After being a star athlete in college, and hired as a relatively young police chief in Kenosha, Stanley Haukedahl did his best to maintain a clean image. He lead raids on gambling dens, seemingly shutting down big players like George Ebner and Ollie O’Mara. The county sheriff was outed as corrupt, and other city officials were sent to prison for their role in a bribery scandal to keep gambling wide open. But Chief Haukedahl turned down the bribes and appeared to be a clean cop.
There were rumors behind the scenes that he was playing favorites, letting gamblers like John Rizzo and William Covelli operate, but the evidence was thin. Another rumor circulated that he was not very faithful to his wife. That rumor would turn out to be true, with disastrous results. In the first half of 1963, Haukedahl was investigating his biggest case yet – the kidnaping and murder of jukebox distributor Anthony Biernat by unknown Mafia members – but wouldn’t be around to solve it.
On April 1, 1963, an awful April Fools prank was carried out. Helen Landis Haukedahl, the chief’s wife, was released from the hospital where she was receiving treatment from Dr. Harry Schwartz. The doctor gave her a pass for a few hours to visit her children. Arriving home, she found dishes piled up and clothes unwashed, and had a mental breakdown that simple household chores could not be handled in her absence. She went to a drawer and retrieved Stanley’s .357 Magnum.
Helen next entered the police station around 2:00pm and approached stenographer Dorothy Bitautis. Helen invited Dorothy out for lunch, and Dorothy volunteered to drive. But only a few blocks from the police station, Helen pulled Stanley’s Magnum from her purse and shot Dorothy two or three times in the stomach (only two bullets were found). She was soon dead in her car. Mrs. Lee Dielman found Dorothy a few minutes later when she noticed the parking meter was expired and the person parked there had apparently fallen asleep. But she was not asleep!
Helen left the scene and re-admitted herself to the hospital, where she was an ongoing heart patient. Some reports suggested Helen had flagged down a police car and received a ride back to the hospital. A nurse found the recently-fired Magnum in her purse. Officers came to her room and she admitted the shooting right away saying Dorothy was “breaking up her home.” She believed her husband had been having an affair with the police employee for some time. Although she remained confined to a hospital bed, Helen was put under police guard and charged with first-degree murder.
On April 3, Haukedahl, 48, requested a leave of absence from the police and fire commission. It was granted, with a temporary replacement being Inspector J. Leo Buchmann, 63, who had been on the force a long time. Haukedahl said he had no plans to resign and would return to the job as soon as possible. The city agreed to continue paying him his $11,000 per year salary. Officers probed the chief’s personal history, looking for clues about Helen Haukedahl and the pair’s relationship.
Captain Arthur J. Riley was in charge of the investigation, and Mayor Eugene Hammond instructed him, “You are hereby advised that any attempt to interfere with the investigation is to be reported to me immediately.” The obvious person who would interfere was Haukedahl, but it was possible he had friends on the force who might “lose” evidence. Hammond urged Riley to find any and all evidence of an improper relationship between Stanley and Dorothy, and interview Stanley’s four children. One son, Robert Haukedahl, was actually serving a year in the Dane County jail for the theft of photography equipment.
On April 7, Mayor Hammond instructed city attorney Robert Baker to draw up formal charges against Haukedahl in order to get him dismissed from the force. He did not publicly disclose what the charges were, but said, “I feel the information already supplied is sufficient for me to ask the Fire and Police Commission to dismiss the chief, but, because more information is on the way, we probably will not draw up the charges until the investigation is completed. Once the charges have been drawn, we cannot add to them.” It was made known they had found photos of Stanley and Dorothy together in Dorothy’s purse, and other people had seen them together around town.
Three aldermen (Gilbert Dosemagen, Richard Froemming and John Finley) wanted to expand the investigation beyond Haukedahl to the entire City Hall, which they believed was corrupt. They had recently had meetings with district attorney Joseph Molinaro and attorney general George Thompson about starting a John Doe probe, and turned over a 74-page corruption report. Much of the report was testimony from a city draftsman who was recently sentenced for fraud.
Chief Haukedahl resigned on April 10, on the condition he was paid through June. The city agreed to that. After Haukedahl’s attorney David Phillips read the resignation letter, the mayor asked the aldermen to raise their hands if they approved. All fifteen raised their hands, and the matter was settled in under ten minutes without discussion. Haukedahl told the press he “hates to quit without a fight,” but if he had not resigned, he would have had to argue his case before the commission, which had a preliminary report on his private life. They agreed to not make it public if he resigned. The mayor was pleased the private information was able to stay private, though he expected much of it to come out during the murder trial.
