State to Probe Week Case

August 22, 1995

By SARA STEFFES

Of Marshfield News-Herald

WISCONSIN RAPIDS – The state Department of Criminal Investigation plans to provide a “fresh perspective” to the unsolved hit-and-run death of Deidre Week.

The 11-year-old town of Hansen girl died March 24, after a vehicle struck her while she was bicycling home on County Trunk HH.

Her parents, David and Brenda Week, unsatisfied with the Wood County Sheriff’s Department’s inability to crack the case, requested DCI help from the state Attorney General James Doyle last Thursday.

“We are really hopeful and real happy that they’re coming to do this,” Brenda Week said Monday afternoon after learning of the state’s decision to help.

Wood County Sheriff Brian Illingworth formally requested DCI’s involvement to provide that perspective in a letter Friday. He said that he supported the agency’s involvement from the start.

Last week, a DCI administrator said its unusual for the state department to participate in these types of cases. But statewide interest and a petition with 2,600 signatures helped, said Week and Illingworth.

“I’m sure that made quite a bit of a difference in their decision,” Illingworth said.

The sheriff will provide a DCI investigator, yet to be named, with a working case file with all departmental reports on the fatality. Investigators also will consider points made by the Week family, he said.

DCI Administrator Frank Meyers was unavailable for comment.

Illingworth said there isn’t one part of the investigation that he believed to be insufficient. He immediately assigned an investigator to the case, he said, all involved all patrol officers in the initial investigation.

Lt. Bob Levendoske oversees the Wood County investigators. Deputies Tom Reichert and Kurt Heuer have been assigned to the case from the start.

“Certainly, we want to see this case solved,’ Illingworth said.

“Hopefully, these people from another agency can evaluate what’s been done and bring this together in our investigation,” Illingworth said.

He would venture no timetable for results of the investigation.

Several months after Deidre’s death, the Week family started it owns fact-finding in the case, challenging Wood County’s investigation with “conflicting reports”. They fingered their neighbor, Jim Vruwink, the only witness to the hit-and-run, as not telling the truth.

Vruwink took a lie detector test May 11, which he passed.

“There’s nothing to hide,” Vruwink said of the case. “I’m glad it’s (DCI) coming in.”

His neighborhood has seen friction since the incident, he said, because of the conflicting stories.

“My neighbors are saying I’m covering up something and I’m not,” he said.

Illingworth’s letter stated,” During the course of the investigation, the victim’s family has raised questions concerning the Wood County Sheriff’s Department’s ability to investigate this accident.

They have also concluded their own investigations and some of their findings are in conflict with ours.

Their investigation is also interfering with our ability to continue.