WISCONSIN
Renew America
Matt C. Abbott
January 16, 2005
It's been almost seven years since Father Alfred Kunz, a priest of the Diocese of Madison, Wis., was found dead — his throat cut — at his parish in Dane, Wis. The murder remains unsolved, but what I find curious is the fact that there have been conflicting reports about whether or not investigators have "zeroed in" on a suspect.
According to a Jan. 11, 2005 story in the Wisconsin State Journal (http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=wsj:2005:01:11:399939:FRONT):
"...Four of the 15 county murders in the last two years are unsolved. Before that, the last murder in Dane County without an arrest or suspect is the killing of the Rev. Alfred Kunz of Dane in 1998.... Establishing relationships between the killer and Kunz, a Catholic priest, may be one reason investigators haven't identified a suspect in that case.
"'There are a number of issues there that we are dealing with in that case,' Hamblin said. 'It has certainly made the case more difficult because the nature of Father Kunz and his occupation required him to maintain the confidentiality of some of his contacts. He didn't have a secretary or other family members who could shed light on his day-to-day contacts.'" ...
Investigators discovered Kunz had "intimate relationships" with women, and that might have been a motive for someone to kill him. There was a report in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel saying Kunz had been associated with certain people at the Catholic Church-condemned "shrine" in Necedah, Wis. And then there's Kunz's association with one Ryan P. Scott, also known as Father Ryan St. Anne, OSB, who currently resides in Galesburg, Ill.
Posted by kshaw at January 16, 2005 07:47 AM