HUDSON (WI)
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Donna Halvorsen, Star Tribune
Last update: December 18, 2005 at 11:20 PM
In the months after her brother was murdered in a Hudson, Wis., funeral home in February 2002, Kathleen O'Connell was devastated when investigators couldn't crack the case.
Then a friend told her about the Vidocq Society, a little-known group of volunteer super-sleuths in Philadelphia. She began e-mailing immediately, pleading for help finding who had gunned down her brother Dan O'Connell, 39, and his employee, James Ellis, 22.
"Do you know how you grab onto anything for answers?" O'Connell said. "That's what I was doing."
Named for an 18th century French crook-turned-cop, the Vidocq Society is one of the best-known groups of "cold case cowboys," freelance forensic experts who have banded together to look at crimes that have stymied local law enforcement across the nation. ...
After Hudson detectives approved the society's involvement, members began reviewing the facts. The Rev. Ryan Erickson, a priest who had served in the area, became a strong suspect.
A motive for the murders also emerged: to silence Dan O'Connell, who was believed to have confronted the priest a day before the murders about alleged sexual abuse of boys.
Posted by kshaw at December 20, 2005 04:44 PM