been zealously trying to prove Laurie Bembenek's

innocence for almost 20 years. Has the driven PI

been right all along? BY ERIK GUNN

48 MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE APRIL 2003

ft i

N A WET MORNINC: LAST OCIOUKR, Laurie Bembenek stood outside courtroom 310 in the Downtown Safety Building under a glare of television lights. Microphones bristled in her face and cameras clicked with the sound of mechanical locusts.

Just minutes before. Judge Jeffrey A. Conen had granted a motion to test DNA samples from evidence in the murder of Christine Schultz.

A weary, serene smile crossed Bembenek's face as she gave the swarm­ing press an impromptu news conference. Bembenek, die subject of two T'V diKudramas and three books, including

her own memoir, was resolute in asserting once again her innocence of the notorious murder of her former husband s ex-wife. She tt)ld reporters she sought the "clo­sure" that would come when her name was cleared. Then siie turned to the burly, balding man with the drooping left eye standing beside lier.

"I want to thank Ira Robins for bringing it all back together," Bembenek said quietly. Replied Robins: "I'm at a loss for words, which for me is pretty unusual."

In the months since that October morning, Bembenek's quest to clear her name turned maddeningly unsatisfying and then bizarrely tragic. Bembenek told reporters that morn­ing: "1 haven't really thought about" the possibility that the DNA findings would be in­conclusive. But that, to date, is what has happened. In her tavor, none of the materials from the scene of the murder showed signs of her own DNA. But they also have yet to show signs of DNA from any other potentiiil suspect, although more tests are slated. Meanwhile, through an almost surreal turn of events, Bembenek has lost her foot in an accident brought on, in some ways, by the very celebrity of her case.

It is a plot twist worthy of a soap opera. At the center of the long, lurid story is Laurie Bembenek - the woman cast by prosecutors as a femnie fatale, by herself and her advo­cates as a wounded innocent. Yet if she is the star, another figure has come to be virtually S as pivotal in this tale: Ira Robins.

A former cop and then one-time private investigator, the 61 year-old Robins has been carrying the banner of Bembenek's in nocence for nearly one-third ol his life. I le's done so while go^ ing into thousands of dollars of debt, sleeping on couches and squeaking by from paycheck to paycheck.

Even Bembenek's lawyer credits Robins with jump-starting her latest appeal. Mary Woehrer, a diminutive, intense former Vet­erans Administration counsel who is handling Bembenek's DNA petition free of charge, explains that the most recent turning point comes thanks to a 2001 state law allowing criminal defendants to seek DNA evidence that could exonerate them. After the law passed, Woehrer says, "Ira brought us back together."

In many ways, Robins has been the public face and mouth­piece of Bembenek's battle, doggedly combing through old records in search of new clues, by turns cajoling and browbeating the media, raising fiands to pay for the proceedings. More than one person, he acknowledges, has speculated he was in k)ve with the woman whose looks, calendar girl modeling stint and

L A W R E N C I A B E M B E N E K , 1989. SHE LATER C H A N G E D HER N A M E TO LAURIE

W W W . M I L W A U K E E M A G A Z I N E C O M MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE APRIL 2003 49

four-week tenure as a Playboy Club waitress helped stoke the me­dia machine that has followed the case from its inception. Not so, he insists.

"I'm not in love with Laurie Bembenek and I never have been," Robins says in a voice that suggests the question was old long ago. "And these people that would choose to beat the mes­senger up rather than hear the message, I'm astounded with."

And the message? That not only is Bembenek innocent but that she has been the victim of 22 years of determined prosecu­tion that ignored evidence that would have exonerated her long ago. That police errors and prosecutorial zeal crossed the line into cover-up. That cops and attorneys combined to let not only an innocent woman go to prison but to let guilty people go free.

And that it could happen to anyone. It is a message that is at once captivating in its clarity and au­

dacious in its implications. Parse it out, and it's no wonder Robins is so disliked in some lawyers' offices around the county, includ­ing that of District Attorney E. Michael McCann. After all, Robins has been making a career of calling the coimty's top law enforcement offici;il - and there's no other way to put it - a liar.

