BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ) – Prosecutors are calling a murder suspect’s attempt to introduce evidence against the victim’s boyfriend a ‘fantastic tale.’
George Burch faces one felony count of First Degree Intentional Homicide for the May 21, 2016 Bellevue murder of Nicole VanderHeyden.
In order for the Denny evidence to be presented in front of a jury, the judge must rule that Burch’s team can show VanderHayden’s boyfriend Douglass Detrie had a motive and the opportunity to commit the crime.
Burch must also show evidence that links Detrie to the murder.
Brown County District Attorney David Lasee has addressed all three prongs in a 23-page motion
Lasee argues Burch doesn’t provide a motive.
Apart from citing a litany of hearsay statements regarding alleged past acts of abuse towards VanderHeyden, the defendant does little more than extrapolate a motive to kill VanderHeyden from what was merely an intoxicated dispute between VanderHeyden and Detrie,” Lasee wrote. “It is a tremendous leap to suggest that because they had an argument that evening, Detrie was motivated to kill his girlfriend and the mother of his child.
Lasee argues Detrie’s unaccounted for time is not proof of opportunity.
The defendant mostly argues that Detrie had opportunity to commit the crime because he happens to reside very near the crime scene. But the defendant also in effect, through his version of events, argues that Detrie was also at the location where VanderHeyden’s body was located. The defendant points to no evidence that would put Detrie at the scene of where VanderHeyden’s body was located. Moreover, if one were to believe the defendant’s fantastic tale, Detrie would have been left alone, at 4 a.m., with no transportation miles from his home. The defendant points to no evidence which would place Detrie in the vicinity of the location where VanderHeyden’s body was located, nor evidence as to how, and when he returned home from that location. If the court were to believe the defendant’s version of events there would be a significant period of time where Detrie left his residence, killed VanderHeyden, drove with Burch to the location where VanderHeyden’s body was discovered, and then, presuming that the defendant was able to get away and leave Detrie without transportation, time to walk back to his residence. That is not to mention that it would mean that Detrie would have had to leave his nine-month-old son home alone for hours in the morning of May 21, 2016. Rather than provide any evidence which would show Detrie had an opportunity to commit the crime, the defendant relies on mere speculation based on Detrie’s unaccounted-for period of time after 3 a.m. on May 21, 2016.
Lasee also says there is no direct connection.
The defendant appears to be grasping at straws to support his story that Doug Detrie was the perpetrator of Nicole VanderHeyden’s murder. None of the facts alleged by the defendant actually connects Douglass Detrie to VanderHeyden’s murder and therefore he fails to demonstrate a sufficient connection between Denny and the perpetration of the crime.
Burch has a motion hearing set for June 16, with a two-week jury trial scheduled to get underway October 2.
If convicted, the 39-year-old Green Bay man faces a maniditory life prison sentence.
