Chilling Discovery Reopens Murder Case After 30 Years | Forensic Files

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It was 10:00 on the night of Monday, March 23, 2009, when a team of police officers gathered outside a two-story
off-white condominium in Walkersha, a small suburban community in the Midwest American state of Wisconsin.
Earlier that day, their department had received a phone call from a local recreation center asking them to
investigate one of their longtime swim instructors after he'd been accused of acting inappropriately with some of his
underage students. An outwardly calm, mildmannered individual, the man agreed to let
investigators search his home. As the officers made their way through the condo's first floor, they were
struck by how immaculate it was. Not a stick of furniture was out of place, and each room had been
meticulously cleaned and organized. One thing did strike them as odd, though. All of the windows were covered
in sheets and tarps. Heading down into the basement, the officers discovered an array of toys and
games, things one would expect to find in the home of devoted parents or grandparents.
Not a lifelong bachelor with no children. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
As investigators began digging through sealed boxes beneath the stairs, they unearthed something that unsettled even
the most seasoned among them. Two highly detailed models handcrafted from balsa wood and built to scale.
The first was a police station, the second a firehouse. Investigators lifted the roofs off the
models to reveal more than a dozen photographs of children glued to the walls. Above each one was a tiny LED
light that illuminated the child's face like a painting in a museum. One of the detectives recognized some of
the faces from milk cartons and nightly news reports. They were children who had either been
murdered or gone missing from across the country stretching back decades. But one face in particular stood out. A
14-year-old boy with a bucktooththed smile and sandy blonde hair swept over blue eyes.
His name was John Zer. On Friday, February 20, 1976, John Zer failed to come home from school
without so much as a note or a phone call. Initially, his parents suspected he might have stayed late to catch a
ride with his older brother, Mark, who had wrestling practice after school. But when Mark arrived home alone, the
Zeras knew something was wrong. The family of five were relative newcomers to the quaint community of
Franklin, which was about a 20-minute drive southwest from their previous home on Milwaukey's bustling southside.
They had moved to Franklin the previous year after John Senior, a blueco collar worker, and his wife Janice, a middle
school teacher, fell in love with the area's peaceful, close-knit community. A small suburb made up of farmland and
new housing developments. It seemed like the perfect place to raise their three sons.
John and his brothers, 15-year-old Mark and 13year-old Phil, loved their new home. a two-story colonial big enough
for each boy to have his own room. They also loved their wooded backyard, which was often filled with white-tailed deer,
raccoons, squirrels, and other wildlife. John, in particular, enjoyed trolling the muddy wetlands that surrounded the
property in search of frogs, and crayfish. But the move hadn't been entirely smooth
sailing for Jon. Although he enjoyed spending time at home with his family and neighbors, he had a difficult time
adjusting to his new life at Franklin High School, where most of his classmates had known one another since
childhood. He did his best to make friends, carving out a quiet place for himself amongst
Franklin's student body, but he missed his old friends in Milwaukee. Sometimes he visited them after school
or on the weekends, but he always made sure to get permission from his parents. John Senior and Janice knew he'd never
take off on a whim to see his old friends without asking first. Janice called the Franklin Police
Department to report her son missing. The officer on duty reassured her that Jon was probably just out with friends
and there was nothing to worry about. Knowing her son too well to agree with this assessment, Janice began calling
everyone she could think of who might know where he was, repeatedly asking, "Have you seen Johnny?"
With each no she received, Janice became increasingly convinced that Jon had been
hit by a car on his way home from school and was lying in a ditch somewhere, dead
or dying. She waited by the phone while her husband slowly drove the route from their house to Franklin High School.
Mark Sira ran back and forth behind the car, frantically checking roadside ditches for any sign of John's
distinctive olive green parker. There was nothing. After more than 2 hours, an icy rain
began to fall, making it impossible for the father and son to continue their search.
As they made their way home, snow mixed with the rain, blanketing Franklin in an
eerie silence and erasing everything in its path. The following morning of Saturday,
February 21, there was still no sign of John. His mother called the police for the second time, but again, they
dismissed her fears. The officer suggested that Jon might have spent the night at a friend's
house, or perhaps he'd gotten mad and run away from home. Teenagers did that kind of thing all the time, and they
almost always came back within a few days. Janice argued that Jon had no reason to
run away. He had a good relationship with his family, and all the money he had, $13 in cash, was still on the
dresser in his bedroom. Surely if he planned to run away, he'd have taken the money with him. But the officer remained
skeptical. Frustrated by the police's indifference, John Senior and Mark headed to Franklin
High School, where they met with the principal. Together, the group made their way to
John's locker, and Mark entered the combination. Inside were several school books, a
well-worn copy of the alternative magazine Bugle American, and a John's Olive Green Parker.
The moment Mark saw his brother's coat, he knew John hadn't left the school willingly.
If he had, he would have taken his coat with him. The principal immediately called
Franklin police, who sent a sergeant and firefighters to the scene. They scoured the school in search of
John, checking every classroom and locker, but he was nowhere to be found. The Zer family filed a missing person's
report. Throughout the weekend, they were inundated with reporters, law enforcement officers, family members,
and volunteer searchers. They canvased the neighborhood, passing out flyers featuring a photo of a
smiling John and asking everyone they met if they'd seen a blondhaired, blue-eyed 14-year-old who was 5'6 and
110 lb. At the time John went missing, he was wearing jeans, a dark-coled shirt, and
brown shoes. No one had seen anyone matching that description. The local snowmobile club even joined in
the search, combing the outskirts of Franklin to no avail. All in all, the police had very little
to go on. After speaking with students and teachers at Franklin High, they learned
that John had eaten lunch with a small group of friends on Friday. Nothing about his behavior had raised any red
flags, nor had he given any indication that he was planning to run away. After lunch, John went to study hall
where a teacher issued him a hall pass at approximately 1:30 p.m. He'd then walked out of the classroom
and never returned. A student roaming the halls around that time claimed to have seen John leave
through the school's main entrance and get into a waiting Ford Torino. Several other students said they saw him
loitering outside his drafting class. Only one thing was certain. John never made it to that class.
Where he went after excusing himself from study hall remained a mystery. By Tuesday, February 24, Jon had been
missing for 4 days, and no clues about his whereabouts had emerged. More than 50 volunteers joined the Zer
family in searching Franklin High School and its surrounding property. For the previous few months, a small
construction crew had been working on an addition to the school, and a local psychic worried that Jon may have gotten
injured after wandering into the hard hat area. Under her supervision, Mark and several
others sifted through the dirt and debris, calling out for John as they went. There was no answer.
On Saturday, February 28th, 8 days after John went missing, two teenage boys were
taking a walk in Whitnol Park, the largest park in Milwaukee County. Spanning 640 acres across both Franklin
and its neighboring community of Hails Corners, the park is popular with cyclists, hikers, and runners who enjoy
exploring its 5 mi of nature trails. At approximately 11:30 a.m., the boys stumbled upon a clearing about 180 ft
east of Nature Trail Road and 200 ft south of Golf Course Lane. Lying face down in the mud and melting
snow of the clearing was the naked body of a teenage boy. His head, which was propped up on a log, had suffered a
violent injury. Beside his left leg was a large rock mattered with blood and what appeared to be human hair.
Petrified, the boys raced home to alert one of their parents, who in turn contacted the police
since the body had been discovered in the Hails Corners section of Whitnull Park. It was Hail's Corner's police who
responded to the scene. About 20 ft from the body was a pile of clothes the officers assumed belonged to
the victim. Blue jeans, a flannel shirt, an undershirt, a pair of white boxer shorts, and brown shoes.
Tucked neatly inside the shoes was a pair of blue socks. They also found a pen, a pencil, a hair
comb, and a Franklin High School hall pass dated February 20 and made out to John's era.
Although it would need to be officially confirmed, there was little doubt they had found the missing boy.
There were no obvious signs of a struggle, nor any evidence that Jon's body had been dragged to the site.
It appeared that he had been killed there, his body preserved by the falling snow.
As officers cordined off the area, one of them noticed something that stopped everyone in their tracks.