SHORTLY AFTF.R2 A.M. ON MAY 28, 1981, someone entered the home of Christine Schulte on West Ramsey Avenue, tied her up and gagged her. The intruder jircssed a gun to her back, fired one shot, killing her, and fled. Schultz's sons, who had struggled briefly with the invader, described a man nearly 6 feet tall with pale hair tied in a ponytail and a scarf wrapped around his head and nose. They gave inconsistent descriptions of what the per­son wore - a jacket? a jogging suit? - but 11-year-old Sean Schultz described the footwear as black police shoes. Sean and his 7-year-old brother, Shannon, tried to comfort their dead or dying mother and stop her bleeding with her old T-shirt. They called their mother's boyfriend, a police otTicer, who called 911.

Christine Schultz was the ex-wife of Milwaukee Police detec­tive Elfred Schultz, who was now married to a former Milwau­kee police officer named Lawrencia Bembenek. The daughter of a retired Milwaukee cop, Bembenek had realized a lifelong dream when she joined the force in 1980. In her first month after grad­uating from the Milwaukee police academy, however, she vras fired.

In her autobiography, Bembenek says that she was first in­vestigated while still in training, after an anonymous caller false­ly told police she had smoked marijuana at a party and then bragged she could not be arrested because she was a cop. Weeks later, Bembenek attended a rock concert with police officer Judy Zess. At that concert, police arrested Zess and charged her with possession of marijuana. Zess was later fired.

When Bembenek graduated in August, it was under a cloud. She blames her dismissal on what she says was a false report by Zess that she, too, had smoked marijuana at the concert.

During the fall of 1980, however, Bembenek was shown some pictures of parties at Lake Park sponsored by The Tracks tavern on Locust Street. Naked women and men - many of them po­lice officers - danced and preened before the cameras. Bembenek complained to the Milwaukee office of the U.S. Equal Employ­ment Opportunity Commission, charging that she was disci­plined much more harshly for an idleged infraction she denied than were men who were committing more serious and clearly docu­mented violations. She also turned copies of the Tracks picnic pic­tures over to the police department's Internal Affairs division.

During this same period, Bembenek began dating police de­tective Elfred Schultz, himself one of the figures in the pictures. Schultz divorced his wife, Christine, in November 1980 and married Bembenek on January 31,1981, in Waukegan.

Bembenek and Schultz began their married life sharing an

apartment with Judy Zess. Bembenek was working part time at a health club. By April, the marriage was already under strain. Schultz was paying the $383 monthly mortgage for Christine Schultz's house, and in addition, $365 a month in child support. Then Zess moved out, driving up the couple's rent costs.

On the night Christine Schultz was killed, Elfred Schultz and his partner, detective Michael Durfee, were working the overnight shift. Bembenek was home alone. Shortly after the shooting was reported, a detective captain called Schultz and Durfee into the station and told Schultz about his ex-wife's kiUing. Several hours later, Durfee and Schultz went to the 20th Street apart­ment Schultz and Bembenek shared and collected Schultz's off-duty gun as part of the investigation.

After the shooting, Schultz and Bembenek moved into Bem-benek's parents' home. About two weeks later, tenants in their former apartment complained of overflowing toilets and a plumber fished what was later described as a reddish-brown wig from a drain in the apartment complex. Police later learned of the incident and recovered the wig at a landfill.

On June 24, police charged Bembenek with Christine Schultz's murder. In the trial nine months later, prosecutors charged that Bembenek had complained about the financial strain imposed by Schultz's child support and his ex-wife's mortgage. They pre­sented witnesses who claimed to have seen Bembenek wearing a green jogging suit and sought to match that to the description the Schultz children had given of the intruder's clothing. Yet the older child, Sean, who knew Bembenek, had testified firmly that he was certain she was not the intnider.

Ballistics reports and testimony linked the murder bullet to Elfred Schultz's off-duty gun, and blond and red hairs apparently collected from the gag used on Christine Schultz were tied to Bembenek and to the red wig. Jurors convicted Bembenek and Judge Michael Skwierawski sentenced her to life in prison.

