What is Tony Evers’ Parole Commission hiding by not adhering to open records laws?
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty has filed a lawsuit against Evers’ Parole Commission for failing to provide public records as required by state law on the details of the parole releases of violent criminals.
Wisconsin’s mainstream media is assisting in keeping most of the horrific stories of these murders and rapes hidden. Wisconsin citizens MUST know the truth about the Evers’ parole spree and what it means to our communities.
Thanks to the determined and steadfast investigative journalism of Wisconsin Right Now and others in the honest media who are reporting on it, we are learning about the violent murderers and rapists that Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes believe should be released from jail. Horrifyingly, their Parole Commission is neither notifying the victims’ families nor law enforcement about the criminals’ commuted sentences.
One of the stories that haunts me most is about the young mom of two who was raped and murdered in Onalaska in 1981. Evers’ Parole Commission released her killer in September 2021.
Susan Erickson was a 29-year-old mother of two young sons who worked as a medical technologist and part-time nurse at a hospital in La Crosse. Her killer, Terrance Shaw, caught a glimpse of Erickson through her home’s picture window in Onalaska while driving past it. She was a stranger to him. Shaw barged into her home, where he tied up, strangled, raped, and stabbed Erickson to death. A piece of Shaw’s fingernail was found underneath the victim’s body, and the tip of his finger was located at the crime scene, helping authorities identify him. The killer later referred to the day the murder occurred as “one really bad day.”
The district attorney told the La Crosse Tribune in 2006 that he did not believe Shaw should ever get out of prison.
“It’s one that I just never thought it (parole) would happen and wished it wouldn’t happen,” said Terry Rindfleisch, the La Crosse Tribune reporter from the time who heavily covered the case. He was shocked to hear that Shaw was released when he was told by Wisconsin Right Now.
“It’s disturbing. I’m surprised,” Rindfleisch said. “The murder was brutal, quite honestly, I don’t think he should have been released at all.”
Erickson had multiple knife wounds to the neck, heart, lungs, chest and back. Some of the knife wounds came after she was dead and some came through the chest. She was also strangled with a “band of bruising” around her neck and was sexually assaulted, according to a 1997 article in The La Crosse Tribune. Her jugular vein was cut and an artery behind her ear was severed. Part of the knife was “found lodged in her vertebrae,” an old Leader-Telegram article reported. She was also “tied down,” a pathologist testified.
Shaw was identified as a suspect in the Erickson murder when he was discovered prowling near the home of another Lutheran Hospital employee who believed she was followed home from work. Meat hooks were found inside his car that he had used to hike himself up the side of her house, according to an old La Crosse Tribune article. He had rubber over his shoes. Shaw lied many times during questioning, the article says. The officer who arrested him told the newspaper he wonders if Erickson’s murder was his first crime because Shaw murdered Erickson, left town for a year and then returned to target the other hospital employee. “It’s a case that still bothers me,” the officer said.
Tony Evers stated that he would not release violent criminals during his 2018 campaign, as he outlined his plan to empty the prison population by 50%.
Why do Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes believe that Wisconsin’s prisons should release those who committed these horrific crimes?
If you see Mandela Barnes, ask him why he believes that releasing brutal murderers is sexy.
All of these Wisconsin citizens were innocent human beings with families, friends and lives cut short by violent criminals.
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