On John's right wrist written in ballpoint pen was the word hell. Police didn't know whether he'd written
it himself or if it was an ominous message left by the killer. John's body was still partially frozen
when it reached the office of associate medical examiner Elaine Samuels for autopsy.
Although Samuels was unable to pinpoint an exact time of death, she concluded that the teenager had been killed on the
afternoon he went missing, roughly a week before his body was found. His cause of death was the four blows to his
head. Dr. Samuels couldn't determine with certainty which one was the fatal blow,
but the largest and most severe laceration had been struck from the front while Jon was facing his asalent.
He had also been sexually assaulted prior to his murder. News of the crime spread quickly through
Hail's Corners, shocking residents with its senseless brutality. Like Franklin, Hail's Corners was a
safe, family-friendly community known for its low crime rate and provincial charm. Murder was incredibly rare. So
rare, in fact, that Hail's Corner's police had only dealt with one other homicide over the past two decades. A
local pharmacist who'd beaten his wife to death, then immediately called the police to confess.
At the time of John Zer's murder, there were only 13 officers on the Hails Corner Police Force, making it the
smallest force in Milwaukee County. Compared to the larger departments, they were underresourced and many of their
officers were underqualified. As one of the attending officers later recalled to reporter Gina Barton, some
of his colleagues had smoked near the crime scene, littering it with cigarette butts and contaminating the area.
Makes it real hard to collect evidence when you're picking up some officer's cigarette butt instead of the suspect's
cigarette butt, he remarked. Police also walked through the crime scene without shoe covers and collected
evidence without gloves. This led to a surplus of footprints and fingerprints, making it difficult for
investigators to determine what was worth documenting and what wasn't. Those forensic issues were exacerbated
by interdep departmental drama between Hail's Corners and Franklin police. Although the Zeras had filed a missing
person's report in Franklin, where they lived and sent their kids to school, Jon's body was discovered in the Hails
Corners section of Whitnull Park, meaning they had jurisdiction over his murder investigation.
This didn't sit well with the Franklin Police Chief, who believed his department should be spearheading the
hunt for Jon's killer. He shared this opinion with the Hails Corner's police chief who reluctantly
agreed that their departments should collaborate on the case despite not always seeing eye to eye.
But neither Franklin nor Hales Corner's police had much experience with cases spanning multiple jurisdictions and
didn't always share information efficiently. This hindered the case, quickly proving
to all involved that police were in over their heads. Several weeks into the investigation,
with no breakthroughs, local police sought help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to generate a
psychological profile of J's killer. The FBI determined that the perpetrator was a quote sadistic male homosexual or
bisexual who exhibited psychopathic behavior when it came to sex. He likely had a strong religious background and
was of average or below average intelligence. His wife or girlfriend would have left
him in the very recent past due to what they called his peculiar sexual demands.
He would be between 18 and 50 years old, have allowed outgoing personality, and be a heavy drinker.
John Zer would not have been his killer's first victim. The criminal profiler believed that the
offender wouldn't want anyone to know that he was same-sex attracted. The FBI therefore urged local
investigators to keep the fact that Jon had been sexually assaulted out of the news for fear that it would agitate the
perpetrator. The lead investigator went along with the FBI's plan, releasing a statement
that claimed there was no evidence to support the theory that Jon had been molested.
Unfortunately, someone with insider knowledge leaked the truth to the press. In a desperate attempt to rectify the
situation, the police retracted their original statement, but it was already too late.
Due to a homophobic bias that was prevalent at the time, news of John's assault quickly turned neighbor against
neighbor. Police also fell victim to this prejudice, focusing their search almost
exclusively on Milwaukee's gay residents. When interviewing potential witnesses,
the first question they asked was, "Who do you know who's gay?" They also spent a great deal of time
trying to establish whether John Zer had any ties to the gay community. They interviewed his family, friends,
classmates, and teachers, but no one had any reason to suspect that Jon was gay.
The only potential lead police had was the dilapidated copy of Bugle American magazine found in John's locker.
According to several tipsters, a classified ad had run in the back of the magazine, which had asked John Southside
Gay to write to a man named Bob via a post office box. Upon further investigation, police
determined that the ad had been placed 2 years earlier. The likelihood that the ad was directed
toward a then 12-year-old John Zer was incredibly slim, but investigators remained convinced
that the man they were looking for was part of Milwaukee's gay scene. Associate medical examiner Elaine
Samuels concurred. Although there was no mention of this in her final autopsy report, Dr. Samuels
had found traces of semen in Jon's rectum. She also claimed the lack of injury to
Jon's anus suggested he'd been abused repeatedly in the weeks or months leading up to his death.
If she was correct, then detectives were looking for a groomer who'd had consistent access to John under his
parents' noses. With the most likely place for this to have occurred being Franklin High
School, investigators requested a list of all male faculty members who'd worked in or around the school at the time of
Jon's disappearance. After speaking with many of them, they learned that two of the construction
workers who'd been working on the addition to the school regularly ate lunch in the cafeteria alongside some of
the 9th and 10th grade boys, one of whom they'd taken to a rock concert. They also hung out in the parking lot
after school, blasting music from the bed of their truck as students came outside to smoke cigarettes, sometimes
engaging them in conversation. There were also rumors that the two men sold cannabis to students and that one
of them might be bisexual. The man in question, David Cole, not his real name, was recently divorced and on
probation for drugrelated offenses. According to his employer, he'd been acting strangely for the past few months
and seemed unable to concentrate on his work. Co-workers confirmed that Cole's behavior had changed following the
discovery of John Zer's body, which he spoke about with disturbing frequency. He'd since been let go from his job and
appeared to be using drugs again. In an official police interview, Cole claimed he wasn't at Franklin High
School the day John went missing as he'd been working at a local factory. He remembered the date vividly because
the night before he'd met a male go-go dancer at a Milwaukee tavern whom he'd later gone home with.
As the interview went on, Cole became increasingly agitated and his mind wandered to strange places.
He said his girlfriend was psychic and that she and her mother could read his thoughts no matter where he was or what
he was doing, and they were probably listening in on his conversation with police.
He also claimed he could control animals using the power of mental suggestion, making them do flips or crawl up walls.
At one point, Cole started choking on the cigarette he was smoking, which had been given to him by one of the
detectives. Paranoid, he immediately stubbed it out, saying investigators were using it to
try to control his mind. Cole claimed that ever since John Zer's death, strangers had been following him.
They'd show up in one location, then reappear days later in another. Fearing for his safety, he'd started
carrying a knife, which he called his pig sticker, and driving with a 12- gauge shotgun in the back of his red
1976 Chevet. When officers handed Cole a photo of John, he clutched it tightly in both
hands, his expression pained. He was a beautiful boy, he said after several uncomfortably long seconds.
He was one of God's children. Over the next few days, investigators obtained records from David Cole's
employer, which confirmed that he'd been working at the flooded factory the day before John Zer went missing.
However, he hadn't shown up for work at all the next day. Police questioned Cole about the
discrepancy in his story, but he had no explanation. He swore he had nothing to do with Jon's
death, saying he didn't even know the 14-year-old and that he was willing to take a lie detector test to prove it.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court banned the use of polygraph evidence in criminal trials in 1981, ruling the results too
unreliable and the potential for error too great. Today, investigators view polygraph
testing as a useful but flawed interrogation tool. In the 1970s, however, it was considered
the cutting edge of forensic technology, a near foolproof method of determining whether or not someone was telling the
truth. Police hooked David Cole up to a polygraph machine and asked if he or anyone he knew had killed John Zer. He
answered no. The machine verified that he was being truthful, but detectives still had their doubts.
They spoke to a friend of Coohl's named Christine Widman, who said he'd bragged about beating the lie detector test. She
also claimed that his frequent drug use was affecting his mental health and causing him to act erratically.
In a television interview with WTMJ News, Christine said, "Cole came to my house the night he took the test, and he
told me that he passed it. But then after a while, he started going into his other personalities.
He said they had the best producer, the best equipment, and the best cops, but I
fooled them all." David Cole denied Christine's claims, and while he remained a strong person of
interest in the case, there was no evidence tying him to the crime. Police continued exploring other
possibilities. In October 1976, 8 months into the investigation, an anonymous tip came in
regarding a 28-year-old mental health aid at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex.