Bembenek went toTaycheedah prison proclaiming her inno­cence. Her appeals in the years that followed all failed. Then, in July 1990, she escaped, aided by Dominic Gugliatto, a Milwau­kee factory worker who had fallen in love with her while on vis­its to his sister, anotherTaycheedah inmate. The escape became a media sensation and sympathizers in Milwaukee rallied with signs and T-shirts proclaiming, "Run, Bambi, Run!"

Four months later, the two were arrested in Thunder Bay, On­tario. Bembenek sought refugee status but ultimately returned to Taycheedah.

Spurred on by a series of problems that had already emerged in the evidence, Ira Robins and lawyer Mary Woehrer filed a pe­tition seeking a secret John Doe inquiry into the case. Judge William Haesc ordered the proceeding in October 1991 and the final report was issued in August 1992. Soon afterward, new lawyers for Bembenek moved to seek a new trial, oudining holes in the case. Prosecutors and Bembenek reached a deal: In return for a new plea of no contest to a charge of second-degree murder, Bembenek would be sentenced to 20 years in prison, be given credit for 10 and allowed to serve the final 10 years on parole.

IRA ROBINS HAD PAID LITTLE ATTEN'IION to Laurie Bem-benek's original trial and conviction. The week before Christine Schultz's death, Robins had turned in his badge after 14 years as a Wauwatosa police oftlcer.

Robins grew up in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood. His father was a police officer turned machinist, his mother a pianist who played for radio programs. After three years in the Army, Robins signed on as a railroad cop, then made his way to Wis­consin, working as a house detective at Gimbel's and joining the

50 MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE APRIL 2003 W W W . M I L W A U K E E M A G A Z 1 N E . C O M

Wauwatosa Police Department in 1%7. On the losa force, Robins trained with Jim Strauss. "He's a go-

getter," Strauss says ot Robins, who's been a friend ever since. "He was always looking to find something wrong - he caught a lot of burglars. Every moment he was out, he'd give you 100 percent."

And, says Strauss, now retired, Robins was always honest. For much ot his career at the Wauwatosa Police Department,

however, Robins, who's Jewish, complained that supervisors ha­rassed him, caUing him "Hebe" and "kike." Harassment, he charges, took other forms as well, including unfair disciplinary reports. Strauss and Robert Staffaroni, a police union president during Robins' service, confirm Robins' account. I'inally, in 1981, Robins quit and sued the department for discrimination, won a probable cause finding from the state's Equal Rights Division and later accepted a confidential setdement.

Robins, who is divorced with two grown sons, set up shop as a

80,000 miles on this car since he bought it used a few years ago. Robins is no longer a self-employed investigator; his state

private investigator's license lapsed in 1997 and he chose not to renew it. He works exclusively for lawyer Joe Owens, and because of this arrangement is not required to hold a license. He calls his work not investigation but "consulting." "I give opinions and help people put their own cases together," says Robins. "I just tell 'em, 'Here's what you're looking for and here's where you find it.' "

On this particular day, Robins is poking around in the appar­ent suicide by shotgun of a young racecar driver. He's learned of another death - also billed a suicide - with remarkable similari­ties, down to the fact that both dead men had the same girlfriend. He suspects murder in both cases but has litrie faith police will follow up. "Every time I come on the scene, the police will go out of their way to not solve the crime rather than giving anyone credit."

That sort of conspiracy mongering laced with bombast may

What was at work, Robins says, wasn't procedural error but outright tampering with evidence.

private detective. He first grew interested in Laurie Bembenek's case two years after her conviction, when a mechanic passed him information about the case. Robins, in turn, went to attorney Thomas Halloran, who was handling Bembenek's appeal at the time and who then sent him on to Bembenek's parents. They hired him for $400 up-front and a promise of $600 more later.

The lead never panned out, but Robins was hooked. "After that, I started reading the reports," he says. "I was absolutely stunned. There was no way in the world I could believe this had happened."

