GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – Prosecutors filed formal charges against the man suspected in the death of a Ledgeview woman on Friday.
38-year-old George Stephen Burch is charged with first degree intentional homicide in Brown County Court. The body of 31-year-old Nicole VanderHeyden was found near a field in Bellevue May 21.
According to the criminal complaint, VanderHeyden’s boyfriend, 35-year-old Douglass Detrie, told investigators on the night of May 20 he and VanderHeyden went out drinking with friends at a bar in Howard. He said VanderHeyden became upset with him and he told her he would meet her at their next planned stop. She was driven by friends to a bar along Broadway in Green Bay.
Detrie said VanderHeyden was very drunk when she left the first bar. He told police he tried calling her numerous times but was not able to reach her. Detrie and a friend later that night got a hold of VanderHeyden, but she wouldn’t tell them her location. On Sunday, May 21st, at 12:36 a.m. was the last time they talked to her.
A friend of VanderHeyden, who was at the second bar with her, told police a friend called Detrie to tell him that VanderHeyden was drunk and that everyone was leaving. VanderHeyden overheard the friend talking to Detrie and took off on foot walking down the street. A friend followed VanderHeyden, but said that she refused to come back to the bar. The friend turned around and went back without VanderHeyden. Everyone eventually left the bar.
Brown County Dispatch received a report at 1:54p.m. on May 21 of a female body found near an open field off Hoffman Road in the Village of Bellevue. That same day at around 4:37 p.m., Detrie called police to report VanderHeyden as a missing person.
Investigators reveal that DNA samples taken from VanderHeyden’s body connects George Burch to the crime.
Police later get Burch’s consent for officers to extract information off his phone. Investigators discovered that a news story regarding the death of VanderHeyden was viewed multiple times in the days after her body was located. The only other searches on his phone was for pornographic material.
During the cell phone search, police also found his Gmail account where they got a search warrant for records attached to that account. Crime analysts were then able to plot out the location of Burch based on the times and latitude/longitude coordinates provided.
Burch is being held on $2 million cash bond.
He’s scheduled to be back in Brown County Court on September 30 at 2:30p.m.
