However, he was in failing health and his autopsy results did not indicate poisoning. The trial of Lois Jurgens for the murder of 3-year-old Dennis made national headlines and was the top news story of the state of Minnesota in 1987. GREAT NEWS! Two hours before, sitting in his waterside home on the southeast shore of White Bear Lake, Sunday morning had seemed so promising. Lois and Harold Jurgens lived in a comfortable, meticulously maintained three-bedroom house with a big, fenced backyard on a large corner lot on Gardenette Drive. On Nov. 28, 1962, members of the Scott and Ramsey counties welfare departments, including Rekdahl, had a conference in the town of Shakopee. He could never forget how Lois Jurgens looked at those photos stoically, showing no emotion. Save to an Ancestry Tree, a virtual cemetery, your clipboard for pasting or Print. Her mother having long ago disappeared, Jerry Puckett had bounced among assorted relatives and county homes for girls. Harvey had been a rookie cop here in 1965, but Sherwoods story triggered no memories. Please enter your email and password to sign in. If you notice a problem with the translation, please send a message to [emailprotected] and include a link to the page and details about the problem. Your account has been locked for 30 minutes due to too many failed sign in attempts. He would wait until the police investigation could resolve the matter. No prosecution was taken at that time. Lois A. Jurgens (92) of Petersburg passed away September 25, 2019. By continuing to browse, you accept the use of cookies and other technologies. Years later, the attorney representing Roberts interests at the 1965 custody hearing would still remember those photos. In the 1960s, the term child abuse had not yet been coined and no one, not even medical professionals and teachers, was required to report suspicions. I would question him. Sorry! In 1984, Jurgens was the artist for the Sun Devils limited series (July 1984 - June 1985), with writers Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas. She committed one of the most unusual child murder cases in history in Minnesota.
This account already exists, but the email address still needs to be confirmed. There was a time when White Bear Lake was an exclusive watering hole for people from Chicago as well as the Twin Cities. They attempted to mind their own business and feared retribution from Lois, who was not above threatening the lives of her family members. Harold and Lois Jurgens, a middle-class, churchgoing couple in picturesque White Bear Lake, Minnesota, had adopted Dennis and five other foster children. He found bruises running the length of the body--50 to 100 of them, he would say later, the exact number hard to judge because many were overlapped. Jurgens was the only fatal victim of Lois Jurgens, his adoptive mother and a prolific child abuser, who abused a total of six adopted children from 1960 to 1975.The trial of Lois Jurgens for the murder of 3-year-old Dennis made national . That this was much more a question for doctors than for the police did not sway Votel. Read more about this topic: Murder Of Dennis Jurgens, But Ive heard mankind abuse thee;And perhaps its rather strange,But I thought that I would choose theeFor encomium, as a change.Charles Stuart Calverley (18311884), Mily: You must remember me! The victim When Dennis Jurgens died at the age of 3 in 1965, authorities here never ruled whether his death was an accident, a homicide or the result of natural causes. Lois Jurgens served eight years of her sentence and had a quiet life as a widow in Stillwater, Minnesota. Well, I do, he replied. Mornings there were wonderful, but the dusk was the doctors favorite time, for the sun set each evening over the water and trees, falling behind Manitou Island, leaving behind a fiery orange sky. She was cleared of second-degree . There is some suspicion that Lois Jurgens herself set the fire, given that it occurred while Robert was hospitalized, and that Lois had been known to threaten burning down the homes of several neighbors and family members who had spoken to authorities. They talked with more than a dozen relatives and neighbors of the Jurgenses. Product details Publisher : Ballantine Books (November 28, 2000) Language : English Paperback : 560 pages ISBN-10 : 0345487176 In summer, Peterson caught little sunfish off his dock or from his motorboatthey had the loveliest taste, the fillet just the size of a half dollar, two good bites each. It looked to her as if the roses were placed there to cover up the dark blue markings. Donna Marlene had seen other things. He was an outgoing child, as happy and adjusted as could be expected under the circumstances. They carried assorted life insurance polices worth $10,000.
