8 replies to this topic

[Jenn]

http://www.doenetwork.org/

Sandra Bertolas

     

Missing since April 24, 1988 from Waukesha County, Wisconsin.
Classification: Endangered Missing

Vital Statistics

    * Date Of Birth: 1968
    * Age at Time of Disappearance: 20 years old
    * Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'6; 150-160 lbs.
    * Distinguishing Characteristics: Dark brown shoulder length hair; blue eyes.

Circumstances of Disappearance
Bertolas, student and part-time hairdresser, disappeared from Wisconsin in 1988. The night of her disappearance she was last seen about 8 p.m by her parents as she left her home, where she live with her parents in Menomonee Falls, to meet her boyfriend in a bowling alley to confront him after learning he had given her a false last name and address and had another steady girlfriend.

Her car was found on April 27, 1988 in the parking lot of the Red Carpet Lanes in West Allis, Wisconsin, but a search of it produced no hard evidence.

Investigators believe she was murdered and that her killer is still on the loose. Her body has never been recovered.
More than 20 sites, including parks, cemeteries and the suspect's family's vacation home, have been searched by bloodhounds, no trace has been found of Bertolas.

Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

Waukesha County Sheriff's Office 414-548-7117
OR Menomonee Falls Police Department 414-251-6060

Agency Case Number: I88-1528
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

[Jenn]

Link to Sandra's Charley Project profile: http://www.charleypr...las_sandra.html

[Jenn]

http://www.menomonee...dex.asp?NID=495

Missing Persons
Sandra Bertolas

On Sunday evening, April 24, 1988 Sandra Bertolas, who was 20 years of age, left her parents home in Menomonee Falls to meet with her boy friend to "have it out" with him. Sandra was extremely upset after learning that her boyfriend had another steady girlfriend and that he had also lied about his last name.

On Wednesday, April 27, 1988 Sandra’s car was found parked on the parking lot of the Red Carpet Lanes at 10901 W. Lapham Street, West Allis, WI.

Sandra has never been heard from since April 24, 1988. She is presumed dead, the victim of a homicide. Her body has never been recovered.

Please refer to our case number: I88-1528

[Jenn]

http://www.jsonline....e/37466554.html

Police review dead barber's psychiatric records

Posted: Jan. 12, 2009

Police have subpoenaed medical records of a deceased barber who told his psychiatrist he was emotionally tortured by his involvement in the murder of two boys in the 1950s, according to court records.

Police also obtained a map apparently related to a Menomonee Falls woman missing for 20 years

Nothing supported the man's claims, but police wanted to make sure that Vernon Seitz, who had child pornography and fliers of missing children in his home and barber shop, wasn't really involved in any crimes.

A Milwaukee detective has read the extensive medical records subpoenaed last week from psychiatrist Victoria Fetter and found no evidence Seitz was involved in any child abductions or homicides, Milwaukee police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said Monday.

Fetter has said she treated Seitz for 11 years until he was found dead of natural causes at his Bay View home last month.

Fetter told reporters and police that Seitz, 62, had repeatedly told her of being abducted from the Racine zoo in 1958 or 1959 and being assaulted by his abductors. They then threatened to kill him unless he shot a 14-year-old boy. He did as ordered, Seitz told Fetter, then watched his abductors kill another boy.

Racine police have said they had no records of such unsolved crimes but were rechecking archives again late last week.

Along with Fetter's treatment records, police took a map, which court records say bore the name Sandy Bertolas.

Bertolas, 20, was last seen by friends April 24, 1988, when she told them she "was having it out" with a man she was seeing. Her car was found outside a West Allis bowling alley.

Milwaukee police contacted Menomonee Falls police after searching Seitz's house, Menomonee Falls police Lt. Rick Plumley said Monday.

Investigators have found no evidence to suggest that Seitz was involved in Bertolas' disappearance, Plumley said.

Although Seitz believed he had psychic powers and contacted the families of some missing children over the years, police do not believe he contacted the Bertolas family, Plumley said.

Seitz, who ran a barber shop in St. Francis, visited the family of at least one missing child in Minnesota to offer his help. People who knew him said he sometimes used maps to plot his visions of where missing children might be.

Seitz was found dead in his home in the 900 block of E. Conway St. on Dec. 15. He died of hypertensive cardiovascular disease. Police found child pornography, newspaper clippings and fliers on missing children, bondage devices, paintings depicting child torture and books on cannibalism.

