Lisa Staes (Jack of Diamonds, Wisconsin)

Summary

The Deck: Episode Summary – Lisa Staes (Jack of Diamonds, Wisconsin)

Episode Release Date: April 30, 2025
Host: audiochuck (Ashley Flowers)

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of The Deck, host Ashley Flowers delves into the haunting cold case of Lisa Staes, also known as the Jack of Diamonds from Wisconsin. Disappearing in the winter of 1976, Lisa's unresolved murder has lingered for nearly five decades, leaving her family and law enforcement agencies desperate for answers.

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Lisa Staes: The Disappearance and Initial Investigation

In the winter of 1976, 20-year-old Lisa Staes embarked on a journey of independence, moving out of her parents' home in Leawood, Kansas, to attend community college. However, her life took a tragic turn when she disappeared shortly after moving to Chicago.

Key Events:

• January 14, 1976: Lisa was last seen by her cousin Kurt Rahn at Mother's Bar on Rush Street in Chicago around 6 PM. She mentioned meeting a man and considered leaving with him, asking Kurt to wait for her return.
• When Lisa failed to return within the promised 30 minutes, Kurt left, and Lisa was reported missing the next day by her cousins Michelle Wadman and Kurt Rahn.

Investigation Shortcomings: Ashley Flowers highlights significant lapses in the initial investigation by the Oak Park Police Department. According to the original incident file, after entering Lisa's information into the NCIC database, the police did not conduct interviews, neighborhood canvases, or even obtain a photograph of Lisa. This negligence left the case stagnant for over a year.

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Discovery of "Frigid Frida" and Identification

A turning point in the investigation came almost two years later when Captain Al Sellers from the Leawood Police Department initiated his own inquiry. In April 1977, Sellers discovered a bulletin from the Sauk County Sheriff's Office about an unidentified female body found under a bridge. The remains matched Lisa's description, leading to the temporary name "Frigid Frida."

Notable Quotes:

• Detective Drew Bolen [10:01]: "I think it was more like slang from investigators back then, because obviously there was a year plus before she was positively identified as who she was."

Despite extensive efforts, including hundreds of flyers and a composite sketch, the identification and murder details remained elusive. Lisa's remains were eventually exhumed for dental comparison, confirming her identity and bringing a sense of closure to her immediate family.

Family Impact: Lisa's parents, Jack and Susan Stays, expressed profound gratitude toward the Sauk County law enforcement for finally identifying their daughter, as recounted by Susan in her heartfelt letter to the Baraboo News Republic.

Susan Stays [13:14]:
“When we learned the whole story and found that our girl had been given a beautiful funeral... It is over for us now, the long nights of wondering.”

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Forensic Challenges and Investigative Stagnation

Despite identifying Lisa, the mystery of her murder remained unsolved. Initial forensic techniques, particularly hair analysis, provided limited leads. Foreign pubic hairs found on Lisa suggested recent sexual contact, but comparisons to suspects yielded no matches.

Challenges Highlighted:

• Hair Analysis Limitations:
  Detective Drew Bolen [11:28]:
  “I think just based on her positioning where she was found, obviously being nude, they assumed that there was probably a sexual component.”

Over the years, advancements in forensic science, especially DNA analysis, offered a glimmer of hope. However, attempts in 2001 and 2009 to extract usable DNA from the evidence were unsuccessful due to degraded samples.

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Suspected Serial Killer: William Zamastel

The case took another complex turn in the late 1990s when a letter from inmate Justin Welch implicated fellow prisoner William Zamastel in Lisa's murder. Zamastel, a convicted serial killer with multiple murders across the United States, became a person of interest.

Details:

• Zamastel was serving a life sentence in Wisconsin for murders committed in the 1970s and 2000s.
• Investigators attempted to verify his involvement, but discrepancies in custody records and Zamastel's uncooperative stance left the matter unresolved.

Grant Stays [26:34]:
“The only person I know of right now that I never really got any closure on whether he's involved is William Zamastel.”

Zamastel's inconsistent alibis and refusal to provide substantial information stalled this lead, pushing the case back into dormancy.

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Renewed Efforts and Modern Forensic Techniques

In the fall of 2022, Detective Drew Bolen was assigned to Lisa's case, reigniting the pursuit of justice. Leveraging contemporary DNA technology, Bolen hoped to extract a full male profile from the remaining evidence. Despite multiple submissions in 2023, the samples remained too degraded for definitive analysis.

Ongoing Investigations:

• Search for Additional Information:
  Detective Bolen is actively seeking out Lisa's boyfriend at the time, Mark Hanstead, and David McKenzie, another individual connected to Lisa's last known whereabouts.

