By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
It’s a well-documented issue – the Wisconsin State Crime Lab is running behind on processing evidence.
The problem is a political football that has been punted around, with an audit showing that turnaround times have slowed and both Republicans and Democrats pointing a finger at the other party as the cause.
Unfortunately for two local families, that delay is causing heartache.
With the double homicide trial involving Thomas Routt Jr. now postponed until June of 2025 due to evidence processing delays, the families of Emerson and Gina Weingart are frustrated – in part because of the delay, in part because of other states processing cases faster and perhaps in part with the pain and suffering that is being extended with the delay.
Gina, tending bar at the Sports Page Barr on Feb. 1, 2024, was allegedly shot by Routt. Routt then allegedly shot Gina’s husband, Emerson, before firing at a witness and fleeing the scene.
Routt was charged roughly two weeks later, and allegedly confessed to shooting the couple while robbing the bar.
The families asked for expediency in the trial – purposely worded to allow for the trial to move as quickly as possible but with all the evidence to support the charges.
At the final pre-trial hearing Nov. 19, Walworth County District Attorney Zeke Wiedenfeld told the court he needed to ask for a delay because fingerprint analysis, ballistics and reports regarding the collection of evidence from the scene had not been returned by the crime lab.
Since both sides on the trial felt they would need more time when the reports came in, the trial – which was supposed to start next week – was delayed, with no available dates that accommodated the defense, the DA and the court until June.
Wiedenfeld said Monday that some of the reports have since come in, but he would not comment on the case outside of the court record at the hearing.
He added that there didn’t appear to be anything that either he, the DA’s office or law enforcement could have done to speed up the process – something he stated at the final pre-trial hearing as well.
That isn’t much comfort to Jeff Weingart, Emerson’s father. Weingart has spoken at most of the hearings and seems to have become the unofficial spokesperson for the families of Gina and Emerson, who were married in the summer of 2023.
Jeff called the process “disheartening” in a telephone interview Nov. 21.
“One of the frustrating parts is that Laken Riley was killed at the end of February,” he said, referring to the nursing student who was murdered in Georgia Feb. 22.
Jose Antonio Ibarra was convicted of the murder and sentenced just a day after the final pre-trial hearing in the Routt case.
“There’s nothing I can do,” Jeff said. “There’s no excuses. I don’t know what the reasons are, and, quite frankly, I don’t care.
“It’s just frustrating to live through this because of our state’s inability to get something done on time,” he added.
There are other reasons for the frustration. At the final pre-trial, Routt’s attorney Russell Jones indicated that he was lining up expert testimony on false confessions, indicating that he intended to challenge the confession Routt made further than simply trying to get it suppressed – an effort made in July of this year.
Walworth County Judge Kristine Drettwan denied the motion to suppress, and the family had hopes that Routt would change his plea.
“That he would see that, and his lawyer would see that,” Jeff said, adding that he said he had told the DA’s office he would not accept a plea bargain.
“That man needs to go to jail for the rest of his life,” he said.
Instead, he and other families were informed in the hour before the final pre-trial hearing Nov. 19 that the trial would have to be delayed.
“My heart sunk in my chest,” Jeff said. “You have to understand, we went there in hopes that he was going to change his plea. We had no idea this was going to happen. No inkling. It didn’t even factor into any of our thinking. Having a murder trial in the second week of December was difficult enough to bear for the past several months. The only hope that we could cling to was that he would change his plea, in preponderance of the evidence.”
Jeff went on to say that the grief runs deep for all the family members of Emerson and Gina, and that there is a huge sense of loss.
“Unless you’ve lost a child,” he began, “a child who was a victim of a violent crime, like Laken Riley.”
“There’s no words,” he said.
Speaking in general terms, Wiedenfeld offered the following explanation – not specific to the Routt case.
“Normally if either party in a criminal case is waiting on expert reports, it is common to wait until the latest time possible to notify the court because if the report comes in late, but both parties agree that proceeding is not a problem, the trial proceeds without any issues needing to be addressed by the court,” Wiedenfeld wrote in an email. “Sometimes with cases that are not resource intensive, a report could be received a week before the trial and neither party would have an issue with the late discovery, so the trial could proceed.
“However, on complex, resource-intensive cases, the decision needs to be made earlier since there is more likely a need for additional investigation based on the reports, or a need to consult with additional experts,” he added. “Once one of the parties believes the case would be unable to proceed even if the report was provided at that late time, then the court is notified, with the likely result being a continuation.”
The new final pre-trial hearing on the case is scheduled for June 6, with a 12-person jury trial starting June 23. A new potential pool of jurors will be selected for trial at that time.
