• Illinois man arrested in New Jersey with $200K worth of stolen Wisconsin cheese

    By NBCChicago.com

    New Jersey State Police

    New Jersey authorities say Veniamin Konstantinovich Balika, 34, from Plainfield, Texas, accused of stealing 21 tons of Wisconsin cheese, has been arrested in New Jersey.

    An Illinois man accused of stealing 21 tons of Wisconsin cheese has been arrested in New Jersey.

    New Jersey authorities say Veniamin Konstantinovich Balika, 34, from south suburban Plainfield was arrested Tuesday afternoon.

    New Jersey State Police Lt. Stephen Jones said Wednesday the man was driving a refrigerated truck carrying 42,000 pounds of Muenster cheese. Jones says the cheese company, K&K Cheese in Cashton, Wis., valued the cargo at $200,000.

    New Jersey Detective Oliver Sissman tells WISC-TV in Wisconsin that the suspect used false paperwork to obtain the cheese.

    Company spokesman Kevin Everhart says K&K can't guarantee the cheese hasn't been tampered with, so it didn't ask for the product back.

    Jones says if the cheese passes inspections by health authorities it will be donated to charity.

  • Struggling to curtail shenanigans, Wisconsin to close nude beach on weekdays

    By Todd Richmond, The Associated Press

    MADISON, Wis. -- Wisconsin authorities announced Tuesday they will shut down one of nation's most popular nude beaches on weekdays after struggling for years to curtail sex and drugs on the sandbar and surrounding woods. 

    Nudists from around the country have been traveling to the public beach on the Wisconsin River near Mazomanie, about 25 miles northwest of Madison, for decades as word spread that prosecutors in ultra-liberal Dane County wouldn't go after anyone for showing skin. But visitors haven't stopped at just stripping down. They've been slipping off into the woods for trysts and drugs. 

    Authorities say that's crossing the line, but they haven't been able to stop the shenanigans. Their frustration reached a tipping point Tuesday, when the state Department of Natural Resources announced it will close the beach, the islands immediately off it and the surrounding woods to the public on weekdays, when wardens say troublemakers tend to operate unseen. The closures begin immediately. The area will remain open on weekends, though.

    Bob Morton, executive director of the Austin, Texas-based Naturist Action Committee, which lobbies on behalf of nudists, has visited the beach several times. He criticized the DNR for not consulting with beachgoers before closing the area.

    "Honestly, we're on their side when it comes to enforcing things that are lewd and lascivious," Morton said. "There's something to be said about consulting the users of the place. There's got to be more to this somewhere."


    Nate Kroeplin, who supervises DNR law enforcement in Dane County, said wardens reviewed data on citations and determined most violations happen on weekdays, when fewer people are around to police each other's behavior. Of the 92 citations wardens issued for disorderly conduct or drugs in the beach area between 2008 and 2012, 83 were given on weekdays, he said.

    "Obviously we're disappointed when we have to shut any portion of our property down," he said. "But our ultimate goal is to have a safe place anybody can feel comfortable using. And with the current activity going on down there, that's just not the case."

    More skin, more problems
    The beach has been a problem for wardens for years. The DNR purchased the area in 1949 in an effort to open up more land for public hunting, fishing and recreation. Droves of nudists claimed the beach as their own, though, emboldened by local prosecutors' indifference. Wisconsin law makes exposing one's genitals a misdemeanor, but a long line of Dane County district attorneys have said naked people must cause some kind of disturbance before they can be prosecuted. The DNR estimates as many as 70,000 people, some from as far away as Florida, have visited the beach some summers.

    With all the skin has come sex and drugs. Warden arrest reports tell graphic stories of oral sex and mutual masturbation.

    The agency closed the area at night and banned beach camping in the late 1990s. Authorities also installed a gate blocking vehicles in hopes of stopping people from driving down to the beach in search of quick sex.

    In 2007, wardens closed off parts of the woods around the beach to discourage sex in the underbrush and cut down brush around the beach to eliminate cover. But arrests for sex and drugs around the beach still hit a five-year high in 2011; wardens arrested 26 people for sex and 16 people for drugs in just nine days of surveillance.