What caught Robins' attention was a series of discrepancies. Blood stains on Elfred Schultz's on-duty gun - the same type as Christine Schultz's - apparently were never investigated. Blood stains in a second-floor hallway at Christine Schultz's home - which almost certainly could not have been from the victim, since she died in the bedroom where she was shot - were never tested. In­formation about the puqiorted murder weapon - Schultz's ofl'̂ duty gun - puzzled him as well. For one thing, there was no record of its serial number; in fact, Schultz's detective partner, Michael Durfee, had thrown away his investigator's notebook from the day of the murder, a violation of procedure. Moreover, at the time Durfee collected the gun from Schulrz's home, he had made a ptMnt of noting it appeared not to have been fired that night.

"I wrote to E. Michael McCann, saying, 'There's something radically wrong here. I'm sure you're going to want to know about it,'" Robins recalls. "McCann obviously didn't want to know."

C A N I N F : I M A G E R Y C L I N G S T O R O B I N S , A Washington Post

story about the case (which Robins now dismisses as a hatchet job against himself and Bembenek by a writer who had attend­ed law school with McCann and went on to team up with Schultz to sell rights to the story to ABC) called him a basset hound in print. Bembenek calls him "my own personal pit buU."

A more appropriate comparison, however, might be a blood­hound. In the 19 years he's been a part of the case, Robins has been collecting scraps of information and amassing it in files stuffed in boxes that he stores in a vacant, windowless office at a South Side factory. "I've gotten to be a lot stronger from lifting all these boxes," he quips. He brings to the quest to prove Bembenek's innocence an obsession with being heard, a relentless conviction that he is right and a passionate need for others to admit it.

A few days before Thanksgiving, Robins is navigating his 1998 gold Camry on 1-43 toward New Berlin. He has put

help explain why some lawyers and investigators so readily dis­miss Robins. But while many clearly don't like him, they don't go on the record. Martin Kohler, who worked on one of Bem­benek's three appeals, refijses to comment on Robins. Sheldon Zenner, the Chicago attorney who represented Beinbenek when she reached the 1992 de;il that released her from custody, hangs up the phone when I ask him about the investigator. Robins sued Zenner - and Bembenek herself - in 1993 for breaking a con­tract to share proceeds from her story. Jurors later dismissed the complaint. Robins and Bembenek have since reconciled and Robins is now suing Robert Donohoo, the assistant DA who han­dled the Bembenek appeals and who negotiated the deal that led to her release, for interfering with the original contract.

Robins isn't popular wth some investigators who worked for him. Lori Gonion, who worked for Robins for eight months and shares his belief in Bembenek's innocence, sizes him up as a money-grubbing, self-aggrandizing publicity hound. "Just look at his idea of running for mayor," she sniffs. (Robins was trounced in a 1992 bid to oust John Norquist.) "He's got delusions of grandeur to think he was qualified to run for mayor."

The hostility isn't universal, however. Jim Shellow, a dean of the local defense bar, gives Robins an evenhanded appraisal. "I think he brings an imaginative and creative mind to the inves­tigative process," says Shellow. "But I have always been concerned that the assumptions on which he proceeds aren't thoroughly thought through."

Shellow's former law partner, Stephen Glynn, says of Robins: "I think he's very aggressive and he's also a very good self-starter." He's always fully committed to the client, adds Glynn, "and he views anyone who isn't as the enemy."

Among his partisans, Robins inspires fierce loyalty. Bembenek's current attorney, Mary Woehrer, calls Robins "a zeiJot." "Jesus' first aposdes were zxalots," says Woehrer. "Ira never, ever, ever gives up." The man she knows isn't motivated by the lure of riches to be mined from the Bembenek saga. "There's not a penny for justice," says Woehrer. "It's a case you don't get paid on. Ira's sacrificed a hell of a lot for this case. He's not going to rest until we get an answer."

INDEED, WHATEVER HIS FLAWS, real or imagined, Robins has managed to keep a spotlight on the Bembenek case in a way no one else has. "It's very fair to say he kept it alive," says one oth­erwise harsh critic.

W W W . M I L W A U K E E M A G A Z I N E . C O M MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE APRIL 2003 51

The case Robins assembles can be broken down into three dis­crete layers.