[Deborah]

Vanished but Not Forgotten



Vanished but Not Forgotten

January 5, 2010 at 2:39 am · Filed under True Crime

“Never make a decision when you’re mad,” a veteran police officer long ago told me. “Nothing good well come of it.”  Over the course of my career, I’ve worked hundreds of crime scenes brought about by unbridled anger, unchecked emotions, and fits of rage. 

This was the case nearly 21-years ago when an attractive young women set out to confront the young man she had been seeing. Sandra Bertolas discovered that her supposed boyfriend had lied about his address, his last name, and conveniently forgot to mention a steady relationship with another woman.

On April 24, 1988, Sandra, just 20 at the time, told her friends that she was “going to have it out” with the man.  At about 8:30 p.m., she left her parents’ home in the Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls. Her family hasn’t heard from her since. Police located her locked car parked outside the Red Carpet Lanes in West Allis, approximately 12 miles from her home.

Bertolas’ two-timing boyfriend became an immediate person of interest, but claimed he never made it to the bowling alley.  Investigators found no indication of foul play inside of the woman’s vehicle.

An extensive search ensued.  Police soon learned that the suspect’s father was the caretaker of St. Adalbert’s Cemetery, located on Milwaukee’s south side.  The suspect resided with his father in the caretaker’s residence. Investigator’s scoured the cemetery’s records for burials that occurred near the time Bertolas went missing.  They even searched the grave of another woman to no avail.

It appeared that Sandra Bertolas had simply fallen off the face of the Earth.

But the presumed killer’s cunning was met head-on by the tenacity of the missing woman’s family and friends.  Sandra was the last of Albert and Dorothy Bertolas’ eight children. The large, well respected family, led by grade school educators, had built an reservoir of goodwill over the years.  Those whose lives they touched seemed intent on repaying their gratitude in an effort to locate Sandra and bring the perpetrator to justice.

“I learned more from him [Albert Bertolas] in a huddle on the playground,” Gerry Broderick, a former Milwaukee police officer and private investigator, told Milwaukee Sentinel columnist Bill Janz, “than from the other teachers in the classroom.”  Broderick worked the case without pay. A psychic from Chicago and cadaver dog handlers also provided pro bono services.

The Bertolas family and their friends followed every lead and rumor.  They searched farm fields, lakes and sewers, but found nothing.  Ten years later, in December 1998, a tipster contacted the Menomonee Falls Police Department to report a bad odor emanating from the railroad tracks running through Jackson Park, about three miles north of St. Adalbert’s Cemetery, near the time of Sandra’s disappearance. Search dogs hit on a scent.  Authorities then summoned cadaver dogs but, again, found nothing of substance.

In the interim, the case took a strange twist. Sandra’s brother, Alan Bertolas, soon learned that the man his sister was set to meet on that fateful night in 1988 applied to become a civil servant.  “A Milwaukee firefighter,” noted the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Bill Janz in his May 1, 1998 column “is positive that his sister was murdered by a Milwaukee firefighter.”  This didn’t sit well with many of those manning the city’s firehouses.  Alan Bertolas contacted elected officials and higher-ups in the fire department, but, since the suspect remained uncharged, there was little they could do.

Once the man was out of the fire academy, Janz reports that Alan Bertolas’ friends on the department “made it as miserable as they could for the suspect.”  Fellow firefighters posted Sandra Bertolas’ missing posters where the suspect worked.  On another occasion, when the man stopped by a tavern with fellow firefighters, Gerry Broderick had the bartender page Sandra Bertolas, which “startled and unsettled the suspect.” 

Nonetheless, as time continued to slide by without a resolution, the investigation ran cold.  Then, on April 24, 2001, 13 years to the day of Sandra’s disappearance, Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher initiated a John Doe probe.

In Wisconsin, a John Doe investigation is similar to a grand jury at the federal level.  The hearings are secretive.  Typically, the only players present are a judge, a prosecutor, a bailiff, and a stenographer.  The court swears witnesses under oath and takes testimony seeking to unearth previously unknown details of a crime. If a witness chooses to exercise their Fifth Amendment right not to testify, a prosecutor may grant use immunity; whereby, the truthful information provided by a witness, as well as any fruits of that testimony, are immune from use in a criminal prosecution of the witness.  If a witness refuses to testify after an offer of immunity is given, the judge can jail the witness on a contempt charge.