    The DNR closed another 70 acres around the beach last spring, but Kroeplin said it hasn't stopped people from cruising the beach parking lot on weekdays, when relatively few people are around to complain. Last summer, wardens issued 19 citations for sex and three for drugs over five or six days of surveillance, Kroeplin said; 16 citations were issued on weekdays compared with six on weekends.

    "It's pretty incredible to see the amount of traffic that pulls onto the property," Kroeplin said. "Everything we've done has not made any difference."

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Wisconsin man guilty of neglect for starving teen daughter

    Dane County Sheriff's Office

    Chad Chritton is accused of imprisoning his daughter in the family basement.

    By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A jury convicted a Wisconsin father accused of locking his teenage daughter in a basement and starving her of felony child neglect late Friday, but was unable to reach a verdict on four other felony counts.

    Jurors found Chad Chritton guilty of felony child neglect, but they told the judge they couldn't reach a unanimous decision on the other felonies he faced, including child abuse and false imprisonment. He was found not guilty of a misdemeanor neglect charge.

    Chritton denied harming his daughter, who is now 16, and says she weighed just 68 pounds when she ran away from home because she didn't like to eat. The defense claims the girl has mental problems and was threatening the family.

    Chritton, 41, declined to take the stand in his own defense, saying he wasn't sure he could "competently answer questions without getting confused," the Wisconsin State Journal reported.


    The teen was found wandering the street, barefoot and in pajamas, on Feb. 6, 2012, and eventually told authorities a tale of terrible abuse.

    On the witness stand earlier this week, she said her father and stepmother kept her locked up in the basement, which had an alarm on the door.

    Her father choked her and called her "Stinky," she said, according to the State Journal.

    She said she slept on a bare floor, used containers as a toilet and scrounged for scraps of food because she feared making a raid on the kitchen.

    "The reason why I didn't want to eat was because I was afraid to ask my dad and stepmom because I was afraid they'd say no," she testified.

    Her stepmother, Melinda Drabek-Chritton, is due to be tried next month. Her stepbrother, Joshua Drabek, 19, is awaiting a June trial on charges he tried to sexually assault the teen.

    The girl's foster mother testified that when she first came to her house, she would sneak into the kitchen at night and gorge herself. But she's since started eating normally and is up to 120 pounds. She also goes to school, plays the flute and participates in swimming and cross-country track.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

     

    WMTV - NBC15 Madison, Wisconsin:

     

    This story was originally published on Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:49 PM EDT

  • Pair of pit bulls maul 14-month-old boy, killing him

    A 14-month-old Wisconsin boy was at his babysitter's apartment when two pit bulls attacked and killed him. WTMJ's Annie Scholz reports.

    By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A 14-month-old Wisconsin boy has died after a brutal attack by a pair of pit bulls, authorities said on Thursday.

    Police received a call from Susan Iwicki, 30, on Wednesday saying that she and the young boy were being attacked by the dogs, according to local NBC affiliate WMTV. Iwicki told police that she and the boy had each sustained injuries.


    The boy died of his injuries at a Milwaukee area hospital later on Wednesday, the Walworth County sheriff’s office said, according to The Associated Press.

    The boy had the “biggest eyes, great smile,” family friend Valerie Brylow told local affiliate WTMJ. “He was a great little boy.”

    “He is adorable, absolutely adorable,” Nicole Jennison, another family friend told the station.

    The boy’s name has not been released, and an investigation continues. Both of the pit bulls were removed from the property and euthanized on Wednesday, WMTV reported.

    The fatal dog attack was the first in Wisconsin in a decade, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  • 80 fire departments battle, contain 8-alarm blaze in Wisconsin

    WTMJ-TV

    Crews fight a huge fire in Burlington, Wis., at a food processing plant on Thursday, January 31.

    By Andrew Mach, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A raging eight-alarm fire at a southeastern Wisconsin food processing plant that drew more than 80 fire departments was mostly contained Thursday afternoon, officials said.


    The fire that had ravaged the family-owned Echo Lake Foods plant in Burlington, Wis., since about 6:05 p.m. Wednesday was out except for a few hot spots, Burlington Mayor Robert Miller said Thursday.

    Miller said the plant had been evacuated safely and there were no injuries to either employees or firefighters. Police evacuated 10 homes in the area and one apartment building, Miller said.

    More than 80 fire departments from several counties in Wisconsin responded to the scene, taking turns to control the blaze. The Racine Hazardous Materials Unit was also on the scene monitoring air quality because the plant contained ammonia and liquid oxygen tanks, Burlington City Administrator Kevin Lahner said.