According to the tipster, this man, whose name was Daniel Laca, had a reputation for befriending young boys.
This wasn't the first time aka's name had come up during the investigation. While patrolling Whitnull Park on
February 29, 1976, just 24 hours after John Zer's body was found, an officer had spotted a man
loitering near the crime scene on his yellow Schwin bicycle. It was Daniel Lacker.
The officer watched as Zaka parked beside a thicket of trees and walked toward the small clearing where Jon had
been murdered. Curious, he approached Aka and asked what he was doing there. Aka replied
that he was looking for the place where Jonzer's body had been found. "Apparently, this is it," he said.
Although the officer found Aka's behavior strange, he hadn't questioned him any further.
After this new tip landed 8 months later, a detective went to Daniel Aka's apartment to question him about John
Zer. Aka claimed he didn't know the 14-year-old, but felt deeply connected to him. When the detective asked why,
aka's eyes filled with tears. He explained that he'd planned to take a bike ride through Whitnull Park on the
day John was murdered, but decided against it at the last minute. According to Aka, his girlfriend had called him
that morning and they'd spoken for a couple of hours, after which Aka was exhausted and decided to take a nap. By
the time he woke up at 2:30 p.m., the weather had taken a turn, so he decided to stay home instead of going for his
bike ride. Aka said he'd visited Whitnull Park the day after Jon's body was discovered
because he needed to know how close his path would have taken him to the crime scene.
If he'd been there that day, perhaps he could have prevented it. Like so many locals, Aka said he'd
learned of Jon's disappearance through the near constant media coverage. He'd even organized a search in Whitnull Park
on the Friday after Jon went missing before he was discovered. Fearful the teen may have drowned in one of its many
ponds, he was plagued by guilt, believing his decision to take a nap that fateful
afternoon could have been the difference between life and death. To prove his intentions were pure, Aka
volunteered to take a polygraph test. The results came back as inconclusive. He took a second test which he passed.
Police dismissed him as a suspect, but that didn't mark the end of Aka's involvement in the case.
In late 1976, Daniel Ler sent the police a letter claiming he knew someone involved in
John's murder. In April that year, a female patient at the Milwaukee Mental Health Complex
where Aka worked had been attacked in the woods behind the facility. Her asalent was a fellow patient named
Joe. He had left her on the brink of death, her head propped up on a rock and a wooden post shoved in her mouth.
Aka didn't hear about the attack until months later. And when he did, he immediately asked Joe why he'd done it.
Joe's response sent a chill up Aka's spine. Because that's what I saw them do to the
boy in the park. According to Aka, Joe told him that on the day John Zer disappeared, Joe had
been at a McDonald's in Hail's Corners when three men in a dark blue sedan picked him up. One of them was openly
brandishing a gun. A teenage boy sat in the back seat flanked by two of the men.
The boy looked nervous, a large suit coat dwarfing his small frame. They drove to Whitnull Park, pulled over
near the edge of the woods, and hiked to a popular makeout spot. There, the men forcibly removed the
boy's clothes as Joe stood by and watched. Terrified, the boy tried to run, but one
of the men ordered Joe to catch him and bring him back. Joe didn't want to hurt the boy, but he
did as he was told, scared he'd be shot if he didn't. The men then took turns raping the boy
as he screamed and cried, calling his attackers sons of [ __ ] John Zer's parents later confirmed that
Jon hardly ever swore, but when he did, that was the phrase he'd use. Once the men finished assaulting the
boy, one of them grabbed a nearby rock and struck him savagely on the head. At the time of Jon's murder, Joe was 22
years old, but had the mental faculties of an 8-year-old and an IQ of just 58. An IQ below 75 is the standard benchmark
used to diagnose an intellectual disability. According to Joe's sister, his brain was
damaged at birth when a doctor used forceps to deliver him. As a result, he'd spent much of his life in
courtmandated institutions and group homes. Joe was charged with assaulting the young woman from the Milwaukee Mental
Health Complex, but the case was dropped after lawmakers determined he didn't have the intellectual capacity to
understand what he'd done. Police spoke to Joe, who reiterated the basic facts of Aka's story with less
detail. They showed Joe a photo lineup in an effort to identify the boy he claimed to
have seen being murdered in Whitnull Park. Although John Zer's photo was in the lineup, Joe said he didn't recognize him
and instead chose a photo of a 16-year-old who lived across the street from his parents.
Given Joe's low IQ and inability to pick Jon out of a lineup, police felt confident he had nothing to do with the
murder. They along with Joe's doctor thought it seemed likely he had been told a story
and then instructed to repeat it. Joe's sister told investigators that her brother was very impressionable and
could easily be manipulated into telling a false story. But Daniel Laca denied feeding Joe
information about the crime, telling investigators he knows what happened. He was there.
After the police refused to investigate Aker's claims any further, he went to the media, setting up an on camera
interview with the WTMJ News. He even sent a letter to John's parents informing them that one of his patients
may have witnessed their son's murder. Aka took every opportunity he could to talk to Joe about the crime, cataloging
what he'd learned in a journal, which he eventually shared with investigators. But they remained unconvinced.
In their view, Aka was a clout chasing nuisance, the kind of wannabe detective who couldn't help but insert himself
into an investigation. Annoying, but ultimately harmless. The investigation into John Zer's murder
continued, but by July 1977, almost a year and a half had passed with no breakthroughs in the case.
On Tuesday, July 5, two women moved into a duplex on Milwaukeee's east side. While going through the basement, they
found an abandoned address. Opening one of its drawers, they came across a file containing confidential
materials relating to the John Zer murder investigation, including crime scene photos, inter departmental memos,
and a copy of John's autopsy report. The file had been given to Paul Moore, an investigator for the district
attorney's office a year earlier. Moore had shared it with an employee from the Glendale Crime Lab, a private
nonprofit organization specializing in forensic analysis, with the understanding that he was to return it
after giving his professional opinion. Instead of returning the file to Moore, the employee gave it to Moore's lover,
not knowing the two had recently broken up. to get back at Moore. His lover hid the file in the dresser before moving
out of the building. When news broke that the district attorney's office had misplaced a file
containing such sensitive explicit materials, the community was outraged. The Hales Corner's police chief released
a public statement decrying the mistake, saying, "It certainly casts doubt on the
reliability of the district attorney's office and their investigators." He then blamed the district attorney for
not performing background checks on the investigators he hired. By this point, the Zer family had grown
frustrated by the police's lack of progress and transparency. So, they hired an attorney to start a John Doe
investigation. In Wisconsin, a John Doe investigation is an independent proceeding that allows
a judge to determine if a crime was committed and who might be responsible before filing charges.
The judge can force witnesses to testify under oath, grant immunity, and order the proceedings to remain secret,
encouraging witnesses to speak without fear of retaliation or public exposure. In 1978, John's father told WTMJ News,
"I'm just totally resentful of everything of our police system. I have no faith at all in them. I don't think
I'm getting any help from anybody. Why should I have to hire an attorney to get all this stuff when it's my right to
have this investigated? His wife, Janice, echoed his disappointment, saying, "I never had an
idea that the police were like Starky and Hutch. I never had that idea. I was never that naive.
But I can't believe the foul-ups. The Zer's attorney, Alan Eisenberg, agreed. A local celebrity, he was known
for his trademark red fedora, in-your-face personality, and aggressive style of legal representation.
He was also known as a fierce victim's rights advocate who took on cases other lawyers wouldn't.
If anyone could light a fire under the zero investigation, it was Eisenberg. By this point, medical records had
confirmed that the reason construction worker David Cole hadn't been at work on the day of J's murder was because he was
at the doctor's office being treated for a hernia. Police confirmed his 3 p.m. appointment
with the doctor's staff, though they couldn't account for where he'd been earlier that day. Despite not knowing
the exact time of Jon's death, police suspected he was murdered shortly after leaving school around 2:00 p.m., making
it highly unlikely that Cole could have had time to commit the murder. Under normal circumstances, this and the
results of his polygraph would have been enough to exonerate him, but the notoriety of the case and the lack of
other viable suspects kept him on the police's radar. Attorney Alan Eisenberg spoke to Cole's
friend, Christine Widman, and discovered that she was having an affair with the lead detective in J's case, a married
man who had instructed her to lie about their relationship if ever questioned by
authorities. Eisenberg filed an affidavit claiming that the detective had been using the
Zer case as a pretense to romance Christine. Rumors quickly spread that the detective
had initiated the affair with Christine specifically to dig up a dirt on David Cole.
