Sheriff Joseph Fath
Appearances
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
Once they saw the ID, they called us because they knew that Susie Poupart was an open missing person case. I think she was the only active missing person at the time.
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Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
So we took the deer hair from the scene and sent it to an independent lab down in Mississippi. And we sent the vacuumings of the deer hair from the trunk of the car. And we wanted to do analysis, DNA, identify the deer hair to see if we could connect deer hair from the crime scene to deer hair in the trunk. I remember back then it was very costly to do that with that independent lab.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
I mean, we were really hoping. It could have been a big break for us in this investigation. And unfortunately for us, I don't remember which hurricane it was. There was a hurricane that came in and destroyed the lab. It flooded all of our evidence that we sent to them. So that was never done because the evidence that we sent to them was destroyed.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
They just said, I already told you what happened. I don't have anything more to say.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
The DA was hoping that we would get some information. But all he did is he drove right out to Flambeau and told his cousin, don't talk to me, I'm going to be wearing a wire.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
We got information that she was at a party on Chicago Street and some people thought she might have been intoxicated, left the party, walked through the woods because there's a lot of trails and then something might have happened to her. So there was a search, a ground search with fire department personnel and volunteers.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
It was a rather large area that we ground searched and didn't come up with anything.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
We tried to interview everybody that we could identify that was at that party. I don't think anybody was afraid to talk, but the intoxication level at that hour of the morning skewed everybody's memories. It was hard to make heads or tails out of what they were telling us.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
That may have been a reason why she got in the car with him. I mean, she was intoxicated, but everything that we knew is that she got in the car voluntarily, and I think she thought they were going to give her a ride home.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
Well, let's say that they were avoiding law enforcement. We did locate them and have them interviewed to get an initial statement.
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Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
You know, they just weren't explaining why things happened.
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Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
Yeah, it didn't make sense. We tried to interview Robert's mother. She was very defensive, and we always came back, well, your son were the last two people seen with Susie. Until we can figure out what happened and why it happened, those two guys will remain our primary suspects.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
Fritz is a cousin to Robert. He was at the party, but he was not in the car when they left. But his name came up as having something to do with Susie's disappearance.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
Back then when those guys were going to the bars still, people would talk to them and they would make comments. There was information when Fritz was drunk, he made comments. Either he knew what happened to Susie or he saw Susie. That's a pretty powerful statement when at the time nobody knew what happened to Susie.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
There was just so many rumors that we had to chase down and either confirm or dispel. And it took a lot of time chasing all those down.
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Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
So when we found out that they were all trying to leave the reservation, especially Robert and Joe, I told them, you were the last two people to see Susie. We're focusing on you. You guys are right now our main suspects. So they agreed to take a polygraph. Cobbs was inconclusive. He hemmed and hawed. It took us a long time to get a polygraph scheduled with him, and he just didn't want to do it.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
He did finally take it, and it was inconclusive. Robert came back as not being truthful, and... I gave him a ride back to the reservation after the examination and his post-test interview. I was hoping that he might tell me where she was, but that didn't happen. He enlisted in the Navy and left for boot camp. The next time I talked to him was after we discovered her body.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
So we recovered about a shoebox full of small bones, like finger bones, toe bones, but nothing like an arm or a leg, nothing big. The jawbone was probably the biggest piece of evidence that we found.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
Fritz is probably the biggest deer hunter of all of them. I think early on, we kind of assumed that Fritz helped identify where to get rid of Susie.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
The Quamigan Forest Trail kind of zigzags through the National Forest, and some people believe that he was visiting or checking on the remains. Obviously, we didn't know anything about that at the time. It could have been that he was scared or really upset and trying to get out of there as fast as he could.
The Deck
Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
He never admitted to that later, you know, but there's a good chance that that may be what happened.