David, left, and Robert Bintz (Photos source: Wisconsin Department of Corrections)
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The convictions of two brothers for the 1987 murder of Sandra Lison were overturned Wednesday.
Due to new DNA testing, prosecutors stipulated to the motion to release Robert and David Bintz.
A Brown County Court ruled that the brothers were convicted based on hearsay from a comment made in 1998.
“A jailhouse informant claimed that David had confessed to the crime, and said he and his brother committed the crime,” said Robert Bintz’s attorney, Christopher Renz. “They convicted first David by jury trial, he was convicted on the basis of that evidence, even tough there was no physical evidence connecting them with the crime.”
Both brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 2000.
According to the motion to release the brothers, William Hendricks, a convicted rapist who died in 2000, is the match for evidence found at the scene.
Lison was working at the Good Times Tavern in Green Bay on Aug. 2, 1987. Two days later, her body was found in the Machickanee Forest. She had been sexually assaulted and killed.
“Despite this being an extraordinarily intimate crime (in the least beating and manual strangulation, and seemingly also a sexual assault), State Crime Lab testing of crime scene evidence revealed no trace whatsoever of Robert or David Bintz. Likewise, defense counsel’s extensive additional testing over the past 5 years found male DNA in blood from the victim’s dress, in blood from the victim’s shoes, on hairs pulled from her back, on hairs from the front of her dress, and on hairs recovered from her underwear; yet not a shred of it attributable to Robert or David Bintz,” the motion states.
Her body was found between the bar and where Hendricks lived. Hendricks’ body was disinterred from a Green Bay cemetery in April, and “the chances are 1 in 329 trillion that the source of the crime scene evidence is someone other than William Hendricks,” the motion states.
State prison records show David Bintz was “discharged from sentence” on Wednesday, while Robert Bintz is listed as being at Oakhill Correctional Institution.
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