The Hails Corner's police immediately launched an internal investigation. And while they found nothing to suggest that
the affair had impacted the detective's work on the Zer case, he was found guilty of personal indiscretion
involving an informant and suspended without pay for 60 days. He returned to work after that, but
never to the John Zer investigation. As the investigation wore on without a breakthrough, police focused on the
criminal profiler's belief that John Zer would not have been his killer's only victim.
At the advice of the FBI, they took a closer look at a certain individual. 9 years earlier in August 1967,
14-year-old Milwaukee teenager Steve Scallan was walking home from football practice at his local high school when
23-year-old laundry truck driver James Lee Crumbl pulled up beside him and offered him a ride.
Steve accepted and the two proceeded along Kuml's delivery route. What Steve didn't know was that Crumbl,
a former sharpshooter for the US Army, had a history of sexually assaulting children.
He was also a suspect in the unsolved murder of a 9-year-old boy who had been killed in Arizona just 6 months earlier.
After stopping at several local businesses to drop off sheets and towels, Crumbl pulled over near an
isolated park and led Steve into the woods. Do you want me to show you a rope trick?
He asked. Yes, Steve answered. Crumbl tied the boy's wrists together before challenging him to free himself.
For several minutes, Steve struggled, but the rope held fast. Crumbl then told him to get on the
ground, promising not to hurt him. Steve did as he was told, and Crumbl proceeded to rape him.
Afterward, Crumbl loaded Steve back into his truck and drove to another secluded
spot. There, he raped the 14-year-old again. Steve lost consciousness this time.
Crumbl's hands wrapped tightly around his neck. When Crumbl was done, he took Steve
outside, grabbed a large tree limb off the ground, and struck him repeatedly in the head. He then threw the teenager
down a nearby hill and drove off. Miraculously, Steve survived. He was found the next morning and taken
to the hospital where he remained incoherent for 3 days. His skull severely fractured.
When questioned about the assault, Crumbl admitted, "I don't know why I did it. I need help. I couldn't keep it
inside me. Several months after his arrest, Crumbl told a prison psychiatrist that he went
out looking for young boys whenever he felt lonely. He found them attractive because they
were cute and clean. Kreml said he'd lost control with Steve Scallan because he feared the boy would
tattle on him. Sinking low in his chair, he then described his desire to kill Steve in a flat, detached manner.
admitting he'd choked the 14-year-old until his face turned blue. The psychiatrist went on record calling
Crumbl one of the few people that we see who really fits the prototype of a coldblooded killer.
His report ended with a warning. Whenever Mr. Crumbl is released, we have to worry about the risk of repetition of
his violent conduct. After pleading guilty to sexual perversion and aggravated battery, Kreml
was found to be in need of specialized help for sexual deviency and was committed for treatment.
Police expected Kreml to serve at least 30 years. To their astonishment, he was released
on parole after just five. Hails Corner's police couldn't help but notice the similarities between Steve
Scallan's brutal assault and John Zer's murder. Both victims were 14, lived in the
greater Milwaukee area, and were intercepted leaving school. Both were taken to the woods to be sexually
assaulted before being bludgeoned in the head and left for dead. Then there was Crumbl's tattoo.
On his right wrist was a picture of a devil along with the phrase born to raise hell.
They wondered if the word hell being written on the inside of Jonzer's right wrist was Crumbl leaving some kind of
calling card. 6 months into the John Zero investigation, police tracked Crumbl down to the California city of Costa
Mesa and questioned him about his whereabouts on the day Jon went missing. Crumbl said he was alone in his Costa
Mesa apartment that whole week. He swore he hadn't touched a single boy since his
assault on Steve Scallan, though he refused to take a polygraph test to confirm it.
Hails Corner's police had no doubt Crumbl was capable of murder, but they couldn't place him in Wisconsin at the
time of Jon's death. As the 3-year anniversary of John Zer's murder approached, police felt they'd
exhausted every lead. Despite the John Doe proceeding initiated by the Zer family, no new
suspects had emerged. Then in December 1978, an unidentified woman called the Franklin police to ask
if they'd looked into a man called Michael Euporski. Euporski, a former substitute teacher
and basketball coach at Franklin High, no longer lived in the area, but had become a frequent topic of conversation
amongst his old colleagues. In the years following Jon's murder, he'd secured a dream job with
professional basketball team the Seattle SuperSonics, scouting players for the NBA.
The woman told the police that just recently, Euporski had returned to Wisconsin to scout potential players.
While in town, he'd invited a teenage boy back to his hotel room. This subsequently became a topic of
conversation at a Christmas party for Franklin High staff where the woman heard about it.
She didn't know if anything sexual had occurred between the two, but she had a strong suspicion Euporski might be
connected to John Zer's murder. Franklin police looked back at their files and saw that Michael Euporski was
briefly interviewed after John's death. He'd said that on the day John went missing, he had taught several classes,
two of which were held in classrooms on the lower northeast side of the school, far from the front entrance where Jon
was last seen. While Euporski knew who Jon was, he said he didn't know him well. He remembered
that the shy teenager had been reluctant to get in the water during one of Euporski's swimming classes.
He knew Jon's athletic older brother, Mark, much better. In the early days of the investigation,
police had requested a list of all full-time male employees at Franklin High, including teachers, staff,
substitutes, and coaches, so that they could follow up and conduct more in-depth interviews.
When administrators turned the list over to authorities, Euporski's name wasn't on it.
With his name coming up almost 3 years later, police reviewed the school records and discovered that Euporski
didn't have any classes during fifth period that day, which was around the same time that John Zer was last seen.
This led to the question of why it had taken so long for anyone to notice his absence from the list.
Rumors quickly spread that someone at Franklin High School was trying to protect Euporski.
Franklin police began digging into Michael Euporski's past and learned that his first runin with the law occurred
when he was just 12. He had lured a six-year-old boy back to his house by promising to let the boy
play with his puppy. Once they were alone, he forcibly removed the boy's shoes. 2 years later, when Uporski was 14, a
woman called the police to report that Euporski had tackled her 12-year-old son to the ground, tore off his shoes and
socks, and violently twisted his toes. Euporski was charged in juvenile court and required to attend counseling.
Less than a year later, police received a report that Euporski had led a 9-year-old boy into a secluded yard,
made him lie face down in the grass, and then played with his feet. According to one detective, feet were
his thing. He would go down on the parkway, wait for a little kid riding on a bicycle, grab the kid off their bike,
and drag them into the woods. Then he'd take their shoes and socks off and tickle their feet until the kid urinated
or started screaming. Because the Milwaukee County court system was more interested in
rehabilitating teenagers than punishing them, faced no criminal charges for his actions.
As Euporski got older, so did the boys he targeted. According to police records, when he was
22, he picked up an 18-year-old hitchhiker in Milwaukee, drove him to a treelined neighborhood, and ordered him
into the bushes, promising not to hurt him if he did as he was told. Once he was sure passers by couldn't see them,
he pushed the young man to the ground, removed his shoes and socks, and fondled his bare feet.
The following year, a 12-year-old newspaper delivery boy accused Huporski of snatching him off the street and
dragging him into a nearby garage where he climbed on top of him and tickled his
feet. Shortly afterward, a 14-year-old made a similar allegation. Uporski was cited with disorderly
conduct and once again remanded to counseling, which he attended for approximately 6 months.
Investigators reached out to young male students and athletes who had known Michael Euporski during his time at
Franklin High School to see if anyone else had a similar experience. Several admitted that Euporski had
gotten them alone, wrestled them to the ground, and tickled their feet. Many had
been too confused or ashamed to come forward, dismissing his actions as harmless roughousing.