Detective Bolen [35:03]:
“There is a possibility that someone's out there who knows what happened to Lisa and they're still alive and for whatever reason, they've never come forward.”

The detective emphasizes the potential of solving the case through either advanced DNA techniques or new information from individuals who may possess crucial details.

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Family's Perspective and Appeals for Information

Lisa's family remains hopeful for closure, though the prolonged uncertainty has taken a toll. Grant and Susan Stays express a deep longing for answers, especially as their parents age.

Grant Stays [43:11]:
“They're up there in years... So the fact that they've just... they've had to live with us for a long time.”

Jack Stays reflects on the life their family has built despite Lisa's untimely death, underscoring the enduring impact of her loss.

Jack Stays [43:42]:
“She was just a baby in our arms. And there were so many things that she just missed out on this life.”

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Recent Developments and Final Appeals

In 2023, an inmate named Justin Welch came forward with claims about William Zamastel's involvement in multiple murders, including Lisa's. However, these claims remain unverified, and authorities continue to seek concrete evidence.

Call to Action: Detective Bolen urges anyone with information about Lisa's case to come forward, emphasizing that no tip is too small and could be pivotal in resolving the decades-old mystery.

Detective Bolen [42:43]:
“No tip is going to be disregarded... you truly don't know what you know and we truly don't know what you know.”

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Conclusion: The Unyielding Search for Justice

As the 50th anniversary of Lisa Staes' disappearance approaches, The Deck episode serves as a poignant reminder of the enduring quest for truth and justice. Through meticulous storytelling and emotional interviews, Ashley Flowers not only narrates Lisa's tragic story but also champions the relentless efforts of her family and dedicated investigators striving to finally solve this enduring mystery.

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If you have any information about Lisa Staes' murder or her whereabouts between Illinois and Wisconsin in January 1976, please contact the Sauk County Sheriff's Office at 608-355-4495 and ask for Detective Bolen, or reach out anonymously via the Sauk County Crime Stoppers tip line at 1-800-TIP-SAU K.

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This summary is based on the transcript provided and encapsulates the key elements discussed in the episode while adhering to the user's guidelines for structure, clarity, and engagement.

Transcript

[Ashley Flowers]

Hi everyone, Ashley Flowers here. If you love the mystery twists and investigations you hear on this podcast, then you are going to absolutely love my new novel the Missing Half. Set where I grew up in northern Indiana. Two young women go missing within weeks of one another. The only trace of them left behind are their cars left abandoned on the side of the road, door open, key in the ignition and police are convinced that their cases have to be connected but they can't solve them and the cases go cold for years. That is until these girls sisters team up and do what police never could. But learning the truth sometimes has grave consequences and this book will have you questioning how far you would go for someone you love. The Missing half hit shelves May 6. Be the first to solve the mystery by pre ordering your copy [e-mail] or wherever books are sold.

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[Ashley Flowers]

Make every celebration feel uniquely you. Your dog's birthday coming up. Throw a pepperoni pizza party. Or maybe you're planning a game night. Make it a silent disco and charades night. From inspo to all the items you need, Amazon can help you create a truly custom celebration. From birthdays to holidays, Amazon offers convenient one stop shopping for any party. Shop everything for every party on Amazon. State Farm helps you win by helping you create an affordable price just for you. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Our card this week is Lisa C. Stays, the Jack of Diamonds from Wisconsin in the winter of 1976, Lisa Stays was trying to figure out what exactly she wanted to do with her life. Like so many 20 year olds, she just moved out of her parents house and started classes at a community college. She was embracing her independence as a young adult. But no one ever got to see how Lisa's life would unfold because that same year she disappeared. It took nearly two years for investigators to figure out that Lisa had been murdered. But in the 49 years since, they are still trying to uncover why and most importantly, who murdered her. And now more than ever, it is a race against time. I'm Ashley Flowers and this is the deck. On the afternoon of January 14, 1976, Michelle Wadman and Kurt Rahn were out going from bar to bar on Rush street in Chicago. But they weren't looking to drink, dance, or party. They were looking for their cousin Lisa, who had been in town visiting on her college break the night before. Around 6pm Kurt last saw Lisa Lisa at a bar called Mother's. She said that she'd hit it off with this guy that she met inside and she was thinking about going home with him. So she asked Kurt to wait around for about 30 minutes and if she didn't come back out by then, he could just head home. So when that half hour passed, he did. But when Lisa hadn't returned home by the next day, the cousins began to worry. They couldn't find anyone at the bars on Rush street who could tell them what might have happened to to Lisa. So just after 10pm that night, Michelle called the Oak Park Police Department to file a missing persons report. From Oak Park's original incident file. It looks like that night, officers put Lisa's information into ncic, a law enforcement database, and they checked for accidents in the area, but that's about it. They didn't conduct interviews or do neighborhood canvases or initiate any sort of ground search. They didn't even ask for a picture of Lisa. When 10 days went by with no updates, Lisa's dad, Jack Stays, actually traveled up from his home in Leawood, Kansas to see what was going on. He hoped giving officers some more information about Lisa might get things moving, but it really didn't. The Stays family went on to spend over a year living in a state of dread with no idea idea what happened to Lisa. Her younger brothers, Grant and Tim were around 17 and 9 when she disappeared. Grant, the older brother, remembers that time just being a blur.

