April 24, 2019 at 4:14 p.m.
State, defense make closing arguments in Mendez murder trial; verdict expected Tuesday
State, defense make closing arguments in Mendez murder trial; verdict expected Tuesday
By Heather Schaefer-
Mendez, now 70, was charged with first degree murder in February 2018, after the Oneida County sheriff's office reinvestigated his wife's death with help from the television show "Cold Justice."
The state has argued Mendez knew his wife was closing up the office alone that night and saw an opportunity to remove her from his life without getting a divorce. According to earlier testimony in the trial, the couple were having marital problems and Barbara told a friend she was thinking of leaving. In addition, Mendez was sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl who believed they were having a love affair that would lead to marriage.
Prusinski has argued his client has been "mistaken for a murderer" and that the real killer was a bank robber.
In his final remarks, Schiek argued the missing pieces of the 37-year-old puzzle have finally been put into place and it's clear that it was her husband who bludgeoned Barbara that April evening.
"(The state presented) over 75 different pieces of circumstantial evidence (pointing to Robin Mendez's guilt)," Schiek said. "Not one or two, one on top of another."
In his closing argument, Prusinski conceded that his client has committed sex crimes but argued the state did not prove that he killed his wife.
"Robin Mendez is a sex offender not a murderer," Prusinski said, before outlining in painstaking detail the pieces of evidence he believes points to the murder being committed as part of a robbery.
The closing arguments came after the final witnesses for the state and the defense were called on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.
Schiek's final three witnesses were a motorcycle salesman, a woman who dated Mendez after Barbara's death and Oneida County sheriff's captain Terri Hook, who oversaw the 2018 investigation that ended with Mendez' arrest.
The motorcycle salesman, John Miller, testified he sold Mendez a new bike in May 1982 and that Mendez paid with a check for $3,774 written on the account of his family business, Lakeland Upholstery. Earlier in the trial, two of his former cell block mates testified Mendez bragged about buying a new motorcycle instead of a headstone for his wife.
The second witness of the day was Sandy Brandenburg Jennings.
Jennings testified she saw Robin Mendez in a shopping center parking lot just after 6:15 p.m. April 28.
"We recognized each other and he kind of smiled," she said.
Later, she testified she stopped at a local tavern where "the owner always had a (police) scanner on" and overheard radio traffic about a homicide at Park City Credit Union.
Approximately two months later, Jennings testified Mendez came to see her at the restaurant where she was waitressing and they later began a relationship.
"When I was finished with details of my job went out to bar and sat down and ordered a glass of wine and we started talking," she said. "We dated for a few months. I don't really remember how exactly it happened, we just dated for a few months."
Jennings said Mendez never confessed to the murder, and was generally a private person, but he did make a particularly alarming comment when they were out dancing one night.
"We were out in Park Falls at a bar/dancing place. We were dancing and out of the blue he said, 'How's it feel dancing with a murderer.' It shook me. It startled me. I couldn't respond to him but then he started laughing like he was joking," she said.
The witness said she broke off the relationship in October 1982, after Mendez was charged with sexually assaulting the 14-year-old. (He was later convicted).
After ending the relationship, Jennings said she became interested in potentially writing a book about her experiences. As part of "information gathering" for the book, she interviewed Dick Plourd, a now-deceased Minocqua resident who claimed to have seen Mendez on his bike on Packing Plant Road behind the credit union on April 28, 1982. According to Jennings, Plourd said he was jogging by the credit union when he recognized the motorcycle.
"He was convinced of Bob's guilt," Jennings said, referring to Plourd.
During cross-examination, Prusinski stressed that Plourd underwent hypnosis, at the behest of the police, to help him remember what he saw that night. Prusinski also questioned the witness about the "dancing with a murderer" comment and she admitted that she did not end immediately end the relationship after that night.
Finally, Capt. Terri Hook of the Oneida County sheriff's office was called to the stand to explain how the department became involved with the "Cold Justice" television show. She stressed that the county received no monetary profit from its partnership with the TV show and the assistance received was in the form of direction from very experienced investigators as well as an introduction to forensic consultant Chris Robinson who testified as to what sort of weapon could have produced the wounds found on Barbara's head.
Hook also testified as to why investigators believed the statements of the two inmates who claim Mendez confessed to the murder while the three of them were incarcerated together.
She outlined five specific pieces of information the inmates disclosed that were not included in the criminal complaint and were not publicly known.
• Both inmates talked about a large travel trunk that had been stored for several years and then burned in the backyard of a property owned by one of the defendant's brothers.