As John Zer was found barefoot with his socks tucked neatly inside his shoes, it
wasn't a stretch to wonder if his killer had a preoccupation with feet. Police sent up a letter asking him to
return to Wisconsin for an interview. He reluctantly agreed, writing back, "I would have been more than happy to help
long ago, but was never asked. I am not trying to take out any animosity on you or display arrogance. I am simply
stating that I was always willing to offer any info that I had. He pushed back against allegations that
his prior arrests were sexual in nature, stating, "My previous police record does not
include sexual molestings, as you termed them. In the late60s, I underwent some nervous disorder treatment and at this
present time am a rational heterosexual human being. A month after the anonymous tip off,
32-year-old Michael Euporski flew to Wisconsin to meet with the police. He denied having anything to do with the
John Zer's murder, saying he was most likely on his lunch break when the 14-year-old went missing.
But police had already questioned witnesses at Franklin High, and no one recalled seeing Euporski during the
lunch hour that day. Furthermore, some of his students said he was 10 minutes late to his first
class after lunch. Confronted with these statements, Euporski couldn't explain why he'd been
late, but maintained he never left campus during school hours. Investigators asked if he'd be willing
to take a polygraph test to confirm his story. Euporski looked uncomfortable, but he
agreed. Veteran polygraph examiner Robert Peters was brought in to conduct the test. He
started off slow, asking Euporski a series of personal questions to establish an emotional baseline.
Euporski fidgeted in his seat as he answered, taking big gulps of air. Peters watched him with interest as he
switched to questions about the murder. In February 1976, in a wooded area in Whitnol Park, "Did you strike John Zer
on the head with a blunt object?" he asked. "No," was Yuporski's reply. As the test went on, he started to
hyperventilate. Examiner Peters instructed him to take slow, steady breaths as erratic
breathing could tamper with the results. Euporski said he couldn't help it. He was nervous, but Peters suspected he was
trying to throw off the machine. They agreed to take a break. Police accompanied upski back to his
hotel where they shared a tense dinner before returning to the police station to continue the exam.
Peters picked up where they'd left off. In February of 1976, did you strike a John Zer on the head? No.
In February 1976, did you take part in a sex act with the John Zer? No. This line of questioning continued until
Peters felt confident they had their answer. Euporski was lying. The following day, Euporski was taken to
the Milwaukee County Courthouse as part of the Zer family's ongoing John Doe investigation.
There he was confronted in the hallway by John Zer's father, who was convinced Euporski was responsible for his son's
death. It was an ugly, combative scene which effectively put an end to the John Doe
investigation. Michael Euporski returned to Seattle, but over the next few months, police
there kept tabs on him. When he started dating a woman named Nancy, both Wisconsin and Seattle police
suspected Euporski could be romancing her in an attempt to get to her 10-year-old son.
Nancy agreed to participate in a covert surveillance operation. With her permission, two Seattle police
officers hid in her spare bedroom while she confronted Eupportski about his arrest record and John Zer's murder.
The interrogation went on for hours. The officers unable to move or speak as they
waited for something they could use to nail upski. But every time J's name was brought up,
he quickly changed the subject. Although investigators were convinced Euporski was their man, they didn't have
anything concrete to connect him to the crime. So they waited for science to catch up to their theory.
As the months turned into years, they tracked Huporski's every move, contacting anyone who employed him or
began a romantic relationship with him to let them know he was the primary suspect in a 14-year-old boy's murder.
In 1979, shortly after winning the NBA championship, the Seattle Supersonics fired Michael Euporski.
Whether this had anything to do with investigators contacting the team's owner remains unclear.
Over the next two decades, the investigation into John Zer's murder faded into obscurity while his killer or
killers roamed free. Many of the detectives who originally worked the case retired.
Then in February 2001, John's younger brother Phil Zer, now 38 years old and living in New York, called police to
discuss the status of the investigation. In the 25 years since John's murder, there had been significant strides in
criminal profiling and forensics. Perhaps with the help of DNA, police could finally catch his killer.
Two detectives, Kent Skunover of Hails Corners and Scott Stall of Franklin agreed.
After speaking with Phil, they decided to reopen John's case. The mood this time around was
marketkedly different, starting with the relationship between Hail's Corners and
Franklin Police. While the original police chiefs had frequently buted heads and spoke
privately of their dislike for each other, detectives Skoonover and Stall quickly found common ground,
establishing a friendly rapport built on communication and shared resources. Skunover told Case File of his respect
for Stall, saying, "I can't say enough good things about Scott Stall. He is one of the best cops I've ever known.
A 17-year veteran of the Hales Corners Police Force, Skunover took on the role of lead detective, meticulously combing
through more than 6,000 pages of police reports, witness logs, interview transcripts, and medical records.
He also reintered witnesses and consulted with experts who might have a fresh perspective to offer.
Upon familiarizing himself with the case and its suspects, his conclusion was the
same as investigators before him. Michael Euporski, the former substitute teacher, was John's killer.
All he and Detective Stall had to do was prove it. Their first move was to contact the
medical examiner who had conducted Jon's autopsy, Dr. Elaine Samuels. During her time working as the associate
medical examiner for Milwaukee County, Dr. Samuels was known to be eccentric. In 1979, her boss discovered her office
contained a dozen jars of human testicles, including those of a recent murder victim. According to Samuels, she
was trying to uncover evidence of a statistical connection between low birth rates and men who took recreational
drugs. Her superiors told her to stop what she was doing, but 7 years later, an additional 15 jars of human tissue were
discovered in the basement of her condominium. In an interview with the Milwaukee
Journal, Dr. Samuels claimed to have no idea where the specimens came from. But her superiors contradicted her
narrative, saying she'd come to them years earlier, asking if she could save testicles for medical research.
One morning in 1986, months after this discovery, reporter Meg Kissinger received a frantic phone call from
Samuels, who claimed someone was trying to kill her. Apparently, she'd been driving home the previous evening when
her car burst into flames. The fire chief who investigated the incident determined there was no foul
play and the fire was the result of a faulty plug. But that didn't comfort Dr. Samuels, who remained convinced her life
was in danger. Shortly after, the Milwaukee County Board eliminated her position within the
medical examiner's office. It subsequently emerged that throughout the 1970s and 80s, Dr. Samuels had
mishandled countless autopsies. Her shoddy medical work leading to reduced sentences for several criminals.
She was also backlogged in writing autopsy reports for both homicide and non-homicide cases, leaving dozens of
families with lingering questions about their loved ones deaths, including the Zeras.
At the time of John Zer's murder, the Civil Service Commission required medical examiners in the state of
Wisconsin to meet five specific qualifications. Elaine Samuels met just two of these.
She took the test to become boardcertified in pathology in 1976, but failed. As a result of Dr. Samuel's inexperience
and negligence, Jon's autopsy was plagued by mistakes. Not only had she misplaced the contents
of Jon's stomach, preventing investigators from narrowing down a more specific time of death, she had also
failed to check under his fingernails for any traces of blood, skin, or hair, which would have been helpful in
determining the identity of the killer. And then there was the fact that Dr. Samuels claimed Jon had been sexually
assaulted prior to his murder. Yet her final report failed to mention any traces of semen in or around his body.
In the years since Milwaukee County terminated her position, Dr. Samuels had largely disappeared from public life,
but Detective Skunover located her in an elderly apartment complex on the south side of Milwaukee.
Samuels agreed to speak with him, but only through a small crack in her apartment door.
Asked about the Zer case, she placed the blame on Hail's Corner's police, saying
the lead detective instructed her to keep certain findings out of her final report, including the fact that seaman
was found in John's rectum. According to Dr. Samuels. She'd collected semen samples back in 1976 and
preserved them on slides. That was all the information she was willing to give Detective Skoonover
before slamming the door in his face. This was a watershed moment in the investigation.
For decades, police had believed there was no DNA evidence from the Zero crime scene.
Detective Skunover immediately contacted the medical examiner's office to see if
they had the evidence box from John's case and was told not to get his hopes up. Back in 1976, the morg was housed in
the Milwaukee County Safety Building with all evidence stored in the basement. Over the years, unhoused people had set
up camp in the stairwells. Heavy masonry had fallen off the dilapidated exterior
and a series of floods destroyed years worth of evidence. It would be a minor miracle if the box
hadn't been damaged. Detective Skunover waited for weeks and then came the call he'd been dreading.
