Holly Wood-Webster
Appearances
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
They were waiting for the smoking gun. They were waiting to find the gun and they never found the gun. And it was at a point where it's either we try it and we lose or we never try it, but there's never justice in that. It needed to be tried.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Law enforcement learned that Yvonne had actually given Jack an ultimatum. She had told him, you have to choose. It's either going to be Mary Jo or it's going to be me, but this back and forth needs to stop.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
The next day, they decided to go interview Mary Jo at her workplace. She worked at the bank in the town of Luck, which was a nearby small town, small community as well. So they showed up at the bank to interview her, and immediately law enforcement noticed this look. One officer described it as a, oh, you got me look. And then Mary Jo started to cry immediately.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
My name is Holly Wood-Webster. I am an assistant district attorney, and I work with the Polk County District Attorney's Office.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
And then they went and sat down with her in the back conference room to interview her. And she explained that she had cried because she thought they were there to tell her something about her daughter, who lived about an hour away in the Twin Cities at the time.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
So she was able to sort of brush aside the initial response, but law enforcement still took note of that and thought it was a very unusual response to seeing two law enforcement officers come in. the day after Yvonne had been murdered.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
She admits that she knows who Yvonne is. She denies, however, that she's ever really met Yvonne. She denies knowing what Yvonne looks like or where she lives.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
She denied having a romantic relationship with Jack. Although, interestingly to me, both Mary Jo and Jack admitted that Jack had just been there a couple of days before the homicide. He had stopped over apparently to pick up some photos that Mary Jo had taken. And so the two of them hung out for a few hours, but both of them denied that there was anything romantic between the two of them.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
both talked about how they would get phone calls. Somebody would call the residence any time after Yvonne and Jack would leave for a date. They would get this phone call with nobody on the other end of the line. They never actually talked to whoever it was, but the suspicion was that it was Mary Jo because of the timing of it being whenever their mom and Jack would go out on a date.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
According to Mary Jo, she had done chores that morning at her farm with the horses and then that she had gone into town into Luck where she lived for a fish delivery at about nine o'clock that morning. She had actually taken that day off of work. She told her work that she was going to do Christmas shopping, but she had no alibi that morning.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
St. Croix Falls is your average small town America. It's largely a farming community. St. Croix Falls is right on the border with Minnesota, right on the border of the city. It's a town where most everybody knows most everybody else.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
They ask her about her knowledge of guns. She admits that she owned a .22 pistol. However, interestingly enough, she had just traded that pistol to a friend for him to sell it. And instead, she had a .22 rifle on the property that she told law enforcement she used it for shooting at dogs who come on the property. She had her horses, and she was very protective of her horses.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
And so she viewed stray dogs as being a threat to her horses.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
At some point during the interview, law enforcement asked her if she had any boots. She shows them her front entry. She shows them different cowboy-style boots and other more dress boots. They ask her if she has any winter boots, and that's when she finally brings out this pair of size 5 Arctic Cat snowmobile boots.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
And Investigator Smith will tell you he immediately recognized that print, the bottom of those boots as having the same pattern as the print in the snow that was around Yvonne's body.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
She was very reluctant, but eventually agreed for law enforcement to be able to take the boots. They did send in the boots from Mary Jo. They sent those to the crime lab to be analyzed to see if they could possibly be a match for the prints that they saw in the snow.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
They were analyzed, and as much as an analyst could say that they appeared to be consistent, they were almost as close as you could get.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Certainly, boot prints don't work the same as fingerprints, but the boots were the same size, the same tread, the same wear pattern. Unfortunately, there were no unusual characteristics to the boots, like there weren't any specific notches or different things left in the snow print to be able to have a more specific match.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
But these boots were certainly consistent with the boots that had been near Yvonne's body.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
I'm like, you guys, size five boot? Size five is tiny. My nine-year-old son can't fit into a size five women's boot. And law enforcement back then, I think, understood that. They had reached out to Arctic Cat. They had talked to an individual who... was very familiar with how many of those kind of boots were sold.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
There were about 1,100 of that size boot that were even in circulation at that time. And then when you narrow that down to how many are in this area and how many would happen to be at the crime scene, The odds of that size 5 boot, and quite frankly, most of those are going to be children wearing that size of boot at that time.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
There just aren't that many people that would wear that size of boot and then would also have a motive for killing Navon.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
She denied that those could have been her boot prints. She indicated it had to have been from someone else, that she hadn't been in the area. She denied even being in St. Croix Falls anytime recently.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