[Grant Stays]

Well, I don't know exactly what went on during the 16 months. I don't even know if I knew it was affecting me. You know, it just kind of is one of those things when you're 17, 18, that kind of molds you, you know, don't really know that it's molding you at the time. But yeah, I mean, it was hard on my parents. It was really hard on them. For all that time, I saw them age quite a bit or rapidly, I should say, because it's the unknown that really, really wears on you. To find out what happened is hard, but to not find out what happened is harder.

[Ashley Flowers]

And the more time that went by, the more difficult it became for the stays to hold out hope that Lisa was going to come back to them.

[Grant Stays]

You know, I remember acquaintances of her saying, oh, she's dead. You know, I thought that was rather harsh. But we had no reason to believe that she would disappear without telling any of us or her cousins. I mean, she was real close with her cousin Michelle, so there was no reason to believe that she disappeared on her own. As far as I could tell, it wasn't going to be good.

[Ashley Flowers]

After about a year of worrying and radio silence from Oak park police, Lisa's parents reached out to their local police. Even though Lisa had vanished from a different state, her family hoped that another police department might be able to make some progress.

[Grant Stays]

I know my parents were very frustrated after the fact. The dad just relied on the Illinois authorities. And it wasn't until my parents talked to a local law enforcement person that they actually got any connection made. People in Chicago really did let them down. At least, you know, that's how they feel. And I can't disagree with that.

[Ashley Flowers]

It was in February 1977, a year after Lisa's disappearance, when Captain Al Sellers from the Leawood Police Department reached out to Oak park pd, quote, expressing a desire to know exactly what the department had been doing in relation to the case. Of course, there wasn't much to share, so Captain Sellers started an investigation of his own. And thank God he did, because just a few months later, In April of 1977, he came across a teletype bulletin from Wisconsin that caught his attention. The Sauk County Sheriff's Office had sent out a notification about an unidentified body that had been discovered. The remains were described as belonging to a white female, 18 to 35 years old, 53 and 105 pounds, with long dark hair and blue eyes. They made note of a tattoo on the upper left thigh. And that was the kicker. Lisa had a tattoo in that exact location. When the Leawood police captain called the Sauk County Sheriff's Office, he learned that the woman's body had been found on January 24th of 1976. That is just 10 days after Lisa was reported missing. She was under a bridge at a local creek, completely nude and in a fetal position and frozen solid when they found her. Aside from a red and green tattoo and a very small strand of gold colored metal which appeared to have been part of some kind of jewelry, There was nothing else on or near the woman to help detectives figure out who she was when they found her. And her fingerprints weren't on file anywhere. So they had given her a temporary name. Frigid Frida.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

I think it was more like slang from investigators back then, because obviously there was a year plus before she was positively identified as who she was. So they would refer to the case as Frigid Frida, and that kind of transferred down, because even talking to older employees here, that's what they knew the case as.

[Ashley Flowers]

That was Detective Drew Bolen with the Sauk County Sheriff's Office. He said that in the early days of the investigation, Sauk county detectives sent out hundreds of flyers with Frieda's description to law enforcement agencies across the country, and they released a composite sketch of the woman's face and upper thigh tattoo to the media. The flyers brought in some potential matches from New York all the way to California, enough to fill several thick file folders. But all of those ended up being dead ends. There was nothing at the scene to lead them to believe she'd been killed there. The creek was likely just a dumping ground. And when they did an autopsy, that hadn't made things much clearer. Frida had no defensive wounds, and apparently her brain, which can usually tell a medical examiner a lot, was damaged by exposure to the cold and the subsequent thawing. Now, initially, the cause of death was undetermined, though at a later inquest, it was ruled a homicide. And the only usable evidence they had at the time were foreign pubic hairs on Frida, which suggested that she had recent sexual contact with someone.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

I think just based on her positioning where she was found, obviously being nude, they assumed that there was probably a sexual component. And so they, as part of the autopsy back then, in 76, they did take swabs, which are important today because obviously back then, they weren't necessarily looking for DNA, but obviously, that's what we're looking for today. Right? So they did do swabs that they would typically do in sexual assault kit, and then they would have taken cuttings off pubic hair.

