Posted on 12/29/2005 7:17:50 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
On a frigid morning nearly three weeks ago, Michael Desalvo dumped Angela Drake, either dead or unconscious, in a rural town of Oregon culvert, a court document alleges.
Evidence indicates that Desalvo, a Fitchburg plumber, may have asphyxiated the 25-year-old or knowingly left her, still alive, to freeze to death under a bridge on Storytown Road, the probable cause affidavit states.
The document, signed by Fitchburg Detective Mike Bartosch, was filed Monday. Police fill out the affidavits at the jail, generally when someone is booked, to verify there is probable cause to charge them for a crime.
Fitchburg police have requested that the Dane County district attorney's office charge Desalvo, 24, with first- degree intentional homicide, felony murder and concealing a corpse. He has not been formally charged in this case but has been jailed since Dec. 12 on $50,000 cash bail on other charges.
Desalvo's attorney, Craig Cascarano, of Minneapolis, said he has not talked to his client about these allegations and could not comment until he had reviewed the document.
Drake, a licensed practical nurse, was last seen alive early Dec. 9 shortly after leaving The Dry Bean Saloon and Steakhouse off Verona Road with Desalvo, 24, whom she met that night along with his three roommates. Her father, Larry Drake, reported her missing Saturday evening, Dec. 10, when she didn't return to their village of Oregon home and her car was found in the Dry Bean's parking lot.
Monday morning, Dec. 12, Drake's mother and stepfather, Anne and Tim Olson, began circulating e-mails asking for help to find their daughter. Desalvo's roommates, seeing that e- mail, called Oregon police to say they had seen Drake early that Friday, the affidavit said.
At 1:30 a.m. Dec. 9, Desalvo drove two of his three roommates to Monkeyshines bar just south of the Dry Bean and then went to his home on Fitchburg Road with Drake, the affidavit said. One roommate told police he saw Drake sleeping on Desalvo's bed when he got home about 2:45 a.m.
She was gone in the morning.
Another roommate, Tom Allen, said that while he never saw Drake at the duplex, he did ask about her in the morning and was told by Desalvo that he had taken her somewhere.
Desalvo, interviewed by police later Dec. 12, said Drake had been at his house and that he had driven her home after she woke him about 5 a.m. saying she had to work, the affidavit said. Desalvo told police, according to the document, that he didn't see her go into the house or remember where the house was located.
He was arrested that night on an outstanding Dane County warrant for missing court dates on a September drug charge.
Detectives searching for Drake found her, partially covered in snow, two weeks after she disappeared. Her puffy winter vest was found nearby, the affidavit said.
The culvert is about three miles from Desalvo's duplex in Fitchburg and on a route to Drake's home with her father in the village of Oregon.
Shortly after arresting Desalvo, police found some clothing in a trash bag in his sport utility vehicle. DNA tests indicate that one piece of clothing was worn by Drake, the affidavit states, and blood stains on Desalvo's bed also matched Drake's DNA.
Dr. Robert Huntington, forensic pathologist, told officers that the cause of death will be determined after receiving the results of several tests, "but that the aspirations found in her lungs would be consistent with asphyxiation."
Huntington also told police he couldn't yet determine if she was dead when left in the culvert, the affidavit said.
But even if alive, "any person would be aware that the conduct of leaving a(n) . . . intoxicated human being on the ground in those weather conditions would be practically certain to have the result of causing her death," Bartosch wrote in the affidavit.
The details of the woman's death are particularly upsetting to her family as they prepare for a prayer service and visitation that begins at 3:30 p.m. today and her funeral at 11 a.m. Friday.
All services will be at Holy Mother of Consolation Church in Oregon.
Anne Olson said her family will get through the next two, hard days by celebrating the good parts of her daughter's life.
Larry Drake said he was going to adopt his daughter's credo: The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything, they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
"It's the only way to get through it," he said.
District Attorney Brian Blanchard said he wouldn't comment on the details of the case but said Assistant District Attorney Bob Kaiser was handling the matter.
"Justice Will Be Served" Ping.
Desalvo. Where have I heard that name?
Albert Desalvo was The Boston Strangler...and Angie was asphixiated. Hmmmm...
Uncle Frank relative ping
I read this before I left for work this morning. If that DiSalvo guy killed her, he's one cold, evil piece of slime.
And he's only 24 years old! What the heck is wrong with people these days? Is not life precious? Guess not. :(
IMHO, evil has no minimum age.
I went to school with this guy.. he was a good friend. Here I am, a year later, finding out about this, and it blows my mind. I haven't talked to him in a couple of years because he moved to Wisconsin, so I didn't know about any of this. It just goes to show that you can't ever really know a person. He liked to get into trouble.. he was big into grand theft auto and he liked to smoke weed, but... he was so kind. Generous. A really good person. I wasn't a trouble-maker, so he wasn't normally the kind of person I'd be friends with, but his kindness.. I can't believe this is what he turned out to be.
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