Franklin cop looks for warm leads on cold cases

Franklin - At the beginning of every year, Franklin Police Department's Sgt. Kevin Magno reviews two hefty files that date back decades, looking for new clues that would solve the cold cases.

"These are still being worked," said Magno. "We still do an interview every once in a while."

The cold cases are the unsolved murders of Robert Reese and Lyle Trudeau, whose bodies were found in Franklin years ago. Whether the two, in separate instances, were killed here or their bodies merely disposed of, is not known.

"By the evidence that's in the reports, there's no way to tell," he said. "It's where they spent their last minutes of their lives."

Hot evidence gone cold

Reese, of Milwaukee, was 27 when he died Sept. 11, 1976. His body was found in car that was set on fire in the 7200 block of South 68th Street.

"There was a witness who actually heard the fire start," Magno said. "Gas makes a distinctive sound when it ignites."

Magno said Reese had "visible wounds to the head" - not gunshots - but whether those or the fire killed him is inconclusive.

"Reading the autopsy report, I could not determine either way," Magno said.

The motive for the killing is, likewise, unclear.

"It could be anything from owing money to someone or drugs," he said. "They were never able to pin down anything specific as to why it would occur."

Still a dark road

Trudeau's body, meanwhile, was found lying in a ditch Feb. 1, 1986, at 3600 W. Elm Road. The Cudahy man was 28 when his beaten and stabbed body was found at 11:21 a.m.

"Elm Road, at that time, was a gravel road," Magno said. "It was a road no one really knew about."

There was a tavern at 27th Street and Elm Road, he said, and the only way to reach Elm Road was through the bar's parking lot.

Before his body was found, Magno said Trudeau was last seen in a bar in Cudahy, and a police artist compiled a sketch of someone who had had an argument with him a week earlier.

"The victim frequented a lot of bars and would often have arguments with people," Magno said.

"He wasn't a felony offender or huge criminal," he said of Trudeau, "just a typical local guy who got in a fight here or there."

Again, a motive is unknown, and Magno said police have never been able to locate the man in the rendering. "This sketch would still be someone we'd want to talk to."

"We know he was in a bar in Cudahy," he said. "We know what time he left. We know there are people we suspect, but they have concrete alibis.

"We have an idea who did it," Magno said. "We know there are people who know things but at the time wouldn't come forward because of the fear factor."

Unfriendly time element

Solving crimes that are a quarter of a century old and older is not easy.

"As time goes on, it gets harder and harder," he said. "People move on, people die, people forget."

But Magno said advances in crime investigation techniques makes reviewing evidence worthwhile. And sometimes, a witness or participant might have pangs of conscience, especially someone on their deathbed.

"When that day of reckoning comes, he wants to get it off his chest," Magno said. "That's a powerful thing, too."

Difficult to solve or not, Magno said the cases won't be closed, no matter how cold they get.

"I look at it like, there are people out there who killed someone and got away with it," he said. "No one speaks for these dead people. Someone has to. No murder should ever sit on a shelf."