[Ashley Flowers]

According to Detective Bullen, hair analysis was a popular forensic technique at the time. It involved placing samples under a microscope and looking at things like color, size, and composition for comparison. So the foreign pubic hair was an important discovery. And at the time, investigators actually rounded up some of their usual suspects to compare their pubic hairs with the ones found on Frida, but there weren't any matches. Frigid Frieda was ultimately buried in a local cemetery, and all they could put on the headstone was a small bronze plaque inscribed with unidentified female. At least that's all they could do until the day they could identify her. And with this call from Leawood, that day was now. They had to exhume the body to take X rays for a dental comparison. But when all was said and done, it was Lisa stays. The realization that Lisa's body had been found just 11 days after she was last seen was a tough pill to swallow after 15 months of of agony. At the time, Lisa's mom, Susan, wrote a letter to the editor at the Baraboo News Republic. This is her today at 91 years old. Reading from that letter, one would have.

[Susan Stays]

To have been in our position to appreciate the sense of helplessness we experienced in our quest for Lisa's whereabouts. It had seemed to us a logical move to report her disappearance to the Illinois authorities, since that is where she was staying at the time. We put all our faith in them to do their best. And unfortunately, that faith was misplaced.

[Ashley Flowers]

Susan went on to express her gratitude for the work of Sauk county law enforcement.

[Susan Stays]

When we learned the whole story and found that our girl had been given a beautiful funeral at the Gantt Funeral Home in Reedsburg, we were overwhelmed with gratitude and relief enjoyed. We viewed that service on videotape right in the courthouse, openly weeping. It is over for us now, the long nights of wondering. But we know it is only beginning in earnest for those involved in the investigation. To all of them, we can only say thank you and hope they know that we have very good feelings towards all of them. A part of our hearts will remain with our Lisa forever in your lovely Wisconsin.

[Ashley Flowers]

And Susan was right. With this id, the investigation was only beginning, this time with Sauk county at the helm. But they still weren't sure when exactly Lisa was killed. In the 11 days between her disappearance and the discovery of her body, or even where she was killed in the nearly 200 miles between Chicago and Baraboo, Wisconsin. If she was murdered in Sauk county, it would have been the area's first homicide in almost seven years. Foreign baby monitor is a game changer for parents as it allows you to see your baby from anywhere, anytime. And the high def camera means you can actually see your baby. No grainy images. Nanit allows you to track your baby's breathing, sleep patterns and developmental milestones, providing you with personalized insights to understand your baby like never before. This means more sleep for your baby and more rest for you. The Nanit baby monitor is changing parenthood for the better. It's the one baby item you can't live without. And of course, we have a special offer just for our listeners. Get 20% off your first order with code BABY20. That's B A B Y20 nanit.com Now N A N I T.com Nanit Parenthood looks different here. Our parents helped us expand our horizons. Want to return the favor? Give them the gift of Masterclass. Masterclass is the only streaming platform where you can learn and grow with over 200 of the world's best. Get ahead in life and business with declassified techniques from former CIA offices. Learn how to spot a liar with FBI profiler John Douglas and uncover the truth with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Bob Woodward. Don't wait another moment to start your learning journey with Masterclass. Man I did not appreciate education when it was my full time job to get an education. It's only been in like the last 10 years or so that I've really wanted to go out of my way to learn about things that really matter to me. Now I'm learning to think like a profiler directly from the profiler John Douglas. Our listeners always get great discounts on Masterclass of at least 15% off any annual [e-mail] deck see masterclass latest deal at least 15% [e-mail] dec masterclass.com deck so Sauk county detectives started where Oak Park PD should have those 15 months ago by learning everything they could about Lisa and what she was doing in the days leading up to her disappearance. And they began with Michelle, Lisa's cousin that had been hosting her. According to Michelle, the day before she was last seen Lisa, Lisa ended up meeting and hitting it off with a singer named David McKenzie. Lisa had spent the night at David's place before returning to Michelle's safe and sound on Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday night is when Lisa disappeared.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

So Michelle says that she thinks that Lisa kind of wanted to just be free and go out to the bar and have a good time. She suspects that she was using some drugs back then, too, drinking a little bit. And so Michelle suspects that Lisa was maybe using some marijuana and then possibly cocaine and then potentially heroin as well as part of the party that night. It doesn't sound like Michelle observed any actual use. That was just kind of her suspicion. When she talked with investigators, Lisa's parents.

[Ashley Flowers]

Susan and Jack, didn't know anything about Lisa's possible drug habits, but they said it wouldn't have totally surprised them if she was experimenting. I mean, it was the 70s and Lisa was a free spirited girl.

