Nathan Kapfer, a 19-year old student attending Viterbo College in LaCrosse, WI on an academic scholarship was last seen in Riverside Park after being released from police custody for disorderly conduct. His body was later discovered in the Mississippi River.Timeline
Recovery
Nathan's body was found in the Mississippi River, downstream from La Crosse, 42 days later. An autopsy was performed by Dr. Lindsay Thomas of the Minnesota Regional Coroner's Office (MRCO). The findings were pulmonary congestion, watery gastric contents, and a mastoid petrous ridge hemmorrhage, but no injuries from trauma were found. His blood alcohol content was determined to be 0.22.
Unanswered Questions
Police had given Kapfer a breath test when they stopped him, and Kapfer recorded a blood-alcohol level of 0.077, just under the legal limit. When his body was discovered in the river over a month later, an autopsy determined his blood alcohol level at 0.22 at the time of death, twice the limit. Sometime between the time he was cited and the time he drowned, Kapfer continued to drink, possibly with someone else, police believe. [Note: the blood alcohol content is also said to increase in the body after death as cells break down, especially in drowning victims. I have been unable to find any information as to whether this would be the case here and if so, if it is possible to have increased by so much.] Police closed the case and determined there was no foul play involved, and to this day are unable to explain the difference in blood-alcohol content.
The possibility of suicide has been mentioned, however, Kapfer's father said he was upbeat in the days before his death. Kapfer's live-in girlfriend, Angie Truttman, then 23, told investigators that while Kapfer would have had a great deal of stress and anxiety over the tickets he received, especially the idea of disappointing his parents and possibly facing disciplinary action from the baseball team, he wasn't the type of person to take his own life. According to the case report, friends described Kapfer as hard-working and levelheaded. He was an A or A-B student who apparently had told more than one person that committing suicide was ``selfish'' and ``a cop-out.''
Two days after Kapfer was reported missing, a La Crosse resident told police that he had witnessed a young man, in his late teens or early 20s, standing on the east side of the Cass Street Bridge and staring into the water, ``oblivious to the rest of the world around him.'' This occurred about 1 p.m., before Kapfer was cited by police, and the witness couldn't identify the man on the bridge as Kapfer.
Kapfer's father believes the drownings have too many common characteristics to be solely coincidental. "I can't believe that [all these] kids just fell or jumped into the river," he said in a telephone interview (Source: The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 8/29/99).
Facts of Interest in this Case
Name/age: Nathan Napfer, 19 (from Glendive, MT)
College: Viterbo University, La Crosse, WI
Physical description: athletic (baseball player)
Last seen: 02/22/98, 2 a.m., Brother's Bar (306 Pearl Street) in La Crosse, WI, then LaCrosse police station
Recovered: 04/04/98, Mississippi River backwater
Cause of death ruling: drowning
Manner of death ruling: undetermined
Injuries: no injuries of trauma or signs of foul play
Blood Alcohol Content: 0.22 (no drugs in system)
Reported water temp: 37 degrees
Release someone at 2 am?That sounds fishy to me.Sounds to me like LaCrosse has some killers on the police force.
ReplyDeleteThe following link gives important general info and a specific input about an Ann Arbor Man and another guy.!.
ReplyDeletehttps://vanceholmes.com/court/trial_missing_students.html
The following is from the link above.
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Also uncovered by Chuck Loesch was a self-proclaimed serial killer who was living in Minneapolis around the time of the disappearances. Police have never questioned the man who, in September 2002, dialed 9-1-1 and demanded police send the FBI to his home to profile him or he'd go on a killing spree.
The man told authorities he fantasizes about abducting straight young men, suffocating them with Saran Wrap and then killing them, and that he identifies with Jeffrey Dahmer.
Police have never identified the man but revealed, "His fantasy was to go across the country picking up males between the ages of 16 and 30 and befriending them. He stated that he would then kill them by suffocating them, drowning or burning them."
Map of the Missing
Milwaukee agents have investigated an Ann Arbor, Mich., man accused of stalking an old girlfriend and her family. "In threatening e-mail messages, he uses the initials of some of the missing men," 12 News investigative reporter Colleen Henry said.
Most interesting is how closely his path mirrors the map of the missing men. He recently moved from Ann Arbor to the Minneapolis area. His old girlfriend is a student at Concordia University in Mequon, just 35 miles south of Sheboygan on Interstate 43.
The FBI declined comment and the bureau's official position remains that these disappearances are not related.