February 24, 2016 at 3:30 p.m.
Fire under nightfall: 1977 bombing shook Minocqua
One killed in garage blast
Fire under nightfall: 1977 bombing shook Minocqua
By Michael Strasburg-
After hours of baking small northern towns under its punishing gaze, the sun set. Waves of cool humid air began wafting in with the stars - providing a brief but welcome respite for the tired residents of the Northwoods worn down by the dog days of summer.
On the evening of Aug. 12, 1977, however, the late summer breeze wasn't the only thing sweeping into the sleepy town of Minocqua under the shroud of darkness.
On that night an airplane was crossing the sable skies of Wisconsin, bound for Lakeland Airport in Arbor Vitae.
The private plane was chartered out of Chicago and landed at its destination shortly after midnight on Aug. 13. After touching down, the passengers left the unstaffed airport by car.
One hour later a bomb exploded in Minocqua.
Joyce's 7-Up Bottling Co.
The residence where the bomb exploded that morning was the Joyce estate in Minocqua. The Joyce family - based in Joliet, Ill. - were owners of 7-Up Bottling Co., a primary distributer of the 7-Up soft drink in a number of states including Wisconsin, Illinois and New York.
The Minocqua estate had been owned by the family for a number of years. In the 1970s it belonged to Thomas Joyce, who was president of 7-Up Bottling Co. at the time. The estate was often used by 7-Up officials for meetings and retreats.
"I know all the Joyces, I knew them all when they'd come up here. They'd been coming up here for a long time," said lifelong Minocqua resident and businessman Larry Bosacki. Bosacki was also fire chief at the time of the explosion.
For decades the estate was used as a vacation home for the Joyces, as well as a place for corporate retreats and meetings among 7-Up executives.
"Mr. Joyce started bringing his top salesmen up here," Bosacki said. "They didn't have their own cars, they didn't have any transportation. They would golf and that would be about it. If they went to the bar and got a drink they had to have a bottle of 7-Up along side it, that's how he was, strictly 7-Up."
Some members of the Joyce family also had local business interests. William Joyce Jr., Thomas Joyce's cousin, was owner of Pine Tree Communications, a cable TV firm in Minocqua, in addition to being president of Village Cable TV in Joliet.
In May of 1977, Thomas and William Joyce had a falling out, when William was accused of misusing corporate funds from 7-Up Bottling Co. to finance a house. William Joyce was dismissed from his executive position with the company and sued for $1 million in punitive damages, in addition to lesser fees.
William Joyce also filed a $6 million slander suit against his uncle, John Joyce, who was affiliated with the New York 7-Up Co., and a retired executive with the Illinois 7-Up Bottling Co. John Joyce was also the father of Thomas Joyce, then president of 7-Up Bottling Co. and part-time resident at the Minocqua estate.
As the family members became engaged in a long, deliberative legal battle, tension built, tempers flaired and it appeared that, in addition to soda, bad blood was also brewing.
After a few months of protracted legal slog, it appeared William Joyce was prepared to take matters into his own hands.
Aug. 13, 1977
Shortly after midnight on Aug. 13, William Joyce's plane touched down at Lakeland Airport in Arbor Vitae. Unstaffed, the airport lie silent as Joyce debarked the aircraft with Joseph Carmen Banno, a 57-year-old 7-Up truck driver from Illinois.
A sedan, as instructed earlier, sat idling outside the airport.
Inside the car was Woodruff resident John Goltz - an employee of William Joyce's Pine Tree Communications. In the past, Goltz had frequently been called to pick up people and deliver them to the Joyce estate during his years of employment with the cable firm. As per usual, Goltz transported the two men to the Joyce estate in Minocqua.
As they approached the estate, which housed Thomas Joyce and 13 members of his family at the time, Goltz was instructed to stop the car some distance from the residence while Joyce and Banno went down to toward the garage. Goltz later told the police that Joyce and Banno left the vehicle carrying an object that he initially thought could have been a flashlight taken from the console of the car.
Twenty minutes after Joyce and Banno slipped into darkness outside the car, Goltz heard a thunderous blast and drove down to the garage, which was located 200 feet from the estate house.
Goltz saw billowing smoke and damage to the structure. Shocked, he shined the car's headlights on the garage for several moments.
After seeing no movement around the garage, he sped back to town, called a friend and then the Minocqua Police Department.
Oddly enough, Goltz's call was the only notification the police received that morning. No residents in the immediate area, nor the Joyces, reported the incident to emergency services.
Upon arriving at the scene, police officers found a dead man lying outside the tattered garage wall. An undetermined amount of bills were scattered like confetti on the garage floor and the ground outside. Miraculously, the automobile in the garage, owned by Tom Joyce, remained relatively undamaged, though the blast had knocked all four hubcaps off the vehicle.
