Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.

A road crew begins the twice- yearly mowing along the  highways of wisconsin.but the guy driving the big tractor finds something  suspicious blocking his way.

two suitcases covered with flies,in oozing  the  smell of death.

when  they open  one of the suitcases  they found a dead body

.then  they  open the second  suitcase, another dead women.her hand was  mummified.

who are  they? hwo put them  there?

Does the mystery man called mr . handcuffs know what happpened.

The Green fields of southern Wisconsin southwest of Milwaukee not the kind of place y ou´d expect to see the handiwork of a suitcase killer.

Walwourth county  s heriff´s  detective Jeff recknagel  was shocked when he got the call.

 

 

J recknagel: i came to the scene. we walked over to the suitcases i  unzipped the purple one and i could  see  that there was another deceased women inside of  it that was inside  of a black  garbage bag. the only that protruded oiut  the garbage bag was one of her hands and her hand was mumiffied so to me was quite obvious that these two women had been dead for a  very long time.

The women were gagged and tied up,obviously by a terribly sadistic killer.

Cops cordoned off the area with crime-scene tape

detective recknagel puts out an all-points bulletin for reinforcements

J.Recknagel:we checked for miles   to see if pontentially there wre more dead bodies , we had no  idea if these were gonna be the only two  dead bodies , are  there anymore?”

 

District  attorney mike gravely was afraid there might be more  bodies just waiting to be found.

 M. Graveley: the first  thing  that i thought  of when this came to my attention was …  that this was a serial killer

 would  they be able to positively ID  the women with their bodies  decomposed.

 

J.Recknagel:  so after we find these women ,we do general descriptions of them we try to gather how much they  weighed,how tall they were , anything that we could find that would help identify who they were  and we sent on  a teletype to the intire Midwest saying that we had found these two deceased famel people.

 

Police departement from all across  the Midwest responded.messages came from all over the place about  missing people

As the detectives begin the difficult task of sorting through the leads  the CSI lab technicians are closely examining the ropes that   bound the women .

could the killer´s  DNA  beyond those ropes.

J.Recknagel: Ropes   that were on these women were very similar they´re similar in size, they were  made out of the same material the ends  of   the rope were lashed so they  wouldn´t become unraveled at the very ends so there was an alyst at the crime lab that  s tudied these roipes because he specialized in that . these ropes gad been wrapped around the victims for  a long period of time.

 

Those reports from other police agencies paid  off  with  critical details about the women´s identitis

J.Recknagel:   both  were extremely difficult to identify.

investigators X -rays the mummified body in the purple suitcase to check  dental  records

She was Jenny Gomez, only 19  years old. 

 

 M. Graveley:   Jenny gomez was a junior  college student in Oregon she´d grown up in the foster care  system there,her father was residing in another  country and so had sporadic contact with her i don´t think she had any contact with her mother , she described herself as  person who had no family that she was in contact with in her social media contacts.

Cops then identified the women in the black suitcase.

It´s  laura simonson a 37  year old singel mom from farmington ,Minnesota .

Recknagel:  we were  able to identify laura simonson very quickly we had a high degree of certainty who she was within 24 hours because of the tatoos that were on her body and plus there was a missing- persons report that was already generated bevause she was reported missing.

A friend  had reported laura missing,that missing persons report had  been blasted to hotels and  motels  in  Minnesota

 and wisconsin.

J.Recknagel:  laura  confided a lot in this  man  he knew that she was going to wisconsin he shared this information with law enforcement and he also knerw  her passwords  for  different websites 

And those passwords led  detectives to a websiite that both laura and  jenny were using.

A meetup  website for people into the  world of  cito masochism

Recknagel: bondage ,discipline and whatever it is but it´s this  type  of behavior where  they like to  inlict pain ,they like to inflict suffering ,they like to do some kind of control because that power and control is their excitement

Laura and Jenny didn´t know  each other but they were bound in blood .

Cops say both had communicated with stranger seeking a 24/7  slave for absolute ownership. 

but hwo was he?

investigators got a big break when an  eagle -eyed  hotel manager  in rochester Minnesota remembered the missing alert for laura.

Recknagel: this  is just an unbelievable chance that somebody  remebered this but  one of the employees that worked at the  hotel ,remembered her  being their  and they saved the video recording of those people coming and  going from the hotel.

laura checked in but  she didn´t check out.

On the surveillance video shows that  mystery man paying cash for lauras room.

A.Burgoyne: he  didn´t want to sign  himself in at the hotel  and leave  a record of his name there he paid cash , i looked at the records later,there were 27 guests at that hotel in rochester minnesota that night.he was the only one that paid cash.