As of April 26, more than three weeks after the murder, Helen Haukedahl was still in the hospital rather than jail. Dr. James T. Duncan told Sheriff Leland Chartier she was better off where she was because she was receiving regular medication for high blood pressure and there’s no way the jail could provide that.
Judge M. Eugene Baker ordered a mental examination for Helen on May 1. She waived a preliminary hearing and was seeking a defense of insanity, so he picked out three doctors to test her. They were David N. Golstein and D. Boyd Horsley of Kenosha, and G.A. Bacon of Racine.
A hearing was held on May 7, with the three doctors pronouncing Helen to be mentally competent and able to stand trial. Defense attorney L. E. Vaudreuil successfully argued for a $25,000 bond, and the money was posted by three friends of Helen: Mortimer Henroch, Julius Hoffman and Fred Srdan.
June 24, 1963 was a special day for the Haukedahl family – it was Stanley’s 50th birthday. It was also the first day of Helen’s murder trial, and the jury was selected. The original pool was 52 people, and after five hours it was reduced to twelve. Nine women and three men would decide her fate. A veterans convention had all local hotels booked, so the jury was sequestered in a dorm at Carthage College.
On June 25, detective Abraham Toigo read parts of a statement Helen made after her arrest. She had said Stanley told her to kill herself. She went down to the basement and considered it, but then he laughed at her when she couldn’t do it, saying “I knew you didn’t have the guts.” She said he beat her “every chance he could get and threatened to kill her many times.” After Helen accused him of cheating, the frequency of beatings increased. She said she had to have their sons break up the fights to stop him from killing her. Helen said she had told Dorothy that she was considering suing her for “alienation of affection,” and Dorothy laughed in her face. Dorothy told her that a lawsuit would be useless because all of her money was in a daughter’s name. Helen said this move was “brazen and wise.” Helen did not believe the Magnum was loaded when she confronted Dorothy, according to her police statement.
Dr. George R. Weber testified that he spent several hours with Helen the night of the murder, and he did not think she was sane on that day. Her understanding of right and wrong was not very good and did not improve very quickly.
Helen testified in her own behalf, saying of Stanley, “He hurt me but I love him. I have always loved him and I am still very much in love with him.” She said he slapped her, would beat her on the bedroom floor, and when she was diagnosed with her heart condition, he told her to throw away the pills and stop seeing the doctor because the bills were too high. Helen said she had started divorce proceedings three times but never followed through. Sometimes he was nice and would bring her fresh rolls from the bakery. A reporter asked Stanley how he felt about the testimony. He did not deny any of it, but said the testimony made him “look like a beast.”
District attorney Joseph Molinaro cross-examined her by handing her the .357 magnum and asked her to load the gun. He handed her blank shells. She loaded it. He asked her to pull the trigger. She did. He asked if it was hard to pull the trigger or easy, and she said it was hard (required more effort). “Do you think it could be fired accidentally?” “No.”
On June 28, the fifth and final day of the trial, the jury left to deliberate for three hours. They returned and the verdict was not guilty by reason of insanity. Judge M. Eugene Baker had her brought to the Oshkosh Asylum that same day.
With his wife gone, Stanley Haukedahl made a push to return as Kenosha police chief. He made a public interview, saying “Milwaukee hoodlums” were moving into Kenosha and had operated a major gambling operation out of a Kenosha restaurant for over a year. “I think I did a good job as chief in the past and I know I will make a better chief as a result of the recent personal tragedy I went through.” He said he did not believe the Mafia rumors a year earlier, but after the “outside muscle” came in and killed Anthony Biernat, he couldn’t deny it.
(Gavin notes: At this point, we have to wonder if there’s something wrong with Haukedahl. He can’t seriously believe he’d get the job, and why would he want the spotlight after all the media coverage of his domestic abuse?)
In September, Haukedahl was dropped as the treasurer of the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association. At that same meeting, they also kicked out Sheboygan Chief Steen Heimke, the organization’s vice president, for his improper actions – he was fired from his job for embezzlement.
On December 23, 1963, a sanity hearing was held before Judge M. Eugene Baker. At the hearing, the Oshkosh Asylum handed over a report saying that Helen was now sane and was unlikely to murder anyone in the future. Two psychiatrists agreed with the report, and Helen was released in time to spend Christmas with her children. She never murdered anyone again.
Stanley Haukedahl did not become police chief again. He left Wisconsin for Battle Creek, Michigan where he took up work as an insurance agent.