SHAWANO, WI (WTAQ) – The life of a young man was cut short six years ago in Shawano County, and to this date, the case remains unsolved.
“Tim was a great person and I just think he deserves better than that.”
Last month the Statute of Limitations passed on the Shawano County hit-and-run death investigation of 22-year-old Timothy Meade.
The more than six-year-long investigation was conducted by the Shawano County Sheriff’s Department.
“They spent a lot of time interviewing and investigating this, but frankly they just did not have enough evidence,” said Meade’s sister Autumn Edwards.
Even though he was not Sheriff at the time, Shawano County Sheriff’ Adam Bieber feels that this case could have had a much different outcome.
“I feel very confident that this type of thing will not happen in the future.”
The original reports indicated that in the early morning hours of June 28, 2013, Meade was believed to have been intoxicated and was a struck by a vehicle while walking on County M near the Highway 29 bridge overpass. It was reported that someone noticed the body and reported it, but the vehicle was not at the scene.
Details found in the 144-page investigation report show the stages of the investigation within the six years and shows that multiple attempts were made to get answers and many years passed before the first possible suspects were identified.
According to the report from the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office, Meade was found lying on County M. He was wearing an orange t-shirt and blue jeans. The first call came in at 2:28 a.m. from a woman named Leah Carlson. She reported to 911 that a person was lying in the middle of the road. She said it looks like he was run over and had no pulse and was not breathing.
Deputies arrived on scene and located the body of Meade. They also located Meade’s phone. Searching the phone, they discovered that a female named Cindy James-Krueger was texting Meade that night and asking if he was okay.
Deputies went to James-Krueger’s home in Shawano that night and informed her that Meade was deceased. She confirmed to deputies that Meade was at County USA that day and that he was removed from the grounds. She told deputies that a cousin drove him to Clintonville to meet up with her and they spent the rest of the day together, according to the report.
James-Krueger said that she and Meade went to The Shack together that night and when she wanted to leave around 12:30 a.m. Meade indicated that he did not want to leave. According to the report, she told investigators that she left him and tried to communicate with him through text messaging.
According to the report, detectives spoke with three witnesses, including the bartender the Shack, and all said that Meade was drinking and appeared intoxicated at the Shack that night. They said that he was talking to women there and that they offered Meade a ride home, which Meade rejected on each occasion. Witnesses and the bartender said they watched Meade leave between 1:30 and 1:45 a.m.
“I wish he would have gotten a ride home when he was offered multiple times, but for some reason, he didn’t,” Autumn Edwards stated.
Without much of a lead to go off of and no suspect at the time, the next morning, Detective Troy Ugoretz checked parking lots in the area for a vehicle with front end damage and contacted Cellcom and Verizon Wireless to start the process of doing Tower Dumps to see if anyone was using the tower in that area before or after the incident.
Detective Ugoretz also reported checking surveillance camera footage from gas stations and car washes that would have been taken between 2:15am-3:00 am.
Nine different gas station/car washes were checked but no information or video was available.
Damage to victim led investigators to believe that the impact was at a slower speed and from a vehicle with a high bumper. All together throughout the investigation, five vehicles were investigated including two Ford Explorers, A Toyota Camry, a Dodge Ram and a Ford F250.
Shawano County Sheriff Adam Bieber, who was an officer with the Shawano Police Department at the time said looking back, he felt that investigators limited their vehicle search too much.
“Investigators felt that this was a truck or an SUV, but we have no idea what kind of vehicle was involved, so that assumption may have hindered the case right from the get-go because detectives told people to look out for a truck or an SUV when people should have been looking for any type of vehicle with damage.”
Detectives also checked bars in Gresham and Thorton area to see if any of them were open at bar time to see if any patrons would be driving on the road at the time of the crash. Most reported that they were closed before bar time that night.
The investigation did not see any more developments until October of 2017 when the Sheriff’s Office received a letter stating that they should speak with a James J. Schmidt about the crash. After speaking with Schmidt he said he had no knowledge and that lead was not pursued any further.
On February 20, 2018, for the first time, a possible suspect’s name was presented to the Sheriff’s Investigators. Detective Jesse Sperberg got a call from a woman who gave a lead to someone who was by the crash scene the night of the incident. According to the report, a man told this woman that his daughter’s half-sister was at the Shack on the night of the accident and she was with a friend and identified her as Karly Curtin.
According to this witness, the group was picked up from the Shack by Savanna Curtin that night. It was indicated that as they were driving Savanna told the other passengers in the vehicle that she thought she ran somebody over earlier that night. When they were in route back to the Curtin residence they passed by the scene and noticed squad cars.
On April 27, 2018, Detective Sperberg and Sergeant Gordon Kowaleski went to Savanna Curtin’s apartment. Curtin said she did not recognize Meade from a photograph that they showed her but said she heard about the Tim Meade case. At that time, Curtin requested permission to speak to a lawyer first because she did not do anything and did not know what has been said about her, according to the report.
Edwards says that information surprised her when she read the report.
“Why wouldn’t you try to talk to the police if it wasn’t you.”
The case took another turn less than two months later.
