Introduction

This "investigation" was pointed at my Dad right from the start. The very first interview that my Dad had with the police was with S/A Skorlinski, of the DCI, February 13 1998. During the interview one of the first questions that was asked of my dad was the visitation schedule of when we went to see my mom. Skorlinski asked my Dad what the schedule was, my Dad started telling him, then in mid sentence Skorlinski finished up what my Dad was going to tell him. Skorlinski claimed he didn't know anything about the schedule and that they haven't been briefed on any of the information of what was going on. My dad was a cop for 18 years; he knows that they get briefed. Skorlinski's version is that he asked my dad about his alibi and my Dad became distant and angry. He became distant and angry because the "lead" investigator of this case lied right to his face.

The investigation would be simple, the victim's mother (Lola Cator) had/has extreme animosity towards my dad, the divorce wasn't happening fast enough, and both parties in extreme debt. 

My Mom's estranged husband, John Maloney, a Detective in the Green Bay Police Department, was developed as a suspect given their impending divorce, ongoing child custody battle and history of domestic disputes. According to my Mom's statements to her psychiatrist, this was a turbulent relationship during which she suffered physical and emotional abuse. As to the physical abuse, my Dad never hit my Mom. He would defend himself from her by putting his hands up. I don't know what she would have meant by emotional abuse, there was yelling by both of them at each other, verbal abuse, I guess. I'm not saying that everything that my Mom said to her psychiatrist was a lie but I know for a fact she did lie to him. At one session she told her psychiatrist that her and my Dad went on a trip to Florida with another couple. She added that she had to fly back early in order to be by the side of another friend that was dying of cancer. I know for a fact this is totally untrue.

My Mom began treatment with the psychiatrist that I talked about above in 1992. The psychiatrist diagnosed my Mom as having generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder, and prescribed the highly addictive drug Klonopin (Benzodiazepine). Within a year, my Mom was routinely abusing her medication. Typically, she would take all of the tablets prescribed, then request refills by claiming to have lost the medication, left it in her pants pocket and washed it, etc. In the discovery (investigation) papers there is a report dated 10/11/96 that talks about an assessment of my Mom while she was briefly attending an "AODA" meeting at Bellin Psychiatric Center. In this assessment it says that: "the patient's (my Mom's) level of denial is extremely high". Denial, meaning prescription drug and alcohol abuse. My Mom denied that she had a problem as most addicts do, and she pretty much refused to treat it. Furthermore in this assessment it says that, "the patient's mother (Lola), sister (Wendy), and husband (my Dad) wrote letters confronting the patient's drinking and behaviors". Wendy Conard (my Mom's sister) told my aunt (Ginny Maloney) that she had washed her hands of my mother because she couldn't help someone that didn't want to be helped. In the same conversation she stated that, she (Wendy) felt that my Mom's psychiatrist was "killing" my Mom by all the drugs that he was prescribing for her. I too feel this way, as does my Dad, except he did not wash his hands of my Mom. My dad has said to me that the only reasons that he filed for divorce is because he didn't want us to get hurt in that house and because He wanted to get my mom help. My question is, if the psychiatrist knew that my Mom was addicted to the medication that was being prescribed for her, why would he keep prescribing prescriptions for her?

My Mom's "best friend" shared the same addictions as my Mom and helped her obtain the drugs and alcohol on which she became addicted to. When my Dad filed for divorce in May of 1997, she took up smoking cigarettes, and sank further into addiction. 

At the time of my Mom's autopsy, her blood alcohol content (BAC) was. 25%, and her vitreous alcohol content (VAC) was .40%--meaning that a few hours before her death, her actual blood alcohol content was at least .40%. Five suicide notes were found in the kitchen wastebasket. In the basement of the home, an electrical extension cord was found tied to a conduit pipe. Two VCRs were stacked on the coffee table beneath the cord. The shorter end looked suspiciously like a noose that failed to hold. Blood was found on the coffee table, on the carpet, in the laundry room and in the basement bathroom and shower. Her shirt, with blood on the collar, was found in the clothes hamper in the laundry room. A bloody fingerprint belonging to my Mom's "best friend" was found on the shower door. There was a bloody footprint in the laundry room and bloody towels in the unattached garage.