He´s sen taking laura´s  suitcase out on the trolley but no one in   the hotel realized  laura was inside that  suitcase he was wheeling her to the grave 

The suitcase  killer is on the loose   he killed jenny  gomez and laura simonson stuff  their bodies in suitcases and left them on the side of the road.

Recknagel: they were in two different states of decomposer, jenny was  mummified,her body was dark in color.

Investigators need to find  this killer fast.laura´s cyber trail leads them to a man she met on  a bondage website a guy who calls himself Mr.handcuffs.

 

M. Graveley: there´s a heartbreaking moment in their emails together where she says to him.”boy , if you wanted to  kill me no one would ever find me”

Cops traced this  mr handcuffs to an  apartment on a busy street  in the  milwaukee suburb of  west  allis .

J. Recknagel: we began immediate surveillance on him  ,we put tracking  devices on his wehicle

and  living in apartment number  onse -steven zelich.

cops were waiting for zelich after he got home from work. he invited them  inside and they

recorded audio of their first encounter.

detective:  let me start off  why we´re  here,  okay? regarding  laura . she´s  missing. how  did you com to know her ? or meet her?”

zelich:well just , just uh, online, first place i think we met was , uh a  website .”

detective:  what website?

A portal to the dark world of bondage,discipline and  sadomasochism .

J. Recknagel:  he tells me that he´s been doing this  for a very long time ,he became interested in BDSM at age 19 and he´s been continuing to be involved  in his entire life.

J. Recknagel: when  the´re  doing this BDSM   sessions they´re tying people up ,they´ using topes ,they  using tape ,they  using handcuffs,they blindfolding them,they putting gag balls in their mouths to inflict pain on the other person because  thatt´s  the excitement that a slave or the person who was the dominant enjoys  to do.

zelich picture on that website looks like he could  be  just a regular joe down the street. but his profile reveals the twisted mind of a sexual  deviant.

“there is nothing better than a slave ,tied tight, gagged , blindfolded , hooded ,chained  ,caged.”

 

Audio interview

zelich: let me describe it as,um, for me, fantasy base  its´s just conversation , i had no  intention of actually meeting.”

 

zelich denies meeting laura in person  ,he seems amiable and cooperative,maybe to cooperative for his own good.

 

Audio interview

 detective: so  , i´d like to have a sample of , of your DNA .

zelich:  yes .

detective:just a swab,not a big deal.

zelich: no,  no problem at all

After giving  cops his  DNA , Zelich lets them search  his computer. he had installed a software program that cleaned or removed  data from  it .automatically and there was tenss of thousands of times that ,that software had ran and supposedly cleaned his computer.

zelich didn´t know  that lauras  computer had his emails

and he didn´t know  cops had surveillance video at the hotel laura had stayed in

but that´s not  enough to prove he´s  the suitcase  killer,until the DNA results came in.

J. Recknagel:laura had a rope that was  wrapped around her neck.so when i took that stuff to the crime lab one of the analysts took different samples off of it, she called me and she said :“ I  have a DNA profile hit.”it´s steve´s zelich´s DNA  that was inside that knot

So  now cops get a warrant to search zelich´s cramped in cluttered appartment.

They find a lot of bleach 

and cleaning  suplies ….

odd, because  his  filthy hovel is  filled  with black  mold

And in a closet cops find evidence of zelich  perverted lifestyle.another suitcase comtaining tools of torture a panel ,restraints,ropes and  duct tape

and then …..

They find a badge.. badge number 138 issued by the west allis police departement.

 He was a police offiver for many years , he worked for  west allis .his dad was a sergeant for the city  milwaukee police departement he worked there for  40 years.

Jamie Bates was once  zelich rommate ,she claims one day he revealed a sickning secret.

jamie: he said that he kept a girl for seven years in his apartment in this crate and he would leave her in there during the day when  he went to work as a police officer and he would come  home on lunch and check in on her .

Jamie says she quickly  moves out and not long after zelich covered shield would  become tarnished .

while on duty zelich was  accused of harassing prostitutes and  exotic dancers at lockal strip joints.

In a audio recording with the west allis  police chief ,zelich is confronted about the claims of abusing  his position  to intimidate the women.

AUDIO RECORDING

 police chief: as chief and as a administrator  for many years   i dont ever recall any buisness owner , calling the station  to complain a squad  was   in the area  too often.do  you  know why  she would  call?

zelich: no ,that seems unusual to me also.most businesses love to see us . never was  i ..pushy or out of line ,i´m  always professional and gentlemanly”

zelich quit the force and went to work as a  security guard.

