, Illinois.
Click to expand...

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/j/jost_marie.html
 
I believe that the suspect proposed by Linda was born in 1926; so he would be considerably older than the description provided for the suspect in the Madison Capital Time's article you posted above.
 
Pink Panther said:
I believe that the suspect proposed by Linda was born in 1926; so he would be considerably older than the description provided for the suspect in the Madison Capital Time's article you posted above.
Click to expand...

Right. I'm not necessarily saying that anyone mentioned is the suspect, just that they are suspects. After reading about the different women that the Michigan Co-ed Killer, John Norman Collins, killed, I'm amazed at the similarities in those murders to the Rothschild murder, especially that he liked to take pieces of clothing off his victims or just clothing and stuff them down these women's throats and the overkill involved. It's almost like a signature behavior of sexual rage in all these killers.

http://www.murderpedia.org/male.C/c/collins-john-norman.htm
 
sleutherforlife said:
Right. I'm not necessarily saying that anyone mentioned is the suspect, just that they are suspects. After reading about the different women that the Michigan Co-ed Killer, John Norman Collins, killed, I'm amazed at the similarities in those murders to the Rothschild murder, especially that he liked to take pieces of clothing off his victims or just clothing and stuff them down these women's throats and the overkill involved. It's almost like a signature behavior of sexual rage in all these killers.

http://www.murderpedia.org/male.C/c/collins-john-norman.htm
Click to expand...


There seems to have been a spree of murders in the area that just might possibly be related but I think that Christine's case is unique and quite possibly not attached to those others.

moo
 
Bumping for Christine and hoping that Linda might join us!
 
Ausgirl - I found this shocking as well. It doesn't sound like a suicide and the connection to fentalyn and SUNY Health Science Center (where the suspect had connections) seems odd and worthwhile noting.

moo
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

DNASolves

Who is Escambia County John Doe (1989)?

Members online

... and 223 more.
Total: 4,217 (members: 224, guests: 3,993)

Online statistics

Members online
224
Guests online
3,993
Total visitors
4,217
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
592,765
Messages
17,974,889
Members
228,892
Latest member
saky
Back
Top