Detective says Zelich told him deaths were accidental
By Kellen Olshefski
Staff Writer
Steven Zelich, accused of hiding two bodies in the Town of Geneva, has been bound over for trial during a preliminary hearing Thursday morning in Walworth County Circuit Court.
According to testimony from Walworth County Sheriff’s Detective Jeffrey Recknagel, Zelich told him he took the lives of the two victims in separate incidents in 2012 and 2013. He said Zelich told him the deaths were unintentional.
Defense Attorney Travis Schwantes said considering the charges in the complaint have two elements, the second of which is concealing or hiding a corpse with the intent to conceal a crime or avoid apprehension, charges against Zelich should be dismissed based on the placement of the suitcases.
Schwantes said as the suitcases were placed on the side of a road not too far from the Geneva Township Police Department, it doesn’t show the bodies were hidden and that they were more likely placed to be discovered.
Despite the defense’s reasoning, Walworth County Circuit Court Judge Phillip Koss bound Zelich over for trial, saying that the bodies were not placed for easy discovery.
“They could have been placed on Highway 100 in Milwaukee or in West Allis if they had wanted to be found, or left in the hotel rooms,” he said. “They were hid earlier, they were hid again…they were out of sight, they were clearly there for a few days and nobody noticed them, at least according to the defendant’s own statement, until June 5.”
In regards to whether the bodies were hidden with intent to conceal a crime, Koss said between reasonable inferences and common sense, it’s not logical to hide the suitcases if a crime had not been committed.
“If there’s purely no crime, I’m not sure why one doesn’t call 911 immediately,” he said. “Even under the issue of the claim that the defendant says they were accidental, perhaps once, or twice, that’s another reference that I can draw, that it’s not likely to be accidental when this happens two times.”
Koss said he believed the bodies had been hidden with intent to hide the bodies and that Zelich had likely committed the felony charges against him, and bound him over to the felony court.
In both incidents, Recknagel said, Zelich admitted to meeting the victims in online chat rooms, arranging to meet the women, and spending days at hotels for sexual encounters with the two women involving BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism and/or masochism), at which time the women died.
Recknagel said Zelich told him he had been storing the bodies in suitcases in the trunk of his vehicle until the smell had become “so strong, that he decided he had to get rid of them.”
“He told me that one day he just decided he was going to get rid of them, he drove into Walworth County and then he placed those two suitcases into the ditch on Como Road,” Recknagel said.
Recknagel said Zelich admitted to placing the suitcases in the ditch a few days prior to when they were discovered on June 5.
An arraignment hearing for Zelich has been scheduled at 1:15 p.m. on July 17.