William Joyce, unable to hear or see, and apparently in shock, had been wandering around the outside of the garage, clinging to the exterior walls. Joyce's eyes had been struck by flying glass when the bomb shattered the windows of the garage. Bloody fingerprints painting the outer wall of the garage told a story themselves, capturing Joyce's panic and fear in the aftermath of the blast.
Police immediately contacted the Minocqua Fire Department and the Oneida County Coroner's office. Upon their arrival, an investigation of the explosion began, with local, county, state and - eventually - federal authorities attempting to piece together all the facts surrounding the hideous incident.
"I was one of the first guys there," Bosacki said. "The bomber was laying on his back by the window outside ... we stumbled around inside - we didn't know what the hell we were doing. There was no fire, which I don't know why.
"The only reason we were called out there was because they thought there would be a fire, but there was no fire. It was a bunch of guys stumbling around in a garage in the dark, all flashlights. If there was another [bomb] in there it could have been a catastrophe."
William Joyce was transported to the hospital, where he stayed for weeks as physicians evaluated his sight and hearing - which were significantly effected by the blast - as well as checking for possible injuries to internal organs.
Banno had received the full impact of the explosion, which sent him through the wall of the garage, busting out the wood boards in his path. He was pronounced dead when the coroner arrived. Banno's corpse was not identified until weeks later, after a Madison crime lab was able to determine his identity using fingerprints, dental records and what other few forms of forensic evidence they had to work with.
No members of Thomas Joyce's family were injured in the blast.
Hours after the explosion, agents from the Department of Justice's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) arrived on scene. By mid-morning the following day, ATF agents had completed their collection of physical evidence from in and around the garage.
The forensic evidence was promptly sent to the U.S. Treasury Office in St. Paul, Minn.
Initial reports indicated the explosion was a result of a dispute within the Joyce family, but law enforcement officials were careful to neither conform nor deny those reports in the weeks following the investigation.
Aftermath
Soon after the smoke cleared, authorities learned William and Thomas Joyce were not on speaking terms at the time of the explosion and were involved in a legal battle for control of production and distribution of a 7-Up soft drink product in several states.
Authorities were told William Joyce did not have permission to set foot on the Minocqua property.
"I assume they were going to put the bomb on the car and have it go that way," Bosacki speculated. "The sad thing is, there were small kids, there were always small kids running around out there. This really surprised me. Bill was the most down-to-earth Joyce there was. He wasn't aloof, he didn't make believe he had a lot of money - even though he actually had it."
Attorney Frank Tuerkheimer was in charge of the investigation for the Department of Justice.
Years earlier he was a member of the special prosecuting team investigating Watergate.
One week after the explosion, the public learned a black satchel and other miscellaneous personal items were discovered in the airplane. Noble Lee, manager of the airport at the time, reported the baggage door of the plane was left wide open and the cabin door was partly ajar.
Authorities quickly began investigating whether the bomb which exploded at the estate may have been flown to Minocqua aboard the plane.
Minocqua police detective Arnie Graveen reported the satchel and surrounding area may have contained materials involved in the construction and use of an exploding device.
He also revealed that police found a scrap of paper at the blast scene which appeared to contain instructions for a timing device.
After an exhaustive investigation involving several law enforcement agencies, William Joyce was brought to trial in 1979 on federal charges stemming from the bombing.
During the three-week trial, Joyce testified in his own defense, maintaining the explosion was an accident and that he and Banno were attempting to place the bomb in the nearby boathouse.
Joyce claimed he and Banno abandoned the plan after realizing the boathouse was occupied.
Tuerkheumer contended that the planting of the bomb in the garage was intentional and the device exploded after the timer was accidentally set to detonate immediately.
Eventually, the judge sided with the prosecution, believing that the bomb was not detonated outside the garage by accident as Joyce and Banno retreated from the boathouse.
William Joyce was convicted of maliciously attempting to damage a building used in interstate commerce.
The prosecution maintained the bombing was part of a scheme to gain control of the Wisconsin and Illinois division of 7-Up Bottling Co.
"He wanted to get rid of his cousin so he could take over the company, that's what it amounted to," Bosacki said.
By the time the trial ended, the town of Minocqua had already moved on.
News of Joyce's conviction barely trickled back to the Northwoods, Bosacki said.
It appeared that, at least professionally, Thomas Joyce had moved on as well; he continued operating the company for nearly another decade.
In 1995, he died after a long battle with cancer. He was 57 years old.
William Joyce has stayed out of the public eye after serving his prison sentence. His hearing in both ears was severely impaired and he eventually lost all sight.
Bosacki said William Joyce continued to visit the Lakeland area after the incident, but his current whereabouts and status are unknown.
Regardless of whether or not Joyce is still alive, or has returned to the area recently, his name still rings an echo of a turbulent and shocking time in the peaceful Northwoods.
Michael Strasburg may be reached at mstrasburg@lakeland times.com
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