(WTAQ-WLUK) — Two days before he was to be arrested in a cold case sexual assault investigation from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a Wisconsin man was found dead.
Michigan State Police say in August 1986, the victim was on a biking trip from her home in Lac du Flambeau to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. She stopped in Garden Township to use a public bathroom, and when she came out, a man forced her into his car at gunpoint. The man drove her around and repeatedly sexually assaulted her before eventually releasing her.
The case went unsolved until 2023, when Northern Michigan University’s Cold Case Program accessed genealogical databases and used DNA from the crime scene to find a match.
The DNA evidence pointed to a man who lived in Harris, Michigan at the time of the attack. He moved to Wisconsin shortly afterward.
Investigators obtained a warrant for a DNA sample from the man. That sample was a match to the evidence from 1986.
Prosecutors in Delta County, Michigan issued charges of kidnapping and first-degree sexual conduct against the man. Officials planned to arrest the man, who was 78 years old and living in Argonne, on Wednesday, but he was found dead at his home on Monday.
The Forest County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the man’s death. His name was not released.
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