Fox Cities Murder & Mayhem

We here the story about a Farmer who kills his girlfriend in a crime of passion in the town of Ellington.

We discuss how the Great Depression led to Wisconsin Farmers Going on strike, and the violence that followed.

In this episode we discuss the 72 battle in the state of Wisconsin of taxing, outlawing, and banning margarine

In this episode Gavin discusses William T Boerum who ran the Oshkosh Asylum until he was found out to not be who everyone thought he was

Hear the story of Robert Toombs who lived in Kaukauna and traveled the country marrying a different wife as he traveled

Florence Kilsdonk is left stabbed to death in her kitchen, while her infant boy (unharmed) sits for hours on a tabletop. Who would randomly kill a rural housewife and steal nothing?

This time... how does a 1920s murder in Sheboygan connect to a notorious 1950s crime of the Milwaukee Mafia?

A serious issue approached lightheartedly. In the not too distant past, human remains were treated with far less reverence than today... at least when the remains weren't of European origin. At least one Fox Cities institution still refuses to turn over their bones.

In a rare serious episode, Eric and Gavin talk about how the Milwaukee Mafia (specifically Louis Fazio) supplied brothels in Appleton, Sheboygan and elsewhere. The truth may be darker than you think.

When 18-year-old Mark Leroux is blamed for killing his parents near Stevens Point, he does what any accused murderer would do: he blames his sister. Is Mark the killer, or is it his sister?

Additional information can be found at https://gavinschmitt.com/mark-leroux/

On November 8, 1967, at 3:50 am, the Sheriff’s Office received a call that the Eugene and Mary Leroux residence was burning, and that the couple had likely died in the fire. Sheriff Check called the coroner, Joseph Bodzislaw, and they went to the Leroux residence where they discovered that the house had burned down and had fallen into the basement. Eugene and Mary’s children, Mark, 18, and Jeannette, 15, had escaped the fire, and went to the home of Frank and Beverly Budzbanowski, friends of the family who lived two miles away. (Their oldest daughter, Alice, was not living at the Leroux residence at the time of the fire.)

Eugene and Mary’s charred bodies were recovered from the basement. It was initially thought that they had died as a result of the fire, but an investigation revealed that they were shot to death. At trial, in January 1968, Jeannette and Mark pointed the finger at each other. Ultimately, their son, Mark, was found guilty of murdering his parents, and he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.