[Jack Stays]

She was very boldacious.

[Susan Stays]

Yeah, bold. She wasn't afraid of things. She was, you know, just go out there and do whatever she wanted within reason. But, you know, I mean, she wasn't a fearful child. She was very bold. Curious.

[Jack Stays]

Yeah. Fearless. Yeah.

[Susan Stays]

And she was in her early years, she was a very good student. She was a smart girl. And she drifted into her teens. She got distracted with, you know, teenage stuff and. And that's when she just sort of, you know, lost track of what I'd call her childhood. I sometimes worry that maybe we were too hands off. But, you know, there's a balance between, you know, riding her on your kid and letting them, you know, learn for themselves.

[Ashley Flowers]

Investigators were never able to confirm whether or not Lisa had drugs in her system when she died because a tox screen seemingly never made it into frigid Frida's autopsy report. But they did go and talk to David.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

He describes how he got to talking to Lisa, and Lisa ended up going back home with him that night to his apartment in Chicago and admits that they had sex consensually and that the last time he saw Lisa was the following morning, early afternoon, where she gets on the L train in Chicago to go back to her cousin's in Oak Park. David is very cooperative with investigators and gives any standards that they requested, which included hair samples and head hair samples, I believe, and pubic hair samples. I'm not sure if they took fingerprints. I would assume that they did. But he was very cooperative, and those hairs were later submitted to the lab and they excluded him as being the source of the foreign hairs that were found on Lisa.

[Ashley Flowers]

Not only was David forthcoming with investigators, but he also had an alibi. He was performing in another bar the night that Lisa disappeared, which detectives confirmed with bar staff.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

I think they were fairly confident, or I infer from the reports that they are fairly confident that he was not involved just because of the potential alibi and then also his level of cooperation.

[Ashley Flowers]

Investigators also talked to Kurt, Lisa's other cousin. By the time Sauk county talked to him, he had moved away from the Chicago area. According to Detective Bolen, there isn't much more information on Kurt in the case file. It's not clear if Sauk county investigators at the time ever considered him a suspect and if not, why he was ruled out. Next up was Lisa's boyfriend, Mark Hanstead, or rather, nextup should have been the boyfriend at the time. Susan told investigators that Lisa actually planned the Chicago trip after a falling out with Mark. The two lived Together. And Lisa needed some time away to decompress. Now, today, Susan doesn't remember it that way. I mean, she was never a big fan of Mark, she said, but she couldn't recall that trip being anything more than a routine family visit. Either way, Detective Bullen says the case file shows that he was never a serious suspect.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

It's pretty clear from reports that investigators discounted him pretty early on and that there's not really much, if any, follow up that I can see that was done on the case.

[Ashley Flowers]

So the boyfriend was never considered a person of interest?

[Detective Drew Bolen]

No. There's so much that the investigators maybe knew back then or suspected back then, and it is undocumented. So that combined with just simply the length of time with any cold case, it's tough to look back and say, man, what were the investigators doing back then? And it's hard to know.

[Ashley Flowers]

Whatever they did didn't lead to solving Lisa's case. And for the next 20 years, it stayed cold all the way up until around 1999. That's when investigators got a letter from a man in prison alleging that one of his fellow inmates might have had something to do with Lisa's murder. A convicted serial killer named William Zamastel. At the time, William was serving a life sentence in Wisconsin for the 1970, 1978 murder of a different woman.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

She had been abducted from a parking lot in Madison and sexually assaulted and killed. And he was convicted of that in the late 70s and sentenced to life here in prison in Wisconsin. And after that time, the late 90s, early 2000s, he was convicted of a double homicide of some hitchhikers in the Los Angeles area. And then again in the early 2000s, he was convicted of homicide in Tucson, Arizona. He had killed an FBI agent's daughter, adult daughter, sexual assault, and dumped her in the desert.

[Ashley Flowers]

If you've never heard of William Zamistill before, it's probably because his name got lost in the shuffle. Of prolific serial killers active in the 1970s, ones like John Wayne Gacy, Ed Kemper, or David Berkowitz. Plus William Zamistil killed all over the US he wasn't known for terrorizing a specific city or state like those other men, at least as far as anyone knew. When William's fellow inmate wrote to investigators, he said that he believed William had committed more murders that he hadn't been convicted of. And the letter specifically mentioned a victim found underneath a bridge in Sauk County. Now, investigators were well aware that the information about Lisa's body being found under a bridge could have been Gleaned from the news. But still they took this lead seriously. They started trying to determine William's whereabouts in January of 1976. And as it turns out, he was in custody in dane county, which is about an hour from sauk county. But he was serving time for a lesser crime and was granted work release.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

So he definitely was in the area. And the records from the jail back then that they had were on microfilm and they were difficult to read. Investigators believed it was possible that he was in jail at the time of this case, but they're not certain because of the quality of the records. And when they talked with or attempted to talk with zam stil, he said, well, no, I wasn't in custody, I was out. So they were never able to definitively say whether or not he was in custody.