whether it was the day before or maybe a few days before. But Julie let law enforcement know that she had received a call in the morning at about seven in the morning. At the time, the individual had what Julie described as being sort of a raspy voice. It was a female. At that time, Julie thought that it was the owner of the bar that her mom sometimes worked at and didn't think a lot about it.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
I believe at this point she was working as a seamstress at a local factory. She'd also worked at a car wash, and she sometimes would work at a bar in town.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
But the person asked if her mom was there. She said, no, she's left for work. The person asked when her mom leaves for work and not thinking anything of it, Julie gave information to the caller about when her mom normally leaves for work. Had the impression that the person was going to try back the next day and try and reach her mom earlier.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
So that caller in Julie's mind was the murderer, and Julie had given them the information to be able to murder her mom that morning.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
So law enforcement did look at phone records for some payphones in the area. They didn't find a corresponding phone call, so they weren't able to track exactly what payphone that call came from.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
So law enforcement did collect any and every firearm that they could get their hands on. They collected the .22 pistol that Mary Jo had owned. They collected the .22 rifle that Mary Jo had in her possession. They collected every firearm of Mary Jo's brother, of every firearm that they could locate, of Mary Jo's son-in-law.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Pretty much anyone who had a connection to Mary Jo, they collected firearms from and sent those all in. Unfortunately, none of them were a match for the bullets. They were not able to find the firearm.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Unfortunately, at Stahls, they were focused on trying to find the murder weapon. And when they weren't able to find the murder weapon, the case basically went cold.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Every time they would have a firearm come in, they would send it to the lab to see if it happens to be a match. It was never a match.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Years go by and Yvonne's kids would have to occasionally see Mary Jo in the community and frankly know that she was murdered their mom, but not be able to do anything about it. But there was never anything else that happened. There was never any sort of concrete information that came forward to be able to move the case along any further.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Their mom was murdered. You know, she's the connecting piece. When you take the mom out of the picture, you take out that sort of natural opportunity for people to get together at mom's. And so it had a disjoining effect on the family. You know, they all still clearly cared about each other.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
It's one of those impacts you don't really think about or realize when you're looking at a case like this, just how much impact that has on a family when somebody's killed.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
I believe they knew about the boot print. I think everybody knew about the boot print. And I think everyone thought that that was enough to say that Mary Jo was the one that did it. But prosecutors didn't think that that was enough.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
December in Wisconsin, it was bitter cold, but Yvonne had a routine actually because of how cold it was in the mornings. She would go outside in the morning, start up her car, drive it around the building and leave it on the street to continue warming up for a little while before she got back in and headed to work.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
So in 2020, the sheriff's office decided to assign one of their investigators specifically to look at cold cases. And so investigator Andrew Vitalis had been looking at this case and he and former district attorney Mark Biller, who was consulting for the sheriff's office, decided to try to give it a more open look.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
They made it clear to her, we're trying to give this an open look. We think law enforcement may have honed in on you too quickly. We're just trying to gather information and make sure that we're looking at all possible avenues of investigation.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Her daughter Julie was home in the apartment. She had just woken up. Her mom indicated she was going to go out and start her car like she normally does and made a comment to Julie that she had something to tell her. So Julie was waiting at the kitchen table, essentially, for her mom to come back in and tell her whatever it was she had to tell her.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
As Julie was sitting there, she was listening to some music. She heard some noises outside. She didn't initially recognize the noises. To her, they sounded to be like a whip-like noise. So Julie ran to the windows, thinking someone was outside hurting her mom.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
,,,,,,, So it definitely appeared to be a very cold-blooded murder that occurred.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
She told the bailiff when she was hauled back after the guilty verdict came in, she told the bailiffs, she said, well, at least now I don't have to worry about my retirement. Zero remorse. I never saw any bit of remorse from this woman.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
She couldn't see anything out the front windows, so she ran to the back windows. And at this time in December, it was again freezing cold outside. All of the windows on the front side had been iced up, fogged up with the cold. She ran to the back windows and looking out the back bathroom window, she was able to see a figure underneath a light post in the back parking lot.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Tears, gratitude, relief, all of it, all of it came flooding forward. Obviously you try not to do this when you're doing a closing argument, but I gave the closing argument. And at one point I made the mistake of looking over at Julie and I had to collect myself.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
It was very emotional to be able to see that, see that relief and finally have that family be able to know that their mom's murder is finally behind bars. It was huge.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
