Overdose death trial off the calendar

The trial of a La Crosse County woman accused of providing a 45-year-old Rhinelander man with the controlled substances that took his life two years ago is off the court calendar following a pretrial conference Thursday afternoon before Judge Mary Sowinski.

Andrea Jean Walker, 43, of Bangor was scheduled to stand trial starting Feb. 10 on a charge of first-degree reckless homicide (drug delivery).

Thursday’s hearing began with discussion of various pretrial motions when defense attorney Stephen W. Sawyer announced that he is considering filing a motion to suppress the statement Walker gave to police as it may have been “coerced.”

Later, he explained that one day earlier (on Wednesday, Jan. 29) he received information suggesting that Walker was told that she would be held in custody, as opposed to being allowed to go home, if she did not speak to investigators.

Assistant attorney general Kari Hoffman quickly noted that the state would need time to investigate this information.

During a previous hearing, on Jan. 9, Sawyer requested the Feb. 10 trial be postponed to allow him time to contemplate the ramifications of the state’s recent decision to amend the charge to include a “as party to the crime” modifier.

Sowinski took the motion under advisement at that time but the information disclosed on Thursday, and the need for the parties to vet it, left her with no recourse but to take the trial off her calendar, she said.

She also noted that, based on the extensive discussion regarding various types of scientific evidence expected to be presented to the jury, she no longer believes a three-day trial would be long enough.

District attorney Jillian Pfeifer suggested three days could be sufficient, but they would be quite long days. 

This, too, caused the court some concern.

“Jurors who are not used to spending their days talking about touch DNA and heroin metabolites can only process so much information at a time,” the judge said.

She then directed the parties to confer with their expert witnesses with the goal of trying the case over the course of five days this summer.

“It’s extremely unfortunate and while I’m horrified from the perspective of the victim’s family, the court is not comfortable beginning this trial on Feb. 10,” she said.

According to a criminal complaint filed in July 2023, Walker is accused of being “the middleman” in a drug transaction involving a local man who was found dead on Jan. 30, 2023, days after taking a trip to western Wisconsin to obtain drugs.

The state crime lab later determined his cause of death was mixed drug toxicity/overdose (fentanyl and methamphetamine).

A family member who had been living with the deceased told police the man had been “acting weird” and “bumping into things” the night before his death. The family member also told police the man had recently traveled to western Wisconsin and was acting “very hyper” since he returned.

Also, “a large pile of white crystalline substance” was located on a dresser and a bed in the room where (the man) was found, and other drug paraphernalia was located elsewhere in the residence, according to investigators.

As the investigation continued, law enforcement used search warrants to obtain Facebook and phone records the complaint alleges tie Walker to the deceased, including references to a meeting between the two in La Crosse County days before he was found dead.

For its part, the defense has suggested the deceased could have obtained the drugs from someone else.

On Dec, 16, 2024, Sawyer filed a motion seeking permission to argue that another person, a western Wisconsin resident with a history of convictions related to the delivery and distribution of controlled substances, might have been the source of the drugs in question.

In the motion, Sawyer stated that the western Wisconsin man’s DNA was found on a “ripped corner baggie” found in the Rhinelander man’s bathroom following his death.

In addition, there is evidence that the Rhinelander man traveled to a location approximately 19 miles from the western Wisconsin man’s address during the late January trip that preceded his death, he said.

If convicted of the Class C felony, Walker faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.

Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].