The box from John's case had been located, but the swabs Dr. Samuels used to collect the samples from his body
were nowhere to be found. Detective Skunover checked the Justice Department's records and discovered that
Dr. Samuels had gotten rid of the swabs because no one directly asked her to keep them.
A report from a detective dated October 22, 1976 read, "Dr. Samuels had taken swabs of
the body cavities and later determined that anal intercourse had occurred with the body on the day that the victim
died. The swabs that she had taken from approximately 1 in of the anal passage revealed considerable semen.
Although the swabs weren't available, the test slides had been perfectly preserved.
Skoonover sent them to the state crime laboratory in the hopes they might yield some DNA.
They did not. Detective Skunover sat down with the technicians who explained their final
option was to pulverize the slides in an attempt to find even a small trace of genetic material.
As Skoonover explained to Case File, the problem with that option was that if the
case ever made it to trial, there would be nothing left for the defense to do their own testing.
Skunover told the technicians to go ahead, saying he was willing to fight the decision in court if it ever reached
that point. For 3 months, he waited on results from this final test. When the technicians at the crime lab
finally got back to him, it was with bad news. There was no DNA. Undeterred, Detective Skunover and his
partner, Detective Stall, pressed on, determined to find the evidence needed to prove Michael Euporski's guilt.
But so many mistakes had been made in the early days of the investigation that anyone investigating Jon's murder was
automatically fighting an uphill battle. Police had also failed to collect key pieces of evidence, including soil and
foliage samples from the spot where Jon's body was recovered. Much of what was collected was
improperly processed and stored, causing it to degrade over time. They had also neglected to photograph
the macab message scrolled on J's wrist. In the event that it had been left by the killer, they had no way of comparing
it with writing samples from potential suspects. When Detective Skunover went to the
evidence room to examine the rock police believed to be the murder weapon, he found it completely clean. not a trace
of blood or hair as the officers on scene that day had reported. Examining the crime scene photos, he
also discovered that a key piece of evidence was missing, a broken tree limb that had been found about 20 ft from
Jon's body near his discarded clothes. It was clear the limb had been snapped off shortly before the photos were
taken, as the wood beneath the bark was nearly white, not dark and weathered as it would have been had it sat there a
long time. Detective Skunover wondered whether Jon's killer could have used it as a
weapon. Scratches on the boy's face supported this theory, but there was no way to
test it. 6 months after Jon's murder, the lab technician in charge of the crime scene
noted that he had quote probably checked that piece of wood for hair fragments or
blood and found none. He couldn't recall with any degree of certainty whether he had or hadn't.
Detectives Skoonover and Stall accepted that Jon's murder was unlikely to be solved by forensic evidence such as DNA
or fingerprints. Instead, they'd have to rely on good old-fashioned police work.
In reviewing files from the original investigation, Skunover discovered a transcript from Michael Euporski's 1979
post polygraph interview with the Franklin police chief that had him on the edge of his seat. To schoon over, it
sounded like the chief was one question away from getting a confession before another investigator from the Wisconsin
Department of Justice burst into the room and shut the interview down. Detective Skunover couldn't understand
why an experienced agent would impede a confession. He tracked down the now retired
investigator and asked why he'd intervened that day, but he claimed to know nothing about it.
Shown the report, the investigator said, "This never happened. This is complete fiction."
Regardless, for detectives Skoonover and Stall, the report's contents played a key role in their belief that Michael
Euporski was guilty. In October 2001, they traveled to California to meet with Euporski, now a
widowerower with two grown children. During their nearly 5-hour conversation, Euporski remained unflapable,
reiterating that he had nothing to do with the Jon's murder. At one point, Detective Skunover
produced a doctorred crime lab report that made it look as if Upuporski's DNA had been found on Jon's body.
This was in accordance with the 1969 US Supreme Court ruling that allows police to legally lie about evidence as long as
they don't violate due process or coersse a confession using threats of violence.
Euporski didn't even break a sweat. When Detective Stall asked him why his DNA would be on Jonzer's body, Euporski
replied, "You know, I can't answer that." The two detectives returned to Wisconsin, no closer to solving Jon's
murder than they had been on day one. 8 years passed without much progress. Then in March 2009, a woman called the
West Dallas West Milwaukee Recreation Department with a disturbing allegation. One of their longtime swim instructors
had been showering with her son and other young boys following swimming lessons.
Two weeks later, a man called the instructor's boss to warn her that the instructor was a pedophile who had
sexually assaulted him during the early 1970s when he was between the ages of 11
and 15. The instructor's name was Daniel Lacker. Aker's boss immediately contacted the
police. And on March 23, Aka was arrested while coaching youth swimmers at a middle school in West Dallas, a
Milwaukee suburb 10 mi from where the Zer family lived. When questioned by detectives at the
Greenfield Police Station, he was calm and agreeable, as though he didn't quite grasp the severity of the situation.
He declined the offer of a public defender, stating, "If I don't want to talk any further, I'll tell you."
Aka was surprisingly forthcoming, admitting that he regularly showered with his underageed students.
When detectives asked if they could search his home, he agreed. Detective Sergeant David Patrick and a
small team of officers were dispatched to Aker's condo in Walkershaw. Upon entering the condo, officers noted
that it was almost alarmingly clean. No mess, no clutter, not even a speck of dust.
On the windows, aka had hung sheets and tarps presumably to block out the sun. After performing a cursory sweep of the
first floor, officers made their way into the basement. Like the rest of the condo, it was
meticulously organized with boxes stacked beneath the stairs. Detective Patrick and his team began
sifting through them, eventually coming across one labeled fire hobby. This box, unlike the others, was sealed
with heavy fiberglass tape and had to be cut open with a knife. Detective Patrick reached inside and
pulled out two large models built to resemble a police station and a firehouse. The walls of each model were wired with
LED lights and plastered in black and white photos of missing and murdered children.
Among them were Eaton Pates, a 6-year-old boy who went missing from New York in 1979.
Jacob Wedling, an 11-year-old boy kidnapped and murdered in Minnesota in 1989, and Caneric Synthesum phone, a
14-year-old victim of serial killer Jeffrey Dharma, who was murdered in Milwaukee in 1991.
In another box, police found miniature models of fire trucks, police cars, and other automobiles.
One of the officers reached inside and picked up a gold matchbox- sized Buick Riviera.
Written on the bottom in magic marker was the number 14 as well as a name, John C. Zer.
It didn't take long for Detective Patrick to find a corresponding photo of the 14-year-old whom he immediately
recognized as a local unsolved murder victim. In a bedroom closet upstairs, officers
discovered a photo album and a journal focused entirely on John Zer with entries dating back to the day the
teenager went missing. Inside were family photos of John and his brothers, as well as maps of
Franklin High School and Whitnull Park covered in handwritten notes. In some of the photos, which looked as
though they'd been captured surreptitiously, Jon's brothers appeared much older than they were at the time of
his murder. This led officers to believe aka had performed surveillance on the family for
years. They also found a framed photo of John and his brothers sitting on their living
room couch with two dogs. It was wrapped in newspaper along with pine cones and what appeared to be a
cross. Another item recovered was a diary which contained numerous concerning passages.
One of them read, "Friday, February 20th, 1976. Between 1:30 p.m. and 2:00 p.m., the boy
is made to or is completely undressed. Even his socks are removed. Such is the horror John had to go
through. The boy was sexually assaulted, but somehow after the assault, he managed to run away to attempt to
escape, but was caught about 30 ft from the sexual assault area. John Cz was caught knocked down on the
ground, possibly unconscious, then struck on his right forehead with a round rock, which sadly caused the boy's
death. Another read. February 29th, 1976. As I kneel, I see the blood and fluids
from the head trauma. To the left is the empty hole where the rock had been removed, telling me it was a panic meant
to kill the boy because of his escape attempt. Detective Kent Skoonover was on his way
to a conference when he received a phone call from his boss who instructed him to
turn around and head to the station right away. Skunover was shocked to learn what had
been discovered at Aker's home. Like most detectives who'd worked the case, he knew all about aka, an innocuous,
busy body who police had taken an interest in back in 1976. The former mental health aid was
dismissed as a suspect after passing a lie detector test. Over the years, he'd annoyed police with
his persistent claims that a mental health patient named Joe witnessed J's murder.