Layer one is that Elfred Schultz - whose testimony was key to the prosecution's case, although he professed to believe in Bem-benek's innocence at the trial - had a record of lying and was the subject of a criminal police investigation at the time ot the murder.

Layer two consists of the questions about guns linked to the case. Virtually all of the evidence relating to possible murder weapons was botched.

Layer three consists of a flurry of questions surrounding the autopsy of Christine Schultz's body, including an indication that the murder at one point was viewed as a possible se.xu;il assault.

Robins can support each of those broad assertions. Police records show that Elfred Schultz - who lives in Florida and now says he believes Bembenek killed his first wife - had been the sub­ject of internal investigations that revolved around evidence that he broke state laws by marrying Bembenek too soon after his di-

Bembenek had access to the gun and the prosecution used that as part of the web of circumstanti;d evidence to convict her.

"The guy who's had custody of this gun for 21 days, who has lied over and over again - and they let that guy put the gun in her hands!" Robins flimes.

Robins also points out that there was never any record of the serial number ot the gun that Durfee retrieved. Because of the de­lay before police ordered Schultz to turn it in, it could have eas­ily been switched. BuUets fired for the ballistics tests were with­drawn from the formal evidence available to the jury at the trial, Robins says, and they were later reported lost in a 1986 flood. Robins says the missing test bullets are important because the 1992 deal that freed Bembenek is based on the prosecution's claim that they had enough evidence to convict her again. "They didn't," says Robins. "They didn't have the bullets. That's a fraud on the court!"

But the most recently discovered discrepancy has led to a new twist. As Bembenek attorney Woehrer reviewed state crime lab

^^All I've been doing is telling the truth. I won't stop until I'm dead or Laurie is exonerated/'

vorce, knew as much and lied about it on several ditterent occa­sions. Police reports also said Schultz appeared to have lied (re­garding claims about whether or not he carried a gun at work) at an unemployment compensation hearing pertiiining to six weeks he took ofl'of work during the summer of 1981.

Even before his ex-wife's murder, Schultz had been under in­vestigation for more serious issues. InterniJ investigators wanted to charge the detective criminally with breaking depiu-tment rules by attending the Tracks picnics - with their wet T-shirt contests transformed into nude beaur\' pageants - and never taking "prop­er police action" or enforcing laws against public nudity. McCann declined to prosecute, citing weak evidence and advising investi­gators to pursue it as an internal personnel matter.

The point, Robins argues, is that prosecutors should have owned up to defense lawyers about allegations of Schultz's alleged lying. Bembcnek's defense had a right to that information and might have been able to use it to undermine Schultz's testimony.

Yet another piece of evidence further undermines Schultz's credibility. Although Schultz and his squad partner, Michael Dur­fee, who is now retired, stated in reports they filed the night of the murder that they were patrolling the North Side ot Milwaukee in the first couple of hours of their shift, Schultz testified at Bem-benek's trial that he and Durfee were in a tavern. The tavern's own­er later signed an iiflidavit that Robins helped take, stating that Schultz and Durfee drank with him there and at another spot.

The problems with the supposed murder weapon started from the moment Schultz and Durfee jVicked up Schultz's oft-duty gun, the gun prosecutors claim killed Christine Schultz. At 7 a.m. on May 28, about five hours after the murder, Durfee, acting on or­ders of a comm;inding officer, went with Schultz to Schultz's apart­ment and retrieved the off-duty gun. Durfee later reported that the gun was fiaUy loaded, dusty and gave no telltale smell of pow­der, suggesting it had been neither shot nor cleaned recently. Schultz put the gun in his briefcase and the two detectives went with Bembenek to identity Christine Schultz's body at the morgue.

Later that morning, the weapon was handed around at a meeting of high-ranking police officers, then returned to Schultz. Not until three weeks later did police order Schultz to turn in the off-duty gun, his on-duty gun and various bullets. Ballistics tests then appeared to link the bullet retrieved from Christine Schultz's body to the off-duty weapon. Schultz testified that

reports this past December, she came across a handwritten no­tation that suggested a link between the supposed murder bul­let and Elfred Schultz's on-duty gun - rather than the off-duty gun identified in the same crime lab reports as the murder weapon. That finding led Woehrer to seek new ballistics tests, which Judge Conen ordered in February.