    Since temperatures hovered around 15 degrees while the fire burned, firefighters were rotated in and out.

    Fire department personnel that had been dispatched were released back to their departments, and nearby residents that had been evacuated were allowed to return to their homes, Lahner said.

    The cause of the fire was still under investigation Thursday and there were no estimates of damage, Lahner said.

    Echo Lake Foods makes egg products and breakfast foods and is the third largest employer in Burlington with more than 300 employees. Burlington has a population of about 10,000 people.

    Last week in Chicago, more than 200 firefighters battled a five-alarm blaze at an abandoned warehouse. Freezing temperatures left six to eight inches of ice on the building's exterior as the fire within rekindled several times.

     

  • Women's history pioneer Gerda Lerner dies at 92

    University Of Wisconsin-Madison / Reuters

    Gerda Lerner founded the women's studies program at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, which in 1972 became the first to offer a graduate degree in women's history.

    By NBC News wire services

    MILWAUKEE -- Gerda Lerner, a pioneer in the field of women's history and a founding member of the National Organization for Women, has died. She was 92.

    Credited with founding the nation's first graduate program in women's history, Lerner died peacefully Wednesday at an assisted-living facility in Madison, Wis., her son said.

    "She was always a very strong-willed and opinionated woman," Dan Lerner recalled. "I think those are the hallmarks of great people, people that have strong points of view and firmly held convictions."

    The former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote several books in the field of women's history, including her 1986 work "The Creation of Patriarchy" and her 1994 volume "The Creation of Feminist Consciousness." She also edited "Black Women in White America," one of the first books to document the struggles and contributions of black women in American history.

    After obtaining her doctorate at New York's Columbia University in 1966, Lerner went on to found the women's studies program at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, which in 1972 became the first to offer a graduate degree in women's history.

    Lerner later moved to Madison, where she helped establish a doctoral program in women's history at the University of Wisconsin.

    Imprisoned by Nazis
    She was born into a privileged Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, in 1920. When the Nazis rose to power, she was imprisoned and spent her 18th birthday behind bars, in a cell with two other young women who had been arrested for political work. Jailers restricted rations for Jews, but the gentile women shared their food with her.

    "They taught me how to survive," Lerner wrote in "Fireweed: a Political Autobiography." "Everything I needed to get through the rest of my life I learned in jail in those six weeks."

    Full US coverage from NBC News

    She said the experience taught her how society can manipulate people. It was a lesson she saw reinforced in American academia by history professors who taught as though the only figures worth studying were men.


    "When I was faced with noticing that half the population has no history, and I was told that that's normal, I was able to resist the pressure" to accept that conclusion, she told the Wisconsin Academic Review in 2002.

    After arriving in the United States from Europe, she married filmmaker Carl Lerner and collaborated with him in writing the 1964 civil rights-era film "Black Like Me," based on the 1961 best-selling book by John Howard Griffin.

    The couple were involved in activism that ranged from attempting to unionize the film industry to working in the civil rights movement.

    Carl Lerner died in 1973, and Gerda Lerner moved in 1980 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she established a doctorate program in women's history. She retired from the university in 1991.

    When asked how she developed such a strong sense of justice and fairness, she told the Wisconsin Academy Review that the feeling started in childhood. She recalled watching her mother drop items on the floor and walk away, leaving servants to clean up her mess.

    "I wanted the world to be a just and fair place, and it obviously wasn't — and that disturbed me right from the beginning," she said.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Guns flood into police buyback programs, though critics have doubts about the idea

    Joe Klamar / AFP - Getty Images

    LAPD officer checks an assault weapon received during a gun buyback in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

    By Isolde Raftery, NBC News

    In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings, cities and police departments across the country organized events to buy back guns, hoping, they say, that fewer firearms on the street translates to fewer shooting deaths.


    In Los Angeles, a gun buyback scheduled for May was pushed up to Wednesday because, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told Marketplace.org, “People said, ‘I don’t want to wait on the Congress. I’m tired of the endless debates about responsible gun control legislation. I want to do my part.’”