At best, he was seen as a citizen detective who wanted to help solve a well publicized crime.
At worst, he was a nuisance who perpetuated harmful theories and wasted investigators time.
Now, Detective Skunover wondered if it was possible police had misjudged him. At the Greenfield Police Station, two
detectives conducted a second interview with Aka, asking him about the bizarre scene in his basement.
Aka said it was nothing more than a harmless hobby. In his youth, he'd wanted to be a
fireman, but his health prevented him from pursuing such a physically demanding career. To fill the void, he'd
started building and collecting model fire trucks. John Zer's death affected him so greatly
that he decided to dedicate his model building to missing and murdered children.
To make the hobby more meaningful, he put some of their names on certain vehicles.
Watching the interview in real time, Detective Skunover was immediately reminded of John Zer's own love for
model building. According to his parents, he could spend an entire Saturday in his room lovingly assembling
model railroads, cars, and trucks. Aka began telling the detectives about his strange relationship with his
mother, whom he claimed had belittled him from the time he was a child. He'd wet the bed growing up, something she
openly made fun of in front of his friends. He also claimed that his mother ridiculed his dream of becoming a
fireman. A former neighbor of Akas later confirmed this, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "He would have killed
her if he could have." "The vitriol with which Aka discussed his mother surprised the detectives who
thus far had only seen his soft-spoken side. When confronted about the allegations
put forward by his boss, Aker admitted to engaging in inappropriate sexual behavior with a handful of young boys.
He said that in the 1970s, he'd had relationships with several teenagers, but all were consensual.
He blamed the fact that these relationships turned sexual on his drinking at the time, claiming he only
pursued the boys when under the influence of alcohol. He said that beer made him horny, which
was why he'd given it up as he got older. That was all the information police needed to charge him with secondderee
sexual assault of a child, a crime that carried a maximum penalty of 40 years in
prison. In the days and weeks that followed, scores of men came forward to accuse
Daniel Aker of having molested them when they were children, and four new counts
of sexual assault were filed against him. In total, more than 50 individuals claimed to have been victimized by the
swim instructor over a 33-year period, with one man saying he was molested more than a 100 times.
Aker only admitted to having quote relationships with five of his accusers, all in the 1970s.
According to authorities, his victims were between the ages of 7 and 18 when they were abused.
In the years since, at least one had taken their own life, while another died of a drug overdose.
Several others suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder leading to broken marriages and unstable work
histories. The Greenfield Police Department released a public statement that said,
"We believe we've only scratched the surface in people we've talked to already. We believe there are more
victims out there." After speaking with several survivors, a disturbing pattern emerged.
It seemed that Aka went out of his way to target boys from troubled homes, befriending them and gifting them
expensive shoes, sports jerseys, video game systems, and meals. He even allowed several to live with him
when things got tense at home. Once Aka secured the boy's trust, he would ply them with alcohol and cannabis
before coercing them into sex. Police believed this was a deliberate manipulation tactic. By making his
victims feel indebted to him, Aka was able to groom them into doing whatever he wanted, from taking nude photos to
giving and receiving massages and performing various sex acts. On Saturday, March 28, 2009, Aker
appeared in court shackled at the wrists and ankles. No friends, family, or accusers were
present as the court commissioner set his bail at $65,000 and told him he could no longer have any
contact with the men and boys who'd filed charges against him. The community was horrified.
For more than 30 years, Aka, known to his students as Mr. Dan, had been a beloved teacher and friend. Co-workers
from the West Dallas West Milwaukee recreation department spoke of his kindness, calling him a role model for
new instructors. Several even compared him to actor Rowan Atinson, star of the British television
series Mr. Bean, which revolves around an adult who acts like a child. One man who worked alongside Aker in the
1980s and '90s told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Sometimes, you know, when a coach is
just there for the money, I always thought Dan truly cared about the kids in class."
Despite compelling evidence tying Daniel Aka to John Zer's murder, detectives Skoonover and Stall didn't want to
interfere with Greenfield's investigation, so they waited. In the meantime, they gathered as much
information on Aker as they could, starting with his troubled childhood. The only boy in a family of girls, his
mother was harder on him than she was on his three sisters, often berating him for minor infractions and discouraging
his ambitions. His father was largely absent due to a demanding job. But when he was home, he
ignored his children in favor of drinking. Aka graduated from St. Rita Catholic School in 1962
around the same time that George Nidelling was associate pastor at the church. Nidelling died in 1994 when Aka was 46.
8 years later in 2002, 10 men accused him of molesting them in the 1960s and '7s.
When SNAP, the survivors network of those abused by priests, looked into the allegations, they found dozens of
additional men who'd reported being abused by Nidling. Though Aka never claimed to be one of
them, it did raise questions in the minds of investigators. Was it possible that Daniel Lacker had
also been a victim of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a trusted older man?
Detectives Skoonover and Stal were surprised to learn that while living in Greenfield in the 1970s, aka's landlord
had confronted him about the steady stream of teenage boys he had at his apartment.
Aka assured him nothing untoward was going on and explained that the boys were fellow hobbyists who just wanted to
see his extensive collection of models. The landlord didn't believe him and in 1973 he asked Aka to move out.
Several months later while living in nearby Franklin, Aka was accused of asking a teenage boy and his friend to
pose for nude photos. He claimed it was a misunderstanding and the police dropped the matter.
A year later, Aker's former landlord offered his old apartment back as long as he promised not to invite any
underage boys over. Aka agreed, but soon went back on his word. This time, the landlord called
Greenfield police, who spent several days staking out Aker's apartment. When they didn't see any boys coming or
going, they closed the case. In the years that followed, Aka became a foster parent, taking in a troubled boy
named Tim. Tim's mother, who had six other children, could no longer handle her 11-year-old son. So, Aka offered to
informally adopt him. For years, the two lived together. aka providing Tim with the stability he
desperately needed, taking him on camping trips, buying him birthday presents, and providing a space for him
and his friends to hang out. When Tim grew up and had children of his own, those children also lived with Aka.
He was just somebody who wanted to be a parent, and he did the best he could, Tim told reporters following Aka's
arrest. According to Tim and his two sons, Aka never crossed any lines with them.
Though in retrospect, there were moments that seemed off. One time while out for dinner with Tim
and several others, Hacker was confronted by a man he'd known in the 1970s. The man accused the swim instructor of
sexually abusing him as a teenager in front of the entire dining hall. Over the next few months, the man threw food
at Aka's house, called him at work, and left rambling messages on his answering machine.
He also ordered pornographic magazines in John Zer's name, and mailed them to Aka in an attempt to unnerve him.
Tim hadn't wanted to believe the man's story back then, but now he wondered if it was true.
Although the original investigators of Jon's murder knew about Aker's history of inappropriate contact with young
boys, he'd been eliminated as a suspect following a successful polygraph test. In the 1970s, criminal profiling was in
its infancy. Police didn't know that murderers often returned to the scene of the crime to either relive the act or
regain a sense of control. Nor did they know that killers can pose as helpful witnesses in an effort to
misdirect police and steer suspicion away from themselves. Aka had done both of those things.
With their more sophisticated training, detectives and stall recognized these red flags and began to dig deeper.
In speaking with the John's family, they discovered that Aka had inserted himself
into their daily lives. Several months after J's murder, he wrote to John's parents, offering his
services as a private investigator free of charge. He didn't have a license or any
experience in law enforcement. Yet, he passed himself off as someone who could help them find their son's killer,
praying on their desperation for answers. Over time, he became friends with Jon's
mother, Janice, enjoying dinners at the Zera house and receiving a yearly Christmas card from the family.
He even tried to form relationships with Jon's brothers, inviting them to baseball games and open swims at the
pools where he worked. Both were put off by Aka, who they found creepy and invasive.
As Mark later recalled to reporter Gina Barton, "I remember having either Christmas or Thanksgiving or some kind
of dinner with him, I just didn't like the guy. I thought he was a creep from the first time I ever met him."