"The reports have been ;iltered and their conclusions are false," says Robins. If the fatal bullet is matched to the on-duty gun, "It means Elfred Schultz's gun was the murder weapon."

He remains outraged that the blood from the muzzle of Elfred Schultz's on-duty gun was never adequately investigated. "If it's Christine Schultz's," Robins says, "Laurie should be acquitted im­mediately." (The blood is now being tested with other DNA evi­dence.) Robins points out that five defense experts said that hand-drawn depictions of the fatal bullet wound were more consistent with the on-duty gun than the off-duty weapon.

Finally, there are the autopsy problems. Dr. Elaine Samuels, the assistant medical examiner who conducted Christine Schultz's autopsy, wrote a formal statement in 1983 asserting that the bul­let presented at trial was not marked the way she had recorded marking the bullet she obtained from the body. Samuels also as­serted that while the prosecution at Bembenek's trial presented dyed blond hairs and fiber perhaps from a wig that were said to be recovered from the gag used on Christine Schultz's mouth, she had never found those fibers during the autopsy - only dark hairs that matched the victim's.

There is an additional discrepancy as well, says Robins. Although it has never previously been reported, the state crime lab cross-referenced evidence from the Schultz murder (traces of a chem­ical found in semen) with two other sexual assault homicides. Yet that information, too, was never shared with Bembenek's de­fense. Robins points out that if Christine Schultz was raped by her assailant, that person obviously could not have been Bembenek

The 1992 John Doe investigation addressed some of these dis­crepancies, but not all. In his special prosecutor's report to Judge William Haese, attorney E. Campion Kersten castigated inves­tigators for mishandling the weapons investigation. But Kersten was silent on the subject of blood on the muzzle of Schultz's on-duty gun and on the issue of Schultz's alleged lies and the pros­ecution's failure to reveal those lies to the defense. He discount­ed medical examiner Samuels' 1983 statement with its implica-

S2 MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE APRIL 2003 W W W , MILWAUKEEMAGAZ1NE.COM

tions of evidence tampering; Kersten sug­gested the fiber evidence that Samuels did not find might have been detected on the gag by more careRil crime lab work later. He also dismissed Samuels' claim of discrep­ancies between the bullet she described at the autopsy and the bullet presented at tiie trial, suggesting that the medical examin­er's records might have been in error.

And here's where the dispute between Ira Robins and the DA's office turns into open warfare. Robins ties all of the discrepancies he's documented together by asserting that they demonstrate that prosecutors wiUflilly failed to inform Beinbenek's defense about facts that could have helped exonerate her. "They tipped this case by concealing infor­mation and by allowing their witnesses to commit perjury," he says. Robins g<x;s flirthcr. What Wius at work, he says, wiusn't merely pro­cedural error, as the Doe report suggests, but outright tampering with evidence.

As additional support for his claim, Robins cites a 1991 dispute about files he sought un­der open records laws, including fingerprints and a photo iilbum ot the Tracks parties. Police had found the pictures at the murder scene and filed them with fingerjirints tak­en from there. The police initially withheld the pictures, claiming they were part of a continuing internal investigation. Robins, though, contends they, too, could have helped Bembenek's defense. To this day, he insists that the failure to turn the records over was simply part of the ;illeged cover-up.

McCann declined to return several Mil­waukee Magozine phone calls about the case or Robins. But Donohoo, the assistant DI\. who negotiated the deal that led to her re­lease, has made no secret of his dislike for the investigator. At the 1996 trial of Robins' lawsuit for a share of Bembenek's profits, Donohoo said Robins "had no credibility" and he would never have negotiated with Bembenek's lawyers if Robins was involved.

"I based my opinions upon not only his conduct in the case but his conduct in his statements," Donohoo testified. "I lis name-calling, some of the things he said." In par­ticular was Robins' long-standing claim that McCann was "involved in a cover-up," the assistant DA continued. "There are lots of real questions in the Bembenek case. The law enforcement independence of Mike McCann isn't one of them."