    That buyback in the Van Nuys district brought in 2,037 guns, including 75 assault-style weapons, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

    Gun buybacks are proving so popular that U.S. Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., and Ted Deutch, D-Fla., have asked Congress to set aside $200 million for gun buyback programs, saying that amount could remove “one million guns from our streets.”

    But critics say buybacks are a fruitless exercise – more political theater than effective policy. 

    “It’s like trying to drain the Pacific with a bucket,” Alex Tabarrock of the conservative Independent Institute told USA Today in 2008. There are an estimated 310 million guns in the U.S. -- about one for every U.S. resident.

    PhotoBlog: Buyback in Los Angeles brings in hundreds of guns

    A 2004 report released by the National Academies of Sciences called the premise for gun buyback programs “flawed.”

    “The guns typically surrendered in gun buy-backs are those that are least likely to be used in criminal activities,” the report says. “Old, malfunctioning guns whose resale value is less than the reward offered in buy-back programs or guns owned by individuals who derive little value from the possession of guns (e.g. those who have inherited guns).”

    Such criticism hasn't stopped police departments, which have hosted gun buybacks for years, encouraging residents to turn in their firearms – no questions asked – for cash or gift cards, usually $50 to $250. Some police departments offer a sliding scale, giving more money for semi-automatic firearms, which were used in the ambush on firefighters in Webster, N.Y., last week, the Newtown shootings two weeks ago, at the Sikh temple attack in Oak Creek, Wis., in August and in the theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., in July.

    Among those turning in their guns in events this month were parents and grandparents who told reporters they worried about having weapons around.

    A grandmother in Brooklyn attended a gun buyback the day after the Connecticut school shooting on Dec. 14 and told gothamist.com that fatal shooting of 20 children -- most of them 6 years old -- moved her to hand in her gun.

    TSA confiscates record number of guns at US airports in 2012

    “It should inspire everyone,” she said. “We’ve got to protect our children. I couldn’t wait for today to come so I could get rid of it. The shooting yesterday was an eye-opener. It was bone-chilling.”

    In Camden County, N.J., police heard from residents who wanted to turn in their weapons in light of the Newtown shootings. The buyback there retrieved more than 1,100 weapons, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

    That buyback was so successful that officials handed out all of the $110,000 in forfeited money that the Attorney General's Office had provided. They gave $39,000 in IOUs that they will honor with future forfeited money. Nearly all of the guns were operable, according to the Inquirer.

    In Ithaca, N.Y., the Police Department announced plans for a gun buyback to “remove unwanted guns from our community before they fall into the hands of those that may do harm.”

    In southern Florida, an Uzi submachine gun “like the one used by Scarface” was turned in to a buyback sponsored last weekend by the Opa-locka Police Department, the Miami Herald reported.

    Two Uzi-style guns turned up at a buyback Friday in San Diego that was sponsored by African-American ministers. That buyback retrieved 360 weapons before 10 a.m., according to The Atlantic.

    Bill Stowers, 59, told the Los Angeles Times he attended the San Diego gun buyback because he worried that his 12-gauge shotgun might fall into the wrong hands given the break-ins in his neighborhood. 

    "I don't need this shotgun sitting around," Stowers said. He received a $50 gift card.

    Reps. Connolly and Deutch, who proposed that $200 million be set aside for gun buybacks, say the gun buybacks would be a start, not a cure-all, to gun violence. In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, they wrote:

    The murder of 20 youngsters and six educators in their classrooms has galvanized the public’s desire for immediate action, and partnering with the States on a nationwide gun buyback program is a modest, common-sense start.

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  • Holiday travel alert: Central US storm brings flight disruptions, deadly blizzard, and a tornado

    The powerful storm made for dicey driving conditions in Iowa, causing a 25-car pileup. In Wisconsin, the governor declared a state of emergency. And in the South, several tornadoes spawned from the same weather system. NBC's Kevin Tibbles reports.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    The first major wintry storm of the season hammered the Midwest on Thursday, causing a pileup in blizzard conditions that killed three people, dumping a foot of snow in some areas and creating travel problems during one of the busiest periods of the year. Those travel woes could extend into the Northeast, with high winds and rain expected there Friday.


    Nearly 600 flights were canceled at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Thursday, according to FlightStats, and an additional 700 were grounded at Kansas City International, Midway (Chicago), Detroit Metropolitan, Minneapolis-St. Paul International and other Midwest airports.

