Trial finally underway in 1976 murder trial

Forty-five years after David Schuldes and Ellen Matheys were murdered in Marinette County’s McClintock Park, a trial began for the man authorities believe committed the crime.

“You’ve probably all watched horror stories or terrible scary movies, but what you’re going to hear surpasses anything that you’ve ever watched on TV,” special prosecutor Mark Williams told a Marinette County jury Monday afternoon as he began to describe how 25-year-old Schuldes’ body was found outside the park restroom on July 9, 1976.

The body of his 24-year-old fiancee, Matheys, was found the next day in a wooded area nearby. Both had been shot to death with a .30 caliber firearm; Matheys had been raped first.

From inside the woman’s shorts, investigators preserved a DNA sample of an unknown man believed to have committed the murders, and then spent “year after year” trying to find that man, Williams said. One of their tools was a DNA profile developed from the sample.

By December 2018, technology had advanced to the point where analysts could say that the suspect was one of the four sons or grandsons of Gladys and Edward K. Vannieuwenhoven, a Green Bay area family, Williams said. Detectives began an effort to obtain DNA samples from the couple’s three surviving sons.

That search led in early March 2019 to Raymand L. Vannieuwenhoven, 84, of Lakewood, whose trial is expected to last up to 10 days.

The DNA evidence is irrefutable, Williams told the jury.

“You’re going to hear that literally no one else in the world could have left that semen stain on Ellen Matheys’ shorts but that guy over there,” he said.
In his opening statement, defense attorney Lee Schuchart conceded that it’s his client’s DNA, but he said the case is not about who may have had sex with the woman.

“The state has to prove to each and every one of you beyond any reasonable doubt that Ray Vannieuwenhoven shot and killed these people,” Schuchart said. “Semen didn’t kill these people; bullets killed these people.”

Schuchart also pointed out that Vannieuwenhoven does not fit the description of a man seen in the area carrying a rifle around the time of the crime. A witness described a man with a mustache who was no more than 28 years old.

“Ray was 39, and he didn’t look young,” he said, adding that he has never worn facial hair.

Security was tight at the Marinette County Courthouse. Anyone who entered the courtroom had to pass through a metal detector, and purses and other carry-in bags were prohibited.

Judge James A. Morrison and the attorneys spent the morning questioning a pool of 28 prospective jurors. Fifteen more possible jurors waited in the gallery, and another couple of dozen watched the proceedings via video feed in another room.

Several were excused for medical or other reasons, and then the prosecution and defense exercised their right to strike seven more people apiece from the pool to reach the panel of 12 jurors and two alternates who are hearing the trial.

After Monday’s opening statements, testimony began Tuesday morning.