A 24-year-old man in Wisconsin allegedly killed his girlfriend inside their apartment and then slept next to her body for about a month before reporting her death to police.
The man was taken into custody last month and charged with first-degree reckless homicide with a modifier for use of a dangerous weapon. According to a probable cause affidavit, he walked into a police station on February 27 and told an officer that his girlfriend was dead inside their apartment. As a Turkish national, he used a translation app to communicate his report.
He stated that about 20 days earlier, he had left their apartment for an errand and returned to find her dead on the floor. Initially, he thought she was joking and tried to lift her up, but she was cold to the touch. He claimed to have fainted from shock. Despite discovering her body weeks earlier, he did not report it immediately, saying he was unfamiliar with local laws.
The man said he slept next to the body on the floor where he found it. When officers arrived at the apartment, they found the victim lying on her back with a pillow behind her head. A medical examiner determined that she had suffered multiple stab wounds to the torso and neck. The decomposition suggested she had been dead for about a month. Investigators noted that the body appeared to have been staged.
During a search of the apartment, police found no knives other than extremely dull butter knives and box cutters. Blood detection tests indicated that the victim had been stabbed in a different area of the home before being moved. In the trash, officers found food receipts from February 14 to February 21, suggesting that the man had continued living in the apartment after her death. Items in the home had blood spatter, and an eviction notice was also recovered, demanding past-due rent payment or vacating the premises.
A neighbor reported hearing the couple arguing on January 24, with screams lasting five to ten minutes. Surveillance footage from a local grocery store showed the man purchasing a bottle of bleach on the night of January 24. The following day, he allegedly bought a nail gun and attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head with it. Medical records confirmed that he had a nail in his head extending into his brain and underwent surgery to remove it.
After recovering from surgery, he told detectives that on January 24, he had gone out for about an hour and returned to find his girlfriend dead. Believing it was a joke at first, he later realized she was lifeless and fainted. When he regained consciousness, she was still dead. He eventually moved her body to its final location one day before notifying authorities, allegedly because the property manager was scheduled to check on the apartment the next day.
Despite denying involvement in her death, he admitted to using her phone to communicate with her family and convince them that she was alive and well.
He is currently being held on a $1 million bond and is scheduled for a preliminary court hearing on March 19