    Southwest Airlines canceled all flights at Midway starting at 4:30 p.m. local time, NBCChicago.com reported.

    Full coverage of the storm at The Weather Channel

    The storm system also spawned a tornado that flipped vehicles in Mobile, Ala., and cut power to 400,000 homes and businesses. Some 130,000 were still without power Thursday afternoon. 

    At least six deaths were tied to the snowstorms: In Iowa, three people died Thursday in a pileup involving more than 30 vehicles on Interstate 35, NBC affiliate WHO-TV reported; in Wisconsin, slick road conditions led to two fatalities; and in Utah, a woman who tried to walk for help after her car became stuck in snow was found dead, officials said late Wednesday. Search and rescue crews on snowmobiles found her buried in the snow just a few miles from her car.

    Snow, whipped by 50 mph wind gusts, have been causing white outs and leaving residents in the dark. The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel reports.

    Blizzard or winter storm warnings were issued for 16 states on Thursday, Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel told TODAY.

    Northeast cities can expect rain and high winds from the system Friday morning, said NBC meteorologist Bill Karins. Most of the snow should move into Canada Friday night.

    A foot of snow fell on Des Moines, Iowa, by early Thursday and residents across the state were urged to stay off the roads.

    "Because of the wind, travel is pretty treacherous, especially into Iowa, as the storm moves east," National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Dergan said.

    The snow cover will drag temperatures much lower in Iowa and Nebraska, he added. "We're talking single digits. We may even see some sub-zero temperatures in Nebraska. This cold weather will stick around for several days, maybe until the day after Christmas. So we're definitely going to have a white Christmas."

    Iowa State Police

    Some of the vehicles involved in a pileup on Interstate 35 in Iowa are seen Thursday.

    Blowing snow led to school closures in parts of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. All state government offices also closed in Iowa. Storms in those four states left around 130,000 homes without power. 

    "Thundersnow" was reported in Iowa Wednesday night, as thunder and lightning accompanied the storm as it trekked across the state. 

    Dietra Tate / NBC 15

    This vehicle at a car dealership was flipped over by a storm in Mobile, Ala., on Thursday, Dec. 20.

    In Alabama, a tornado peeled the roofs off homes and buildings and toppled vehicles in Mobile, but caused no serious injuries, Al.com reported. Arkansas also saw damage from high winds.

    The storm system earlier delivered heavy snow and strong winds to parts of the West, where trucks tangled on icy roads on the Oregon and California state line.

    Snowstorm prompts state of emergency in Wisconsin

    In West Texas, winds from the same system kicked up a dust storm Wednesday that caused accidents along Interstate 27, resulting in one death and more than a dozen injuries, NBC affiliate KCBD reported.

    At Dallas-Fort Worth airport, American Airlines said it canceled about 120 flights Wednesday night due to the storm. 

    In Nebraska, snow blowing sideways on Wednesday night forced the closure of a 146-mile stretch of Interstate 80, a major east-west highway. 

    Much of the nation is dealing with a big blast of winter as a massive snowstorm barrels from the Rockies to the Midwest, with some parts of Colorado buried under more than a foot of snow. NBC's Mike Seidel reports.

    In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker declared a state of emergency on Wednesday. Schools were canceled in advance of heavy snowfall and the University of Wisconsin-Madison postponed Thursday’s final exams.

    Before the storm, several Midwest cities had broken records for the number of consecutive days without measurable snow.

    In Chicago, people made a run on snow shovels and salt ahead of what should be the first snow to hit the city in 290 days (the record is 296). 

    The storm has package delivery companies nervously checking the weather forecast during this busy time of year. "We’re closely monitoring the storm," FedEx spokesman Scott Fiedler told NBC News. "We have a team of 15 meteorologists who track the weather around the world every day."

    Related: UPS, FedEx weather experts work on timely deliveries
    Related: Chicago braces for 'thundersnow'
    Related: Bad in US? Try Russia, where some parts as low as 50 below
    Related: Slideshow of wintry scenes around the world

    Along the East Coast, the I-95 corridor isn't expected to see much, if any, snow.

    "Snow may make it as close to New York City as Western Connecticut but right now, other than a few flurries Friday night, I think New York City through Boston will be mostly snow-free," Tom Niziol, the winter weather expert at The Weather Channel, told NBC News.