[Ashley Flowers]

And that's about all he gave them, by the way. When investigators went to question him around 1999, he presented them with a list of demands and refused to give any information about Lisa unless those demands were met.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

And so part of his demands were he wanted to serve his sentence in a certain prison and he wanted some guarantees. They were suspicious back then as to whether or not he was claiming this murder to gain something for himself because he's incarcerated for life, or if he actually committed it. And they basically said, well, we need to know some details. And he was not willing to provide them. So he was never ruled in or out.

[Ashley Flowers]

It seemed that detectives didn't want to negotiate. So with that, the investigation stalled again. Almost another full decade passed without any movement. And during that time, Lisa's brother Grant says that the stays family honestly sort of gave up hope that they would ever get closure.

[Grant Stays]

The not finding her killer, while it's hard, is not unexpected. You would hope somebody would have been found out somehow. You know, it's always just kind of been something. I gotta hope that they meet their judgment someday or already have. You know, there's been. Every once in a while, something comes up. It's like, oh, this person sounds like they could have been a suspect. And nothing really ever comes of it. The only person I know of right now that I never really got any closure on whether he's involved Is William's Zamistil.

[Ashley Flowers]

In the late 2000s, the inmate who wrote to investigators about William zamistil Was released from prison and then passed away. And investigators made no further attempts to contact William. Being a convicted offender, his DNA was on file. But DNA testing wasn't really on detectives minds yet. Plus, they would have needed a search warrant to obtain his pubic hairs for comparison to those found on Lisa, which it doesn't seem like they ever requested. But over the years, forensic testing evolved far beyond the hair analysis of the 70s. And as Sauk county got access to new technology, investigators sent off some of the physical evidence that they had collected during Lisa's autopsy. The first attempt was in 2001, 25 years after Lisa's murder.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

They did identify some sperm cells on the swabs, but at the time, they were not. There wasn't enough genetic material present to develop a full profile for the male, and certainly not a profile that would be suitable for entry into a database like codis.

[Ashley Flowers]

According to Detective Bullen, the lab was only able to collect six sperm heads from a smear prepared from the swabs. Conventionally complete profiles require between 20 and 50 at the least. So fast forward to 2009. That's when investigators sent the foreign pubic hairs and rectal swabs off for testing.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

They were able to detect a trace level of male DNA from a couple of the hairs, but again, the quantity was not sufficient to develop a profile. They attempted to analyze the rectal swabs as well, and there's a lack of male DNA detected, so no further analysis was performed.

[Ashley Flowers]

And that was the last submission before Detective Bolen was assigned to the case in the fall of 2022. Which is a bizarre story in and of itself. Feeling sexy is supposed to be fun. That's why Adore Me makes fun, flirty and playful lingerie, bras and more that are all about what gets you excited. Adormi offers extended sizing across a wide variety of thoughtfully designed styles. They drop a new seasonal collection each month, so there's always new styles to check out. Whether you're looking for everyday bra and panty sets, lingerie, corsets, supportive swimwear, PJs or activewear, they have it all. I mean, it is almost pool season and I am always on the hunt for a great swimsuit brand. And I really like Adore Me because as a big booby girl, it is hard to get the right support in a suit. And theirs are top notch, literally five stars. And with sets starting as low as $25, you can feel sexy even if you're on a budget. New customers can get bra and panty sets for as low as $25. So take this as a sign to order yourself a new bra head to adoreme.com now to shop more than just lingerie in over 67 sizes.

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[Detective Drew Bolen]

So one of the reasons that this case came back around is we had someone call in and say that they had noticed that someone was placing flowers on the victim's grave. And so that kind of spurred our interest in my supervisor's interest in being like, hey, let's have somebody take a look at this again.

[Ashley Flowers]

Detective Bullin says the thought at the time was that maybe the person who killed Lisa wasn't dead or in prison, but living somewhere in Sauk County. And after all these years, he had begun to feel remorseful. So Bullen spoke to the cemetery's caretaker, who assumed that the family had been leaving the flowers. But according to Grant, while his parents used to go up to Baraboo once a year to see Lisa's headstone. They hadn't been back since his mom's stroke seven years earlier. Detective Bullen never did figure out who who it was that was leaving the flowers. The cemetery didn't have surveillance video, and the caretaker never saw anyone in the act. Now, it's totally possible it was just a caring local resident, but the whole situation did lead Detective Boland to start digging back into Lisa's case. His initial thought was that if it was ever going to get solved, it was probably going to be because of advances in DNA testing.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

I talked with the analyst and he and I agreed that, you know, certainly 2001, but even 2009 to 2023 is a lifetime in DNA science and that their protocols are much different. And I resubmitted some of the swabs that we still had. And then I also resubmitted DNA packets.

