Posted on 02/18/2008 5:32:41 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Former state worker Eugene Zapata has confessed to strangling his wife more than 31 years ago, dumping her body in a wooded area near Madison and eventually moving it to the Juneau County Landfill after detectives reopened an investigation into the case.
While there has been no sign of Jeanette Zapata, 36, since she disappeared on Oct. 11, 1976, her many family and friends in the Madison area now know for certain that her husband Eugene killed her and how he disposed of her body.
It is little consolation for those who wondered for more than three decades what became of the vivacious flight instructor from Frickleton Aviation in Madison, who was never seen again after sending her three children off to school that day.
Today, Zapata entered a plea, admitting to killing his wife and said he did so when he snapped during an argument as the two were going through a messy divorce. As part of a plea bargain prosecutors eventually reached with Zapata, 69, they read a statement he gave to detectives in which he admitted to the killing and told how he disposed of his wife's body.
Zapata said in that statement he went to the family's home on Indian Trace on the morning of Oct. 11, 1976, to discuss things with his estranged wife and wound up in an argument which escalated and became violent. He said he took a draftsman's weight out of a drawer and struck his wife in the head, then strangled her, first with his hands and then with a cord, to make sure she was dead. After cleaning up her blood, he rolled his wife into a tent, then drove to the rural area east of Madison where he dumped her body in a wooded area he believes along what is now Reiner Road.
Later, he bought a piece of property in Juneau County and used a U-Haul trailer to take the body from the woods and dump it on his new property in Juneau County, covering it with loads of dirt. The body stayed there for some 24 years. In 2001, after he had remarried and retired from state work, he decided to move to Nevada. Before making that move, he retrieved the body again, this time putting it in a rented storage locker in Sun Prairie.
Zapata's plans began to unravel in late 2004, when Peggy Weekly, a longtime friend of Jeanette's, contacted the Madison Police department to ask whatever had become of the investigation into her friend's disappearance. That led detectives to review the old case and, by August of 2006, they were satisfied they had enough evidence to convict Eugene of first-degree murder.
Detectives had two prongs of new evidence that wasn't available in 1976: cadaver sniffing dogs which appeared to show that Zapata had kept the body in various homes he, his children and his new wife lived in while in Madison, at the Sun Prairie storage locker and at the Juneau County landfill. They also had a set of detailed notes Zapata kept of his wife's whereabouts and with whom she was associating in the days when the couple was estranged.
But that was not enough to convict Zapata. Last Fall, jurors deliberated for some four days before telling Dane County Circuit Court Judge Patrick Fiedler they were hopelessly deadlocked: 10 wanting to convict and one holding out for an acquittal with one juror undecided.
Prosecutors said they would bring Zapata to trial again but instead reached a plea bargain. He agreed to plead to the far lesser charge of reckless homicide and face a maximum of five years in prison. With time off for good behavior, allowed under 1976 law, he will serve about three years and one month before being freed.
Part of that deal called for Zapata to make a complete and truthful confession to detectives and, Assistant District Attorney Robert Kaiser said, he has done that.
As they renewed their investigation, Zapata said, he went to the Sun Prairie storage center, cut up the remains of the body, put it into plastic bags and put them in a dumpster at the Juneau County Landfill.
Because landfill records showed Zapata putting 60 pounds of something into that landfill, detectives and retired detectives and officers combed through the landfill but failed to come up with any results related to the case.
Zapata was handcuffed and taken from the courtroom today to begin his prison term.
Speaking to the court just before he was sentenced, daughter Linda Zapata told her father that it was a relief to finally know what happened to her mother, and said, "I do forgive you, and I love you."
Two members of the jury refused to convict? Must have been from the Faculty of Arts & Sciences.
that's a gem.
That is so awful, only 5 yrs....
But Wisconsin is liberal, but I didn’t think that they were that liberal....
God I am so glad I moved away, but I can’t say that where I am at now is much better
This isn't news, it's a Cohen brothers' screenplay.
and just lovely that the cops finally decided to look a little closer at this case...it was good to let the killer live a care free live with another wife and 3 adoring children ....
the unfairness of life is just astounding at times....
and what to do with today's stupid, illogical, self-indulged juries that can think of any circumstance not to convict someone....
“Blood Simple.” One of my favorites. ;)
I don’t get it.
Was he sentimentally attached to her corpse? He had decades to properly dispose of her remains, yet he kept them at hand.
Was the article saying the corpse-sniffing dogs could smell out two and three-decade-old traces?
“Blood Simple” The Coen Brothers first movie and probably veteran character actor Dan Hedaya’s best work (as the murdered abusive husband who won’t stay dead).
One of my all-time favorites—I just read the screenplay (after seeing the movie many times) and it’s a trip. I just finished Miller’s Crossing, and it’s on to the screenplay, Fargo, next. But, really, this case does sound like the Cohens wrote it.
I got all the DVDs last year. Great movies. And how about Raising Arizona?
His being a “state worker” (I know - a contradiction in terms) explains it all. Too lazy or too stupid to do the job of disposing of the body properly in the first place, he does the same job over and over for 30 some years. And still doesn’t get it right. Then they get a pension. Think of it as “Murder Covered by Civil Service Regulations”.
Don’t skip over Barton Fink...one of my faves.
I have to see that one more time---I didn't get a good chance to view it when it first came out, so memory of it is, at best, hazy.
I think that's one of their firsts, if not the first. I've got it here, ready read after Fargo.
Bureaucrats are the real enemy.
No, it was the one just before Fargo...I would watch it before Fargo.
Yes—it is interesting. Probably a control freak in life, he continued to be a control freak after her death.
And also to prevent anyone from finding him out.
Without a body, and with the necessary proof for conviction coming only from the accused, the five year plea bargain was the best the authorities could do.
The final Judge hasn’t weighed in yet on this case.
Thanks. Okay, I’ll do Barton Fink first. But I’m reading (screenplays) and not watching until after the screenplay has been read.
That sounds like a good process...have fun!
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