Raymand Vannieuwenhoven appears in Marinette County court Aug. 26, 2021, to be sentenced for the 1976 murders of David Schuldes and Ellen Matheys at McClintock Park. PC: Fox 11 Online
(WTAQ-WLUK) – A dead man’s conviction for a 1976 double murder stands, an appeals court ruled Tuesday – saying the deception used by police to get his DNA was an acceptable tactic.
Ellen Mathys and David Schuldes were murdered at McClintock County Park in Marinette County in 1976. The case remained unsolved for more than four decades. In 2019, a DNA sample from evidence at the crime scene was determined to be from a particular family. After samples tested from Raymand Vannieuwenhoven’s brothers weren’t a match, a sample from him — obtained from a licked envelope for a phony survey on a police performance filled out by Raymand — was a match, according to the complaint.
Vannieuwenhoven went to trial, was convicted, was sentenced to consecutive life prison terms in the case. He died in June 2022, while a resident at the long-term care unit at Oshkosh Correctional Institution — but the appeal continued as the defense sought a ruling to prevent similar police tactics in the future.
Vannieuwenhoven’s attorneys argued the “trickery” used couldn’t be reasonably construed as permission to generate a DNA profile in a murder case. Prosecutors argued Vannieuwenhoven voluntarily ‘abandoned’ his saliva to someone he knew was law enforcement – and had no expectation of privacy at that point.
In the 18-page ruling, the appeals court rejected Vannieuwenhoven’s arguments.
“We conclude that law enforcement lawfully seized both the envelope and its contents because Raymand voluntarily consented to giving both of them, which included the DNA sample contained therein, to law enforcement. Our case law supports this conclusion despite the fact that Raymand consented to giving the envelope to law enforcement under false pretenses. Once the State lawfully possessed the envelope and its contents, it was free to develop a DNA profile using the saliva from the envelope and compare that profile to the DNA from the crime scene. Under the facts of this case, once Raymand gave control of the envelope and its contents, including his saliva, to law enforcement, he surrendered any reasonable expectation of privacy in the minimally invasive DNA profile developed from that saliva sample, which the State used solely to determine whether his DNA profile matched that from the crime scene,” the court wrote.
“Nothing in this case suggests that law enforcement’s trickery caused Raymand to nonconsensually give the envelope and its contents away. Raymand permitted an identified law enforcement officer to enter his home, and Raymand voluntarily licked the envelope and then knowingly provided it directly to law enforcement without any expectation of getting it back,” the court wrote. “In other words, Raymand was not coerced or under duress when he gave the envelope to law enforcement.”
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