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The Green Bay Fire Department report noted: Several ashtrays were located throughout the building, many filled with cigarette butts. It was noted that several cigarettes had been left burning on tables, counter tops and on a telephone book and had burned down or self extinguished. Two burned paper matches were identified on the floor of the living room next to the coffee table that was located to the East of the sofa… Evidence in the dwelling, including several ashtrays containing cigarette butts, burned and discarded matches on the carpet in the living room and self-extinguished cigarettes on furniture throughout the home, indicate a careless pattern of cigarette smoking by the occupant. Again look at how careless she was with cigarettes, leaving them all over the house and leaving them burning all over the place, unattended. 

DCI said that this fire was arson. Then why a couple days after the house was released to my Dad, did he have to tell S/A Skorlinski to take a book of matches that had fingerprints on it, and was 10 feet away from the point of origin of the fire? Not what a guilty man would do. Wouldn't you think that if this were arson they would need to have some time that the fire started? Well my Dad had to tell Skorlinski to take the living room clock, 5 feet away from the point of origin. If my Dad started this fire, why on earth would he tell them any of these things? This is the kind of sloppy investigating that went on.

The Autopsy

Just for information purposes, this is NOT a description of the autopsy. I would not be writing this in here if it were. 

Dr. John Teggatz of the Milwaukee Medical Examiner’s office performed the autopsy. His only discussion of my mom's history in his autopsy report is a brief recitation of circumstances, which the victim was found deceased in a house that had suffered from a fire. There is no evidence that my mom's social, medical, mental health, or smoking history were taken into account in the conclusions of his report. This is not a legitimate forensic practice. I would think that in order to get a full understanding of the victim, one would want to know the history of the victim in order to make an accurate assessment of the "crime" that happened. After observing evidence of strangulation--my mom's neck was too burned to differentiate between ligature (rope, extension cord, etc.) and manual (by hand) strangulation. If it was too hard to tell if it was manual or ligature strangulation, why would one "guess" at a crime? This would determine the whole outcome of which way this investigation went. Dr. Teggatz concluded that the cause of her death was "probably manual strangulation. "Note, "probably" manual strangulation, NOT just manual strangulation. It is NOT a hard fact! This equivocal finding was reviewed by Dr. Gregory Schmunk, Brown County Medical Examiner, who embellished it with his own imaginative but unsubstantiated and unreliable theories. Ignoring the physical evidence and failing to direct a complete forensic investigation, Dr. Schmunk declared my mom's death a homicide. "There was no other explanation for the death disclosed by the autopsy, other than strangulation/suffocation at the hands of another," Dr. Schmunk claimed. This is a very confusing case, these medical examiners never visited the scene and they were told nothing about the basement scene. As you read above the basement had blood all over it, extension cord hanging from ceiling, and a bloody fingerprint of my mom's "best friend". This fingerprint was on top of the blood NOT under it. This would mean that this person was there AFTER this scene in the basement. This person was NOT John Maloney.

Adding Arson After The Fact

I say "adding arson after the fact" because, arson was never ruled until after homicide was ruled. Before it was considered an accidental death due to careless use of smoking materials. 