The John Doe investigation also reject­ed suggestions of a prosecution cover-up, and special prosecutor Kersten explicitly stated there was "no criminal intent" in the errors documented in the Bembenek case. T h a t conclusion, however, just stokes Robins' righteous fliry. He cites several in­stances in which prosecutors failed to turn over information he sought, and on top of

SATURDAY, MARCH 29 DAVIANS BANQUET 8c CONFERENCE CENTER

16300 W. SILVER SPRING RD. MENOMONEE FALLS

SCREENINGS Throughout the morning check out our FREE health screenings.

Blood pressure Cholesterol Foot screenings Glucose Bone density Pulmonary function Stretching & strengthening Depression & anxiety Vision for kids

SEMINARS Stress management 8:00 am Headaches 9:00 am Foot care 10:00 am Preventive medicine 11:00 am

GREAT FOOD & REFRESHMENTS

medical associates health centers

the first choice.

» Wc want to provide our clients HJlh truly pnifcssion^l services yet pr i )v idf ttuit pcrson.il touch f rom our ini t i ; i l meeting to project complet ion and hcyond.

• We believe in only using the highest quali ty components in our systems horn premium manufacturers of pr<ifessi()nal Uradc l ig i i l in^ .

• We want luir clients to enjoy their systems for years to come and in the event there is a prtrblcm to call us know ing that we personally were involved throughout the process.

• We believe this personal yet professional approach w i l l lead ti> vvorkuig "relat ionships not |UM Nvsteni sales."

W W W . M I L W A U K E E M A G A Z I N E . C O M MILWAUKEE M AG A Z I N E APR! L 2003 53

GIGl Appointment Preferred

1550 W. Mequon Rd.

Mequon • 262-241-1123

www.gigiofmequon.com

T e x t u r i n g P e r m s

Design Hair Coloring

H a i r D e s i g n

C u s t o m i z e d M a k e - u p Serv i ces

N a i l C l i n i c

F a c i a l s

M a s s a g e T h e r a p y

S T U D I O 8 9 0

S A L O N S

ELM GROVE 2 6 2 - 7 8 5 - 2 8 9 0 B R O O K F I E L D

2 6 2 - 7 8 5 - 2 8 9 9

54 MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE APRIL 2003

that, the repeated ;illcgations in police in­vestigative flics of Elfred Schultz's lying. In Robins' eyes, those can only be added up one way: "This John Doe was a fix! It was rigged from the beginning!"

WHEN BEMBENEK and her lawyer asked Judge Conen to order DNA tests, they in­sisted the materials be sent to a private lab­oratory in Tennessee instead of the Wis­consin State Crime Lab.

To defray the costs, Robins again turned to the media, first trying to work out an arrangement with the CBS news program "48 Hours," then ultimately striking a deal whereby "Dr. Phil" McGraw's talk show would pay for the testing in return for putting Bembenek on as a guest.

The arrangement went blzarrely awry. Bembenek taped an initial appearance with McGraw in Los Angeles, then was brought back a few weeks later with the expectation that the results would be released in a day or so. McGraw's producers wanted to cre­ate a scene in which Bembenek would, for the first time, learn the results of the testing on camera so that they could record her ini­tial reaction. So when Bembenek returned to LA, producers kept her on constant watch in an apartment they had rented tor that purpose. Hemmed in, Bembenek had a panic attack and jumped from the apart­ment's second-story window. She broke her foot and it was subsequently amputated. When the initial inconclusive DNA results were released showing Bembenek's DNA was not among them, she wasn't in Dr. Phil's studio but in a hospital bed.

The latest round of DNA testing is aimed at determining whether any DNA from the scene matches that of Frederick Horen­bergcr. Horenberger, a convicted armed rob­ber who died in 1991, is the person whom Bembenek's supporters advance as the lead­ing ;ilternative suspect in Christine Schultz's death. About a month after her murder, Horenberger and two accomplices broke into Judy Zess' apartment. Zess, who knew I lorenberger, escaped. Horenbet^r was sub-scquendy sentenced to prison tor the robbery.