On Friday, February 5, 2010, the now 62-year-old Daniel Lacker was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexual assault
of a child. In a pre-sentencing interview, he confessed to molesting around 20 boys,
ranging in age from 10 to 17 over 30 years. Given Aka's age, there was a strong chance he'd die in prison.
In Detective Skunover's view, this meant he had nothing to lose by admitting he was Jon's killer.
He visited Aker in prison, but Aka wouldn't confess. In fact, he doubled down on his claims
about Joe the patient, seemingly determined to convince Skoover he was a good guy trying to help a grieving
family cope with their son's death. Frustrated but not defeated, detectives built a circumstantial case against
Dhaka. Their theory was that he and John had bonded over their shared love of model
building. Back in 1976, the greater Milwaukee area didn't have many places for hobbyists to
gather, but there were a few arts and crafts shops that both John and Aka frequented, though no one could recall
having ever seen them together. Detectives believed they'd met at one of these shops, and that aka had likely
been scoping Jon out for some time. an experienced predator. He'd taken advantage of the boy's loneliness and
presented himself as a friend. On the day of the murder, he picked John up from school and took him to Whitnull
Park. There, after weeks or possibly even months of grooming, he made his move. When things didn't go as planned, he
bludgeoned Jon in a panic. Such an action would be consistent with the scene detailed in Aker's diary.
Detectives Skunover and Stall took their case to the district attorney's office,
but were told that all of the original investigation's mistakes and misconduct would make it nearly impossible to
prosecute. Without concrete evidence, like DNA or a confession, there was no guarantee they
could prove Aka's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. With no avenues left to pursue,
Detective Skunover retired from the Hails Corners Police Force, haunted by the fact that he was unable to solve
Jon's murder. "I feel like I failed," he admitted in 2015. "I wonder if there's something else I
could have done." John's case once again went cold and his family was forced to grapple with the
fact that his killer might never be caught. His parents tried to move forward as
best they could, refusing to talk about the case with reporters and sometimes even their own children. The pain just
too great to keep reliving. Their youngest son, Phil, was traumatized by the loss, moving nearly
1,000 miles away from where he and his older brother were forced to grow up without Jon.
Elder son, Mark, stayed in the Milwaukee area, married and had children of his own. He continued to communicate with
both the police and press, determined to keep Jon's memory alive. In 2015, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
investigative journalist Gina Barton was granted unprecedented access to the Zer
case file and many of its key players, including investigators, witnesses, and suspects.
She spent months conducting interviews, reviewing official documents, and watching more than 20 hours of
interrogation videos. The result was an in-depth series of articles about the Zer case published on
the 40th anniversary of Jon's murder along with a podcast series titled Unsolved.
Much of the information revealed in Barton's reporting had previously been withheld from the public.
This information reignited public interest in the case and raised new questions about the systemic failures
that had plagued the initial investigation. In a Q&A, Barton explained why taking on
Jon's case was so important to her. One of the primary reasons we wanted to put our efforts into this was the fact
that it's unsolved. In talking with the Hails Corner's Police, they and we at the Journal
Sentinel hoped that perhaps shedding light on it could help finally bring the killer to justice.
Following the release of Barton series, the Hales Corners police chief decided to reopen the case.
The first thing the new team did was ask Greenfield police for the models from Daniel Aker's basement, but they no
longer had them. After aka was convicted of sexual assault, the models were returned to one of his sisters.
She'd since thrown them away, leaving police without access to yet another puzzle piece.
The newly retired detective Kent Skoonover agreed to work on the case as a consultant.
One day, while sifting through boxes of evidence taken from Aka's home, he'd found a woven leather belt too small for
Aka, but just big enough for a 14-year-old boy. He wondered if the belt could have
belonged to John. In the 6,000 plus pages of documents pertaining to the Zer case, only once
was a belt brought up. The day police found Jon's body in Whitnull Park when describing his clothing, one officer had
mentioned a basket weave brown leather belt approximately 1.25 in wide. No such belt was ever saved as evidence,
but the description sounded eerily similar to the one found in Aker's possession.
The belt was sent away for forensic examination with the Hales Corner's police chief telling the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel that if it was J's belt, that's going to be the nail in Aka's coffin.
Hopes were raised further when investigators discovered a journal entry aka had written on the day Jon's body
was found. It read, "Oddlyly, I would learn that the boy's belt was not found." Amidst dozens of sinister entries, this
more innocuous one had gone unnoticed for years. In light of Detective Skunover's
discovery, it suddenly took on greater significance. Investigators also gave John's clothing
to the internationally renowned DNA diagnostics center in Fairfield, Ohio, believing it might harbor trace DNA such
as skin cells or sweat. The items had been tested in the 1990s and early 2000s, but failed to generate
any leads. Given advancements in forensic science, police were optimistic things would be
different this time around. In 2016, Hails Corner's police announced that no biological material had been
found on the belt from Daniel Aker's home and that the tests run on Jon's clothing had failed to provide a usable
DNA profile, likely due to improper storage and contamination. February 2026 marked the 50th
anniversary of John Zer's death. At the time of this episode's release, no one has been charged with his murder.
When re-examining all 1,45 names in the Zer case file, Hails Corner's police found that 105 individuals needed to be
followed up on. They're currently in the process of doing so. In the wake of Daniel Aker's arrest,
Michael Euporski, the substitute teacher once considered the prime suspect in John's murder, was exonerated.
Although his career in professional sports never recovered, he considers himself lucky to still be here.
In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Euporski said, "When you look back on tragedy, the Zeras lost
a son. I lost a job. James Lee Crumbl, the former laundry truck driver who was also considered a
suspect in John's killing, was eventually convicted of two other murders and five rapes.
He continued to maintain his innocence in J's case while awaiting execution in San Quentin State Prison before dying by
suicide in his prison cell. As for Daniel Aka, former detective Kent Skunover and many others involved with
the case still consider him the most viable suspect in J's murder. This case has not come to a complete
conclusion, Skunover told Gina Barton in 2015. And it needs to for the benefit of the
family, for the benefit of justice, for the benefit of the department. This case needs to be finished.
On the 40th anniversary of John's murder, his older brother Mark imagined what a world with John still in it would
look like. Speaking to Gina Barton, he said, "I'd like to think if he was still alive
today, he'd have a successful career and a family, a wife, some kids, maybe a couple grandkids,
a place out in the country because that's what he liked. He liked dogs and pets, so he'd probably have the nuclear
family. One of the things that really bothers me is that he missed out on all that kind
of stuff. People tell you to let it go and forget about it, that you've got to move on
with your life. And I certainly have done that. But it's something I think about almost every single day.

On February 28 1976, the suburban community of Hales Corners, Wisconsin, was rocked when the body of missing schoolboy, 14-year-old John Zera, was discovered in a local park. The teenager hadn't been seen for over a week, having gone missing in the middle of the school day without so much as a word.

Over the next few years, the investigation into John’s brutal murder was plagued by mistakes and misconduct before eventually going cold. Thirty years later, the case was resurrected after police discovered a chilling scene.

CREDITS Narration – Anonymous Host Research & writing – Brianne Jaskulski Production & music – Mike Migas Audio editing – Anthony Telfer

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RESOURCES

Brief Summary

John Zer was murdered in 1976; Daniel Aker was arrested in 2009 with evidence linking him to the case.

Key points

The Disappearance of John Zer. On February 20, 1976, 14-year-old John Zer went missing after school, leading to a frantic search by his family and police.
Chilling Discovery in Whitnull Park. Eight days after John went missing, his body was found in a park, raising alarm in the community.
David Cole's Polygraph Test. David Cole passes a polygraph test but remains a person of interest in Jon's death.
Daniel Laca's Connection. Daniel Laca, a mental health aide, becomes a suspect after a tip about his behavior.
Police Misplaced Evidence. Confidential materials related to John Zer's murder are found in an abandoned address.
Euporski's Dark Past Uncovered. Police discover Michael Euporski's troubling history of violence against young boys.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Have you seen Johnny?

A mother's desperate plea for her missing son.

6:02WatchJun 20, 2026

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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