I do my job and I try to bring justice and I try to bring fairness and I try to make sure that the victims are heard. And it had a lot of impact to be able to bring justice for that family. It was huge.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
She saw the person walking quickly away from the area of the stairwell where her mom would have gone down to start the car. And the person continued to quickly walk north through the alley behind the buildings.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
It would have been dark outside. The person happened to stop briefly underneath that streetlight and turn to look back at the stairwell. So Julie was able to see the person when they were underneath the light, but she wasn't able to see a face.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
She was scared of whoever the person was because when they looked back, she thought maybe they had seen her in the window. She immediately went to the phone and she called her sister first, the one who lived about a block north. So she called her sister Sue and her brother-in-law Keith, told them about the whip-like noises, and they told her to call law enforcement.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
First person on scene was the St. Croix Falls police officer, Mike Severson. And Officer Severson just lived a few blocks away. So I think it was about seven minutes for him to get over there. Julie had been sitting in her window watching for him to come. And when she saw him come, she went down the stairs and she actually walked around the other way around the building.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
From where she knew her mom would have been, she very much did not want to be the one to find her mom. So she walked around the building, saw Officer Severson out back and directed him over toward the stairwell where she thought her mom probably was. And sure enough, she was. Officer Severson found Yvonne Menke lying in the stairwell.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
He checked for signs of life and knew that she was deceased. Deputy Dave Lindholm arrived very shortly after he found her, and together they made the call then to call for a coroner and call for additional law enforcement.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
All three appeared to be relatively at close range. The medical examiner noted the soot of the ones in the back of her head and thought that that must have been a very close range for that to have occurred with those two shots.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Her body is positioned facing back, heading up the stairs, which is unusual because she was heading down to her car.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
The odds of it being a homicide, a stranger murder, were very low. The fact that there wasn't a robbery, the fact that it wasn't a sexual assault, and the fact that it was such a personal killing. It wasn't a person who shot her from a distance away. It was somebody within feet of her when they murdered her.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Initially what they did was call for a canine deputy to come out and assist and see if they might still be able to track the individual that Julie saw. So that canine deputy comes out to assist. He does do a track. He ends up doing a track leading up through the alley from that area where Julie saw somebody.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Ultimately doesn't find a person, but he does notice a set of boot tracks leading through the snow up through that alleyway. And then law enforcement, as they're looking around at the scene and around Yvonne's body, end up noticing that same boot print next to Yvonne's body.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
The crime lab actually sent out a field response team to come help collect any potential evidence at the scene. They tried to take a sulfur cast of two boot prints. One was in a snow area, and they were successfully able to cast that boot print.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
The really neat thing about sulfur is when it hits the cold, it almost immediately starts to harden. It doesn't melt the snow. Instead, it's able to take a cast of the snow of the boot print that was there.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
She did later describe that the individual was wearing a long gray coat, a scarf, and a hat. And from her angle, she thought that they were approximately 5'9".
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
The night before, actually, Yvonne had gone out with her longtime on-again, off-again boyfriend, Jack Owen. It had been Jack's birthday the night before, and he chose to spend it with Yvonne. So when Yvonne had mentioned to Julie that she had something to tell her that morning, Julie thought it had something to do with what happened that night before when she went out with Jack.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Jack was someone that Yvonne had known her entire life. He was also divorced, and so the two of them often had spent time together. The children all knew Jack very well. He was at a number of different events. They had photographs of Jack being essentially part of the family as they were growing up.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Jack was very involved with training horses and with showing horses. And during the horse season, he would break up with Yvonne and would date another individual named Mary Jo Lunsman. Mary Jo was also very much into horses. She had horses that she would show. So Jack and Mary Jo would often show horses together and clearly also engaged in a relationship during that time as well.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
He didn't have a whole lot to say about what happened. He was frankly somewhat evasive with law enforcement, but he did confirm having been with Yvonne the night before.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
He essentially denied that he was dating them both. He would tell law enforcement that the relationship with Mary Jo was a business-only relationship. Law enforcement would ask him about it being sexual. And I think he did eventually admit that there had been a sexual component to the relationship, but he essentially denied that he was seeing both women in a romantic way.
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
They didn't know Mary Jo, but they knew that Mary Jo was another woman who had dated their mom's boyfriend. So there was an incident maybe a month before where Sue was actually at her mom's apartment and they were sitting around the table. And at some point there was a knock on the apartment door and...
Anatomy of Murder
Boots in the Snow (Yvonne Menke)
Her mom went to answer the door, talked briefly with the individual, and then when she came back to the table, she said, oh, that was Mary Jo. And they had never directly talked about their mom and Jack and Mary Jo and essentially this love triangle that was going on, but they all knew about Mary Jo.