[Ashley Flowers]

They had been hopeful that they would get a full profile this time around, but no such luck. The evidence text said that the sample was just too degraded. Detective Boland did resubmit additional material in 2023, essentially everything they had left. But he is still waiting on those results.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

So the hope is that we'll be able to get a full male profile. Right? Based on the advances in genetic genealogy, a lot of times if you have a DNA profile like you're going to identify it, it's just a matter of time. And so if we get that full male profile, we're confident that, you know, we'll have the resources to identify that person.

[Ashley Flowers]

On the chance that the DNA doesn't provide answers, Detective Boland is putting in the legwork, too. Currently he's working on tracking down Mark Hanstead, Lisa's then boyfriend. But here's the problem. Because original reports are lacking identifying information, he's been having some trouble tracking this guy down. I mean, it's not even totally clear if Mark is still alive. So, Mark, if you are out there and if you're listening to this, please reach out to Sauk County. Detective Boland is also trying to figure out if David McKenzie is still alive, just to cover all his bases. But given David's cooperation in the 70s, he's pretty low down his outreach list.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

There is a possibility that someone's out there who knows what happened to Lisa and they're still alive and for whatever reason, they've never come forward. That's certainly possible, and that solves a lot of cold cases, too. So between the physical evidence and somebody potentially coming forward with information, I think that's really what we would need to push this case forward.

[Ashley Flowers]

In 2023, someone did come forward with a familiar name in a familiar fashion. A convicted murderer serving a life sentence in Wisconsin wrote an article for prisonwriters.com titled My Friend, A Serial Killer Is Ready to Confess. The author, Justin Welch, wrote that he and William Zamistil, who he calls Wild Bill, are very close friends. He said, quote, I know Bill very well now, and I even know about many of the murders he did but was never convicted of. And that's why I call him Wild Bill. He has killed so many people and nobody has any idea because it's been so long, Bill has killed so many people, he can't even remember half the shit he did. And then there was a catch, quote, we all know Bill is going to die in prison like me. So I thought maybe if I could get him to come forward on many of his other murders, then the federal government would make a deal with him. I told Bill I would talk to the detectives and tell them everything they need to know. If we could have it in writing that Bill and I would get transferred to the federal prison system for the rest of our lives. Bill will not talk until it's in writing. We'll get the transfer. Just so you all know, unfortunately, this ultimatum put detectives in the same place they were in in the late 2000s, the place of negotiating with a serial killer. Now, our reporter Nicole talked with the founder of prisonwriters.com Lohan Kelly, who published Welch's article. She acknowledged that the site doesn't fact check stories, so she can't be certain that any claims made are 100% true. But she doesn't dismiss them either. After publishing that story, Kelly actually reached out to William Zamastil herself to learn more about him. And she has been talking with him regularly ever since then. She calls him Bill.

[Lohan Kelly]

He would tell me about these murders he did, but he didn't remember the details of who the victim was, what they were wearing, what their names were, what they were dressed, you know, because he wasn't that kind of a serial killer. He is a very unusual serial killer, actually, because he doesn't have any M.O. he doesn't have a sort of a standard plan. It's very impulsive. Sometimes he would use a rock, sometimes he would strangle them. Sometimes he used a knife, shot someone with a gun once and a belt, a wire hanger. So in other words, serial killers usually have a regular pattern, and he really didn't. I think with Bill, it would be anger that caused him to do some of them. But I also think, believe it or not, boredom. I'd be always like, why did you kill? And he'd be like, well, sometimes it was just to spice up the day.

[Ashley Flowers]

When Kelly first started talking with William, she said he had no interest in confessing any of these crimes to authorities. So she took it upon herself to try and convince him otherwise.

[Lohan Kelly]

I would say things to him like, look, Bill, I know you don't give a sh about solving this case. You know, you don't have any remorse. We've talked about this. You know, it's not going to do you any good, but let me just tell you another perspective. And then I would explain that there is something to this closure business. Closure was so important to people. You know, I think, like, 10 years ago, your sibling died. And, you know, it's going to feel that much better to know who did it. And the answer is yes by a huge amount. That why the hell not? Just, you know, even though it's not going to change your life, you're not going to feel any differently. Why don't you just try it?