In this instance, the John Doe probe was unusual for one reason: the evidence seems to suggest that, if Ms. Bertolas was a victim of foul play, the crimes probably occurred in an adjacent jurisdiction—Milwaukee County. However, since the Bertolas reside in Waukesha County, it appeared as if their county’s prosecutor was using his office’s resources to give the family closure.

But after 13 months of examining over 50 witnesses, Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge J. Mac Davis determined that the hearings fell short of the sufficient evidence needed to file charges.

“We hope that this would end this finally for us after all these years,” Paula Patoka, Sandra Bertola’s sister, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  “This isn’t going to end until she is found.  It’s an open wound.  We’re going to pursue this until we find her.”

Private investigator Gerry Broderick appeared at his wits end. “There’s no doubt in my mind who’s responsible for this,” Broderick told reporter Lisa Sink.  How this guy can live with himself is quite beyond me.  I hope he knows this is never going away.  It’s going to be with him until he dies.”  According to Broderick, the suspect did not provide a complete alibi on the night Sandra Bertolas disappeared.  “He has pretty much stonewalled” investigators, said Broderick, currently a member of the Milwaukee County Board.

In October 2002, Waukesha County DA Paul Bucher told a reporter from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that finding Sandra’s body may be the most important accomplishment of his career.  “I want to do that so bad that I can taste it,” said Bucher, who has since moved into private practice.

Similar to the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, theories exist about the location of Sandra Bertolas’ body.  Chances are that only one person knows, and he seems more than willing to carry this secret to his grave.

[Lori Davis]

https://findthemissi...g/cases/8096/0/
NamUs profile for Sandra Bertolas - Case 8096

[Lori Davis]

http://fox6now.com/2...ng-for-closure/

 

25 years later, family of missing woman still looking for closure

 

POSTED 5:50 PM, APRIL 22, 2013, BY JUSTIN WILLIAMS, UPDATED AT 07:54PM, APRIL 22, 2013

 

MENOMONEE FALLS (WITI) — Almost 25 years ago, a young woman went to meet an ex-boyfriend and never returned. Now, her family is looking to the public in the hope that someone knows something that can bring them closure.

 

“When she came into the room, you knew it. She was beautiful — probably the most beautiful of all the girls in the family, and funny, and very smart. She had a lot of plans for her life,”

 

Those plans would never come to pass for Sandra Bertolas.

 

On April 24th of 1988 20-year-old Bertolas was to meet her ex-boyfriend in West Allis. Her car was found in the then Red Carpet Lanes parking lot three days later.

 

25 years later, Sandy hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

 

“Our sister’s still missing, and somebody knows where she is — her remains, and we would really like this closure because it affects us every day still,”

 

Over the past 25 years, there have been tips and leads. In fact, the family and investigators believed Sandy’s body may have been at Milwaukee’s Mount Olivet Cemetery.

 

“From three different angles (dogs) were let loose in that cemetery, which is very large, and they picked up her scent. She was there,”

 

However, even after a burial plot inspection, Sandy was not located.

 

“When you hear Sandra’s name, when you see somebody that looks like her, you hear a song that reminds you of her, birthdays, holidays — anything that reminds you that Sandra’s not with us is very painful for us,”

 

Two days before the 25th anniversary of her disappearance, three of Sandra’s eight siblings spoke for the family — asking anyone who knows anything about what happened to speak up so they can finally have closure.

 

“That will happen as soon as her remains are found,”

 

Sandy’s sisters say they have a burial plot reserved for her right next to her father at Saint Anthony’s Cemetery. They are hoping with some help they can soon put it to use.

 

Menomonee Falls police say the case remains open — with a detective assigned to it. Anyone with information in this case is urged to contact them.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.scrippsme...-257719851.html

 

Sandra Bertolas, missing from Menomonee Falls

 

By James Kust. CREATED May 2, 2014

 

May is Missing Children's Month. We're bringing you the pictures and stories of children who are missing throughout the state.

 

Tonight we have Sandra Bertolas of Menomonee Falls. Sandra was last seen on April 24, 1988.   She was 20 years old at the time. We have brought you Sandra's story before.  She was headed to break up with her boyfriend the night she vanished. Her car was found in the parking lot of a West Allis bowling alley.   Police say this is cold case they have re-worked several times. If you have any information please call the Menomonee Falls Police Department at 262-532-8700.

[Deborah]

Sandra is still missing.

 

http://www.menomonee...Missing-Persons