The Brown County Arson Task Force report made the following findings after investigating the fire scene on February 11, 1998: … Heat patterns on the West wall behind the sofa were most intense directly behind the North end of the South sofa section. The ceiling directly above this area exhibited the most intense direct heat exposure, with a section of drywall material having burned through and fallen. Physical evidence, including the condition of the victim, indicates a fire that was initiated in the cushions of the South section of the two-piece sectional sofa. The fire apparently smoldered in the cushions of the sofa, creating dense and toxic smoke and intense localized heat. The fire continued to burn in the smoldering state until oxygen in the structure was depleted below combustion sustenance levels. Evidence in the dwelling, including several ashtrays containing cigarette butts, burned and discarded matches on the carpet in the living room and self-extinguished cigarettes on furniture throughout the home, indicate a careless pattern of cigarette smoking by the occupant. The location of the fire's origin supports careless use of smoking materials as the probable ignition source of the fire. The declaration of homicide, however, meant that the fire could not have been accidental. Special Agent Gregory J. Eggum of the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigation, reviewed autopsy findings first, then looked at the same evidence. He reported: Accelerates were located on the couch, stuffed into the couch, and in front of the couch. These accelerates were matchbooks, paper, and cloth. The area of origin also included the body, which was on the couch at the time of the fire. S/A Eggum could not eliminate the possibility that the body was also set on fire. Also on the floor between the davenport and the coffee table around the heavily charred floor there was an irregular burn pattern which appeared to be an accelerate pattern, either solid or liquid. It was also noted that when water was poured on the floor near this charred hole, it ran away from the hole towards the davenport. The cause of this fire was determined to be deliberately set. In fact, no evidence of liquid accelerates was found at the scene. The items described by S/A Eggum as "accelerates" are "fuel," i.e., they can be burned. S/A Eggum suggested that twisted tissue might have been used as a trailer, but the tissue wasn't burned, and therefore could not have been a trailer. How in a house covered in black soot can there be WHITE tissues around the couch, where there was the most fire damage? That is a mystery to me. The fire was contained and quickly extinguished because the windows were closed. There was insufficient oxygen available to keep the fire burning.

Conviction with No Evidence To Back It Up

This highly publicized case was in the news at least three times a week every week. I believe that my Dad was convicted in part by the media. All that was on constantly was the news stations sympathizing with my grandma. She used the media as a ploy to show my dad as a horrible person that had all of this built up hate and anger for my mom, which is totally untrue. She is the one that had been waiting for something like this to happen to kick my dad while he was down. She said to a man from the Rescue Squad Personnel, on the very same morning that she found my mom, something to the effect of "I knew he would do this, I hope he's happy now", meaning the death of my mother was due to the efforts of my dad! The case was portrayed as one of "greed, sex and obsession" and prosecuted on the basis of speculation and theory rather than fact. The case was based on "greed, sex, and obsession". Greed, by the prosecution and city of Green Bay to get a conviction. Sex, used as a ploy in the infamous Las Vegas videotape to get this "confession". Obsession by Lola Cator to destroy my dad and ultimately destroy our lives, which she has succeeded in doing. Although the State of Wisconsin has a conviction, the circumstances of my mom's death remain largely uninvestigated. My mom's "best friend" has never been questioned about the presence of her fingerprint in blood on the shower door in my mom's house. The electrical cord found hanging in the basement was never examined for blood, hair or any other trace/transfer evidence. Lola's explanation for this is that there wasn't enough electrical sockets on the right side of the house, so that was put there to plug a de-humidifier in. She also said that it has been hanging there for (5) years. I think I would have seen that extension cord there if it was there for five years. And it WASN'T. Blood found throughout the basement has not been subjected to analysis (simple typing or DNA). Crime reconstruction theories have so far made no attempt to account for any of the evidence found in the basement. No specific tests were conducted to identify metabolites associated with the many prescription drugs my mom was known to take or to which she had access. No medications were recognized, documented, collected and catalogued by crime scene personnel. No tests were conducted to identify stomach contents collected at autopsy. No tests were conducted to determine the plausibility of the fire being caused by a lit cigarette dropped into the sofa cushions. This investigation was not thorough enough and it has to be re-opened at once.

Some of the information on this page was obtained from the work that Sheila Berry has done for my Dad on TruthInJustice.org. I have added my personal opinions that I have obtained living through this whole ordeal, and taken parts directly from police reports that were obtained during the "investigation". This is all true, and none of this is fiction by any means. This was a horrible "investigation". The "investigators" built their case around a suspect (my dad), rather than having the TRUTH point to a accidental death.