[Ashley Flowers]

So he did. As it turned out, the day our reporter Nicole reached out to Lohan, William Zamastiel had a meeting with the FBI to come forward about a murder he was claiming responsibility for in California. She said the DA seemed interested, but wanted to do some more investigation before moving forward. Nicole reached out to William in prison to ask him about Lisa's case, but she never heard back. Although she did get a response from his friend, Justin Welch. Hello? You have a call from Justin, an inmate at Wisconsin Secure Program Facility. To accept this call, press 5. To refuse this call, hang up now.

[Justin Welch]

Hello?

[Susan Stays]

Hi.

[Justin Welch]

Hi, Nicole, this is Justin Welch from Wisconsin. Doc.

[Ashley Flowers]

Oh, hi.

[Justin Welch]

Well, I'll let you know something right now right off the get go. I'm under investigation by the FBI because I'm Bill Friend. They've been. Yeah, they have the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigations, like recording all my phone calls and sending everything, the feds and all that stuff. So I have the transcripts. I just got them last month. I didn't know they were doing this until just last month. Anyway, so what'd you want to know?

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah, before I ask you some questions.

[Nanit Ad]

Do you mind if I record the call?

[Justin Welch]

I don't care.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

Okay, awesome.

[Nanit Ad]

So, basically, as I wrote to you in my letter, I'm working on a story about the 1976 murder of this.

[Ashley Flowers]

Woman named Lisa in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

[Justin Welch]

Yeah, I know what case you're talking about. Bill's adamantly saying he didn't do it. See, the Fed gave me like 15 people to pick from, and I went and talked to Bill about all of them. And Bill, out of the 15, he picked eight of them. He remembered eight of them. So he told me about lots of murders and told me about where the bodies were at and everything, and they still haven't even found him. So it's just. Yeah, he would. He would tell me because we're. He doesn't give a. Like, he doesn't care about that. That was 50 years ago. You know, he. He's just an old man now. He would have told me. He'd been like, yeah, I did it, Justin. Yeah, no, I know he didn't do it. He would have told me.

[Ashley Flowers]

So at least from Welch's perspective, investigators would be wasting their time looking at William. He may be a very bad guy, capable of Very bad things. But according to him, Lisa's murder doesn't seem to be one of them. But if that's true, it still leaves us asking who killed Lisa. At this point, Detective Bullen is asking anyone who might have any information at all, all about this case, no matter how small, to please come forward.

[Detective Drew Bolen]

No tip is going to be disregarded. You know, we're happy to talk to anyone who might have information because you truly don't know and we truly don't know what you know, what information is key. There might be something out there that we have no knowledge of, that someone brings to us and it solves the case.

[Ashley Flowers]

Now, 49 years since, since Lisa first went missing, all Grant wants is for answers to come while his parents are still around to hear them.

[Grant Stays]

They're, you know, up there in years. You know, dad's 95 and mom's 91. So the fact that they've just. The fact that they've had. Sorry, they've had to live with us for a long time.

[Jack Stays]

Well, it is 50 years. And then in the meantime, we've had a full life with the rest of our children, grandchildren, beautiful babies. Something that Lisa just had nothing. I mean, she had no life. I mean, there was nothing that. She was just a baby in our arms. And there were so many things that she just missed out on this life. Of course, we've lived a long time. We've been so happy with the way our boys have turned out and their families, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. They're all beautiful. So it's just a shame that she missed all that.

[Ashley Flowers]

If you have any information about the murder of Lisa Stays or her whereabouts between Illinois in Wisconsin In January of 1976, please call the Sauk County Sheriff's Office at 608-355-4495 and ask for Detective Bullen. Or if you'd rather remain anonymous, you can call the Sauk County Crime Stoppers tip line at 1-800-TIP Sauk. That's 1-800-TIP S A U K. And just a reminder, Detective Bullen is still looking for Mark hanstead and David McKenzie. So if either of you are out there or someone listening knows these men, please have them reach out. The Deck is an audio Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit the Deck podcast. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

[Chuck]

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[Detective Drew Bolen]

Here'S what people are saying about our.

[Ashley Flowers]

True crime podcast, Anatomy of Murder.

[Susan Stays]

Instead of just telling a story, they're.

[Ashley Flowers]

Actually helping someone else to live the story. Each week, we dissect a homicide using our expertise as an New York City homicide prosecutor and a sheriff's deputy and journalist.

[Grant Stays]

I want to thank you all for what you've done.

[Ashley Flowers]

And now Rolling Stone magazine has named Anatomy of Murder one of the top 25 true crime podcasts of all time.

[Susan Stays]

Anybody who listens is going to be hooked right away.