On June 4, 2018, Detective Sperberg went to visit Eileen Edwards, Meade’s mother to see if there were any other developments. He was asked if they spoke with a Whitney Nitzske.
Det. Sperberg was informed that Nitzske told Edwards that she was with Tim at the Shack that night.
Detectives then spoke with Nitzske. She said she was at the Shack and Meade was still there when she left at 1:45 am. She learned from a friend that someone was hit and killed the next morning. She informed Det. Sperberg that she talked with Officer Mike Musloff the next day after seeing him in a parking lot. She told him what she knew about Meade. She stated she wanted Officer Musloff to know why Meade was in Shawano since he was not from the area. She also stated that later that day a woman named Molly Rohloff heard her talking about Tim and commenting on how she talked to Tim that night at the bar. She said Molly informed her that she was with Savanna Curtin when they saw him in the road according to the statement provided by Nitzske. Whitney told Detective Sperberg that she gave all of this information to Shawano Lt. Dan Mauel within a couple of days later.
Shawano County Sheriff Detectives stated that they do not have any record of getting that information from the Police Department.
“I think if Dan Mauel would have passed the information on right away, there would have been a different outcome and we probably would have found out what happened,” Edwards said.
Sheriff Bieber says it would have put a focus to the investigation.
“It is the only person that actually gave information about the case, so that was the only person willing to give information and it would have allowed detectives to at least look at the person’s vehicle and try to get answers from that person. “Law Enforcement dropped the ball.”
Upon learning of this development (now Chief) Mauel said he remembers talking to Whitney but does not recall who he would have passed that on to. Nobody from the Sheriff’s Department recalls hearing any information from the Police Department.
In a statement to the Shawano leader, Mauel stated “I should have written down who I talked to at the sheriff’s department,” he said. “I would have told her to go see the sheriff’s department,” he said. “I would have followed up with a phone call. I should have written that down.”
“We contest the assertion in the report that information on the case was received but not relayed by the City of Shawano Police to the Shawano County Sheriff’s Department in 2013,” Mayor Ed Whealon, who was police chief at the time, said in a written statement. “The City is confident the County Sheriff’s Department properly followed through with all information provided to it by the City in reaching their conclusion,” Whealon stated.
Detectives got Nitzske to provide a written statement of what she told Lt. Dan Mauel on that day. She said that she met Meade for the first time at the Shack that night. They were talking and playing darts and she left before he did. The next day she got a text message that Tim was killed by being hit by a car. At work at Luigis, she saw Musloff in the parking lot and told him what she knew. She gave him Cindy Krueger’s name and said they were all at the Shack. In her statement, she said days later at work she was talking about Tim. Molly Roloff, an employee there, said she saw him lying in the road and that he was wearing an orange shirt. Molly told Whitney that they did not tell anyone what they saw and that she was with Savanna Curtin. A couple of days later, Whitney told Officer Mauel at the police department what she knew and was told that he would pass it on.
“We could have had this thing solved if one of the law enforcement officers did not drop the ball on it, but now it is just unsolved,” Autumn Edwards said. “If it was relayed over I think this would have been solved a long time ago.”
“He did not take a statement or anything,” said Sheriff Bieber.
On January 24, 2019, Tammy Curtin was told by Sperberg that there were rumors that her daughter Karly Curtin was involved in the crash and that Savanna Curtin was driving her car. Tammy (mother) said that she could prove that Karly was home that night if need be and said she would tell Karly to contact him.
The case remained that way until this summer.
On June 28, 2019, the Statute of Limitations passed for any criminal charges to be filed.
“Unless some new evidence comes out that indicates a homicide or something to that nature, this case is pretty much closed by law.”
Even though names were given near the end of the investigation, Bieber says it is important to understand that people have rights, including innocent until proven guilty.
“Those folks are innocent. There is not enough evidence to press charges.”
He said he is not necessarily looking for an investigation to be done to identify any wrongdoing, and need for discipline, but to simply make sure that this kind of thing does not happen again.
“I dropped a copy of the report off with the Police and Fire Commission Chairperson and one with the City Administrator. Those two can conduct an investigation if they want to. I feel it is important to look into,” Bieber said. “The biggest thing that we have to make sure of is that we fix that, so that is why I believe that the city should do an investigation to make sure that we have policies and procedures in place to make sure something like this does not happen again. It is my understanding that anytime you get information regarding an open investigation, I think it is just common sense to pass that along.”
As far as Autumn Edwards and the rest of Tim Meade’s family, they are not looking for justice for the person responsible, but justice for Tim.
“I like to think that it was not done intentionally. I believe it was an accident, 100 percent,” Edwards said. “For the past six years we have just been asking people to come forward with any information they have or go to the authorities, but the Statute of Limitations came up and we are where we are. We are not looking for jail time or prosecution, we just wanted to know what happened and why Tim did not get the proper help at the time of the accident.”
Edwards says even though the case is closed, there is still an opportunity for the person who knows the story to help the family get closure and hopes people don’t give up on the case.
“Find out what happened, just find a person who is reliable and find out what happened.”