    "Areas to the southeast of the Great Lakes, from Cleveland through Syracuse will get heavier snowfall," he added. "Higher elevations from the Adirondacks through the western slopes of the Central Appalachians will also get snow."

    NBC News' Isolde Raftery and A. Pawlowski, as well as The Associated Press and Reuters, contributed to this report.

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  • Judge's unusual order to man with nine kids: Stop procreating

    Racine County Sheriff's Department

    Corey Curtis, 44, was sentenced to three years of probation on Monday with the condition that he is not to procreate until he
    can support the nine children he fathered with six women.

    By Andrew Mach, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A Wisconsin judge has ordered a man who owes $90,000 in child support after fathering nine children with six women to not have any more kids, at least for now.

    Racine County Circuit Court Judge Tim Boyle sentenced Corey Curtis, 44, to three years of probation on Monday with the condition he is not to procreate until he shows he can support his children, according to court documents.

    Curtis pleaded no contest in October to one count each of felony bail jumping and failure to pay child support.

    Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Sommers said Curtis owes about $50,000 in back child support, plus another $40,000 in interest to the mothers, the Journal Times reported.

    “Common sense dictates you shouldn’t have kids you can’t afford,” Racine County Circuit Court Judge Time Boyle said at a hearing, according to the Journal Times. “It’s too bad the court doesn’t have the authority to sterilize.”

    In his decision, the judge cited a 2001 case in which Wisconsin Supreme Court justices upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that a judge may, as a condition of a person’s probation, order the defendant not to have another child unless he can show financial viability.

    Curtis told local station WDJT-TV he planned to comply with the unusual order in his case. 


    "Judges, they make rulings," Curtis said. "They make them kind of hastily. So, if that's what he feels one of my conditions should be then I'm going to abide by it."

    This isn't the first time a judge has made a ruling intended to block breeding.

    A Kentucky judge in March ordered a man who had fathered a dozen children by 11 women to refrain from having “any sexual intercourse” for the one-to five-year period he’s on parole.

    A Texas judge in 2008 sentenced a 20-year-old mother to 10 years probation for not protecting her 19-month-old daughter from abuse by the child's father. The judge ordered her to not get pregnant during her probation.

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  • 3 accused of cashing Social Security checks of woman missing for 30 years

    Portage County Sheriff's Office / AP

    From left, Ronald Disher, Delores M. Disher and Charles T. Jost are accused of receiving $175,000 in Social Security benefits issued to Marie Jost, who was last seen alive 30 years ago.

    By NBC News and news services

    Three family members have been charged with cashing the Social Security checks of a Wisconsin woman who has been missing for 30 years and who authorities suspect is dead.


    Charges including theft and mail fraud have been filed against Charles T. Jost, 66, Delores M. Disher 69, and Ronald Disher, 71. They are the son, daughter and son-in-law, respectively, of Marie Jost, who would be 100 if she were alive today. The three made their initial appearances in Portage County Court in Wisconsin on Monday, WSAW-TV reported.

    Marie Jost, from the Amhert Junction area in Portage County, was last seen about 30 years ago, and investigators say her body might be buried on her Amherst property.

    On Monday, police brought in an excavator to dig deeper on the property but did not immediately find any remains.

    Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com

    The sheriff’s office began an investigation after receiving a call from a Social Security Administration official on Aug. 30 saying that benefit checks mailed to Marie Jost’s home were being cashed by an unknown person.

    Investigators went to the home and were met by Charles Jost, who said his mother wasn’t home and was on a trip with her other son, Theodore, who also hasn’t been seen since the 1980s, according to court records.

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    A neighbor told an investigating deputy that he had lived in the neighborhood for the past 20 years and had never seen Marie Jost at the home in that time.

    According to prosecutors, the three accused relatives had received $175,000 in Social Security benefits issued to Marie Jost, the mother of Charles and Dolores. Investigators said they found $9,000 in a fanny-pack in Marie Jost’s home and another $8,000 in a search of Disher’s home, according to WSAW.

    NBC News' James Eng and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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  • Judge strikes down Wisconsin law restricting union rights

    AP file

    The law championed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker prohibited state and local governments from bargaining over anything except cost of living adjustments to salaries.

    By NBC News staff and news services

    A Wisconsin judge on Friday struck down the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.

    Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas ruled Friday that the law violates the state and U.S. constitutions and is null and void.

    The law took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most workers and has been in effect for more than a year.


    Colas' ruling comes after a lawsuit brought by the Madison teachers union and a union for Milwaukee city employees.

    For city, county and school workers, the ruling returns the law to its previous status, before it was changed in March 2011, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported. However, Walker's law remains largely in force for state workers, it reported.

    Walker's law prohibited state and local governments from bargaining over anything except cost of living adjustments to salaries. Haggling over issues such as health benefits, pensions and workplace safety was barred.

    Gov. Walker said in a statement Friday that he expected the ruling will be overturned on appeal.

    "The people of Wisconsin clearly spoke on June 5th," he said in the statement posted on his Facebook page. "Now, they are ready to move on. Sadly a liberal activist judge in Dane County wants to go backwards and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the legislature and the governor. We are confident that the state will ultimately prevail in the appeals process."

    "We believe the law is constitutional," said Wisconsin Department of Justice spokeswoman Dana Brueck.

    The proposal was introduced shortly after Walker took office in February last year. It sparked a firestorm of opposition and huge protests at the state Capitol that lasted for weeks. All 14 Democratic state senators fled to Illinois for three weeks in an ultimately failed attempt to stop the law's passage by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

    The law's passage led to a mass movement to recall Walker from office, but he survived the recall election, becoming the first governor in U.S. history to do so.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Officer arriving at Sikh temple shooting: 'Time to use deadly force'

    Oak Creek, Wis., police Chief John Edwards and Officer Sam Lenda narrate police video at a news conference that shows the final moments of the shooting that killed six worshippers at a Sikh temple.

    By Kari Huus, NBC News

    Police in Oak Creek, Wis., on Monday released chilling dash-cam video taken during the effort to apprehend shooter Wade Michael Page at a local Sikh Temple on Aug. 5, after a rampage that left six worshippers dead.

    The video and radio messages show that the police response was "textbook" quality, said Oak Creek police Chief John Edwards at a briefing where the videos were shown. The officers "took care of the situation very quickly, and ended it," Edwards said.

    Page also died, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot after being hit by a police bullet.


    The first video is taken from the squad car of Lt. Brian Murphy, who arrives two to three minutes after the first 911 call, and comes across victims in the parking lot outside the temple. By radio, he calls in the victims and says he does not see a shooter. As he heads to his car for protective gear, the shooter emerges from the temple and begins firing at him, prompting Murphy to dive behind some parked cars.

    On the video, the shooter, identified as Page, begins moving one direction, and then reverses and circles around Murphy from behind.

    "He moves with deliberateness" as he closes in on Murphy, Edwards said. "There’s no question in my mind that he intended to kill him."

    The arrival of officer Sam Lenda minutes later, which is documented in a second dash-cam video, appears to distract the shooter, who begins walking toward Lenda’s squad car. Lenda said he saw the gunman reload or check his ammunition and then begin walking toward him.

    Lenda takes cover behind his opened car door and begins shouting at Page to drop the gun. Page then begins shooting at Lenda, hitting the headrest on the car's driver's side.

    He was marching in an aggressive manner," while continuing to fire, Lenda said at the briefing. After running through what he described as a "checklist" that was drilled in through years of training, Lenda returned fire.

    "It was time to use deadly force," he said, "which is what I proceeded to do at that time."

    Ballistics showed that Lenda’s bullet hit Page, bringing him down, said Edwards. But ballistics also suggested that the deadly shot was self-inflicted — a shot to the head that matched the 9 mm ammunition used by Page.

    It was only after Page was neutralized that Lenda and other officers could attend to Murphy, who, it turned out had been shot more than a dozen times, according to Edwards.

    Murphy was recently discharged from the hospital and is at home continuing his recovery.

    "There’s no question in my mind that Lt. Murphy prevented the gunman from taking more lives," said Lenda.

    Lenda agreed that his own arrival likely saved Murphy’s life, but added, "I’m just an officer who did my job."

    Some aspects of the shooting, including Page's motive, remain under investigation.

    Page was a former member of the U.S. army with close ties to neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, according to reports that emerged shortly after the shooting. One theory is that the rampage was a hate crime aimed at Sikhs, a religion practices mainly by natives of India, or intended for Muslims, who are often confused with Sikhs.

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