Horenberger also was an acquaintance of Elfred Schultz. In prison, Horenberger is said to have confessed to killing Christine Schultz, but the John Doe report also states he denied having done so and that both he and "some of the persons to whom he sup­posedly confessed arc not particularly cred­ible." After his release, Horenberger was in­volved in a November 1991 armed robbery in which he took two homeowners hostage. "He declared to several persons just before taking his life that he had not been iiwolved in the murder of Christine Schultz," the John Doe special prosecutor's report noted.

W W W . M I L W A U K E E M A G A Z I N E . C O M

For Robins, however, that is just more smoke and mirrors. Ask him about Horen-berger and he'll tell you he probably didn't kill himself. "I think he was murdered."

Robins turns his outrage to the fact that Bembenek, by choosing an outside lab, had to bear the costs of DNA testing. He argues that the county should still pay. "We paid for the John Doe to do nothing," he says. "Yet McCann doesn't want to pay $20,000-$3(),(X)0 to find the truth in the Bembenek case? That's a sin!"

IT IS THREE DAYS before Christmas. Snow flurries stir in the dark, chill night. In a cavernous banquet room at Serb H;ill, perhaps 35 people sit at tables or mill about the room, gazing at blown-up copies of le­gal documents that Ira Robins has posted. These oversize papers underscore the sto­ry Robins purveys day and night: the gaps in the case against Laurie Bembenek, the proof pointing to a cover-up.

The sparse crowd is liere to raise money for Bembenek, money to offset the cost of the new prosthetic foot she must wear. At the microphone is a husky, bushy-haired singer who goes by the name l̂ r̂iday Eve. Now in his fmal number, he croons one of his ovvai songs. Aiid the words that come out seem as though they might have come from Ira Robins himself: "So here's to you, my frlenih who believe in me "

The last guit;ir notes fade, polite applause ripples through the audience and Robins lumbers up t(̂ the microphone. He recounts the story of how Bembenek lost her foot and complains that Dr. Phil's producers re­buffed pleas to help with the medical bills.

"They told everybody 1 .auric was pulling a prank and that's how she got hurt," Robins grumps. Then, as quickly as he recounts it, that insult transforms into a symbol for everything wrong with the reckless press. "The people have been misinformed by the media!" he thunders. "We've had our rights taken away, and if they take away rights from any of us, they take 'em away from all!"

Just two days before, Robins had been ex­ulting in the prospect that this same rally would be overflowing with people. Now he laments the light attendance.

"I'm desperately concerned," says Robins, and you can hear the note of pleading in his voice. "All I've ever been doing is telling the truth. 1 will not stop until I'm dead or un­til Laurie has been exonerated."

A season has passed since that lonely night and Robins has repeated those words countless times. Now he waits to see which will happen first. M

Erik Gtinn is a regular contributor to Mil­waukee Magazine.

W W W . M I L W A U K E E M A G A Z I N E . C O M

Look and feel your best. Step away from the hectic pace of modern life and into the soothing

surroundings of Spargo Salon & Day Spa. Face the world again

feeling refreshed and confident with a flattering new hair style, makeover,

facial or manicure . Atlain a newfound sense of wel l -be ing from

your choice of revitalizing massages, body masques or aqua polishes.

V\si\ ui or call today!

262.695.74.00

L O C A T E D I N T H E S T O N E G A B L E M A L L , 1 3 0 0 W C A P I T O L D R I V E , P E W A U K E E

w w w, s p A R a o a A1. • N. c a M

MADISON MEDICAL AFFILIATES

mm e n KBRATINt: 100 YFARS Ol" MEDILAI. tXlhLttNCE

Brian S. Hirano, MD Internal Medicine Board Certified

Have you been looking for a Board Certified Internist downtown! Brian S. Hirano, MD is welcoming new patients.

• Our practice includes other specialists in Gastroenterology, Pulmimary Meciicine and Sleep Medicine

• On-site labtiratory, x-ray, and mammography

• Conveniently located just off Cathedral Square, 788 North Jefferson Street, Suite 300

Gc\\\ today to schedule an appointment.

414-272^8950

MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE APRIL 2003 55