J. Recknagel: when we met  with him  he had a security uniform on.very similar to law  enforcement  uniform. he told me that in  his  heart he still felt  like he was part of the law -enforcement community 

zelich was  assigned  to the corporate headquarters of a big company in milwaukee

J. Recknagel:  there was  a lot of high -end cars  a lot of very  fancy expensive wehicle  are in that same parking lot where he was parking  …

M. Graveley: …  his boss  came to him and said” your trunk …it had to  be  , it had gotten to the summer months… your trunk smells as if there´s    a dead  body and you  need to take care  of  that by tomorrow because people are complaining

mr  handcuffs takes  care of it in a way that  will soon find himself on the receiving end of another pair of   handcuffs disgraced former cop steven zelich is a sadistic predator who makes  50 shades  of grey look like a schildren´s fairy tale . 

and now detectives are about  to put the screws to this describe bondage master. 

detectives  picked up zelich during his shift in the security detail at a major milwaukee corporation

detectives tells zelich that´s  on DNA evidence. and  Zelich is about to reveal that he  is the  evil  suitcase killer.

Zelich met jenny on a  bondage website he asked her  to fly from oregon to winsconsin to become his  slave

After picking  up jenny up from the airport he drove south to kenosha and  chose a quality inn hotel he engaged  in what he called breath play. or breath control.

zelich  says jenny ´s death wasn´t part of his plan  he claims it was an accident and  he panicked.

He says  he´  stuffed jenny´s body   into her own suitcase, checked out of the  hotel

 and took the suitcase to the  ramshackle apartment.

He took jenny out of the suitcase  emptied  out his his refrigerator and then put her body inside of his  refridgerator  in his kitchen. he kept her in there for over a  year .

He says when jenny´s body began to decompose it push ed the refrigerator door open so he duckt taped it shut .before he eventually took it out

 In the wraped wordl of bondage some people use  safe words  a signal to the master when  the torture is too much.

A.Burgoyne: steven zelich said  that, with respect  to jenny Gomez, there were no safe  words and even after he killled her,he didn´t feel a need to implement any safe words with laura simonson sso we  believe that  he did intend to kill again.

A few months later when  zelich lured laura to his virutal  dungeon…

  she probably never realize , jenny´s now mummified body was in his refrigerator.

zelich had told  her that   she need to do several things to make yourself disappear some of this things in cluding  she needed  to sell her van, she needto shut down her  facebook page . she need to stop paying   her parking tickets . she need to close  other  things, don´t renew driver´s license.    you need  to simply in essence disappear so people can´t find you or follow you.

zelich says like jenny . lauras death  was an  accident. his sick game just went too far. he claims he kept the body in his car  trunk  until  his co-workers complained about the smell.

zelich  then say he took both bodies  in their suitcases and dumped  them on the side of the road where they´d be found.

M. Graveley: The confession is really  it´s  sort of  a horrifying couple hours as an  experienced x police officer  the only  thin g left gor him was essentially to say it was an accident, knowing that  if a jury believe that , that would reduce his penalty

The Confesssion  ,The DNA, the evidence   overwhelming zelich pleaded  guilty to first-degree rekless homocide in the murder og jenny.  he spoke  in his sentence .

Zelich:i´m very sorry  that this orrcured and  i+m very sorry uh…jenny was the victim and i was not able to protect her

But there were no mercy from the judge . 

zelich was sentenced to   35  years in a wisconsin prison.

He got 10 additional years of prison in  Walworth county which means  he´ll be in prison until aged 98.

zelich also pleaded guilty  to  second -degree  murder  for killing  laura in minnesota .

he got an additional  25- years sentence.

 

M.Graveley: what that means ,because  those are all consecutive sentences is it Mr Zelich will never get out of prison and we´re all safer because of that .

Zelich will spend the rest of his life in a cell,  time to think about how his life of torture ended two lifes…….

 More  details.

Steven Mark Zelich (born October 29, 1961) is an American convicted murderer and former police officer for West Allis, Wisconsin, who was dubbed the “Wisconsin Suitcase Murderer” by the press. Zelich lured his two victims through sadomasochism websites, committing one murder in Wisconsin and one in Minnesota between 2012 and 2013. He is known for his dumping of the victims’ bodies in suitcases on a roadway in Wisconsin. He pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to de facto life in prison in 2017.

Zelich pleaded guilty to first-degree reckless homicide for the killing of Jenny Gamez in early 2016, and was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment. In February 2017, he was sentenced to 25 years for second-degree murder for the murder of Laura Simonson. Zelich received another 10 years for the charges of hiding of corpses in October 2017. Altogether, he was sentenced to 70 years in prison, which is a de facto life sentence since his earliest release date given his multiple sentences is at a date when it is guaranteed he will be dead.