• Both men testified that Mendez told them he sexually assaulted a young child on a dairy farm. Hook said investigators were able to corroborate that information.
• Both inmates talked about the weapon that struck Barbara being from a motorcycle breakdown kit, however Hook noted that the criminal complaint refers only to a wonder bar.
"If they actually were only getting information from the complaint they should have said wonder bar," she said.
• One of the inmates said Mendez told them he didn't buy his wife a headstone but did buy himself a new motorcycle.
• Both men said Mendez told them that his wife was having a affair. "There's nowhere in my investigation, in '82, 2002 or 2018 where anybody ever said Barb was having an affair," Hook noted.
Hook also testified that the criminal complaint was 36 pages long and was broken down by each witness's evidence.
The complaint "doesn't put the case together in story format," she said. "It was not until after the probable cause hearing (which was held after the inmates came forward) that I explained how everything fit together," she said.
After Hook stepped down, Prusinski made a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds the state had not submitted enough evidence to move the trial to the deliberation stage.
Judge Jill Falstad denied the motion and Prusinski began presenting the defense case.
His first witness was Michael Boze, the brother of the late Thomas Boze, who the defense suspects committed the murder during the course of a robbery.
Michael Boze appeared via video from another state and was openly hostile to defense questioning.
He testified he flew from Kansas to Wisconsin in April of 1982 to visit his brother and give him a portion of a railroad settlement he recently received. He admitted to visiting the Park City Credit Union to cash a check for $1,000 so that he could give his brother some money but insisted he is unaware of anything that happened after they left the credit union because he went to his brother's home to smoke marijuana and take a nap.
In response to questions from Schiek, Boze admitted his brother was a thief and repeatedly called him a "screwup" but was adamant that he was not capable of murder.
"I would never lie for him, murder is heavy-duty thing," the witness said. "These are my beliefs. I don't believe he did it. Could he have broke in that place at night and robbed it? Oh yeah, if he knew stuff was laying there, (but he) couldn't face someone head on and do something like that, period."
The second defense witness was Judith Boze, the former wife of Thomas Boze.
Boze was brought to the courtroom in handcuffs as Falstad issued a warrant for her arrest after she failed to respond to a subpoena.
Prusinski asked Boze a number of questions about the evening of April 28, 1982 but the witness claimed her memory had lapsed.
"I don't remember those things anymore," she said. "I try to forget them."
Next on the stand was Raymond Norris, who once claimed to have driven a getaway car the night the murder was committed. (He later recanted). Prusinski again began asking questions about April of 1982 but Norris stated that he had a stroke a few months ago and no longer has a clear memory of the events in question.
The defense's next two witnesses, one who was called Monday afternoon and another who testified Tuesday morning, shared with the court their memories of seeing the Boze brothers at the credit union on the afternoon of April 28 arguing about money.
Their voices were loud and you could tell they were angry, one of the witnesses said, adding that she believed the two might be "casing" the credit union as they seemed to be looking at everything in the room.
The other witness testified "the two fellas" were "kind of mad they couldn't cash a check" (because they were not members of the credit union.) "They seemed pretty desperate," she said.
"I remember they said they'd be back and they were quite huffy about it," she added.
Under cross-examination, both women admitted they cannot say with certainty what time they saw the brothers at the credit union.
Another witness for the defense testified Tuesday she was heading to a grocery store with her husband at approximately 5:15 p.m. April 28 when she noticed a man standing by the fence between the credit union and the A&W Restaurant. The witness said she remembers looking in that direction because she was curious to see if the restaurant had opened for the season. The man was wearing jeans and a vest and was just standing there looking at the highway, she said.
Also Tuesday, Jerry Krajewski, husband of Karen Krajewski who testified for the state earlier in the trial, testified that he does not remember talking to Richard Plourd about his alleged sighting of Robin Mendez outside the credit union but does not know if his wife did.
The final witness of the trial was defense investigator Dan Joling who testified about tests he conducted as to travel times between key locations in the Minocqua area. Joling testified it took him 4 minutes and six seconds to travel from the Boze residence to the credit union and it took between 13 and 20 minutes to travel from the Mendez home to the credit union, depending on the route taken.
Under cross-examination, the witness admitted to using a car rather than a motorcycle to make the trips.
After confirming that his client had chosen not to testify, Prusinski rested his case.
Falstad then adjourned the trial until Wednesday to give the attorneys time to prepare their closing arguments. The two spent approximately four hours delivering those remarks, after which time Falstad announced she expects to announce her verdict at 1 p.m. Tuesday. If convicted, Mendez will spend the rest of his life in prison.
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