Lois Jurgens, know for her short, volatile temper, murdered him. She thought the postplacement period had been quite successful. Beatings and displays of Lois' explosive temper were daily events; especially bad days could include her slamming a child's forehead into a nail protruding from a wall, forcing a child to stand barefoot in snow, and shoving a used sanitary napkin in a child's face.
We reached a point where we could not find any new leads or pick up any new information . Searching him out, she discovers he died at 3 1/2, though the death certificate does not show what killed him. We came very close to trying to do something. The trial of Lois Jurgens for the murder of 3-year-old Dennis made national . roger w. tufte sr. was born on march 22, 1945 in lakota, nd the son of clarence and esther (johnson. cemeteries found within kilometers of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. He pulled the file on the ancient case and began leafing through the yellowing pages. She thought Dennis too aggressive, his wild behavior quite unlike Roberts. On the night of his death, Lois was in an extremely bad mood due to flooding which was filling up the basement with water. Family members linked to this person will appear here. Paul Lindholm, the assistant county attorney, considered it. Learn more about merges. The house at 2148 South Gardenette Drive, White Bear Lake, where the Jurgenses lived from 1957 to 1967. To him, that was close to frightening. Still, she had never forgotten the case. Due to this frequent starvation, Dennis gained only three pounds in a two and a half-year period as he aged from one year old to three and a half years old. child abuse law. She is buried at the Union Cemetery, in Maplewood, Ramsey County, Minnesota. This post is sponsored by Open Road Media. According to sworn testimony by both Korolchuk and VanderWyst before a grand jury last year, Zerwas at the time warned the investigating officers that he would do everything in his power to keep his sisters name clear. So began a painstaking inquiry into the past--an inquiry that in recent months has pulled back the curtains on a decidedly uncomfortable vision. Its kind of hard to believe., ``How can you take a babys life like that and beat it for two years and then walk free? she said. He would testify that he had been suspicious enough to call the welfare department. The volume of business coming down the pipeline doesnt allow for regrets. A Death in White Bear Lake is a true crime book by journalist Barry Siegel, published in 1990, which recounts the murder of Dennis Jurgens. Yes! It was not his job to do anything other than pronounce the boy dead. By this point, Lois' rage and mania had gone beyond her ability to maintain an appearance of normalcy, and she and Harold had relocated to rural Stillwater, Minnesota, possibly to escape the gossip of their former neighborhood where Dennis was killed. . I can recall seeing some, but its not very clear. There are a lot of dead babies in the ground who were killed.. On or around the night of April 11, 1965, Dennis Jurgens died at the hands of Lois Jurgens. Lois Jurgens agreed, but seemed scared that she would not be offered another child. The night Dennis died, Robert was riding his trike in the basement, and all the sudden he heard Dennis screaming. | In 1965, Votel said, he thought this was certainly a battered-child case, but the reports indicated that the child had fallen down some stairs. The defense attorney was still thinking about a criminal prosecution--even if no one else was. When he wouldnt have a bowel movement, she said, she pulled the feces from his rectum with her hands. If you throw up, you are going to eat it. From a newspaper notice of his death she had learned that the boys body bore multiple injuries and bruises. Jerry took her case to the White Bear Lake police department and then to the local media. Many years later, asked in court how this placement was approved, Rekdahl--by then a psychotherapist and psychiatric social worker in Napa, Calif., remarried and using the name Gerane Wharton-Park--said: We finally had really no exacting reasons why we could turn this family down. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for The Death of Superman By Jurgens, TPB, DC Comics 1993, New, Sealed. Certain neighbors and family members knew there were problems with Lois' treatment of Dennis but did nothing to prevent it. In addition, Lois took to tying Dennis' limbs to the bedposts to keep him in bed and tied him to the toilet to force a bowel movement. The victim +C $33.27 shipping estimate. Year should not be greater than current year. Donna Marlene Norton, Lois sister, was there that day and saw the same thing. Over the course of several visits to the Jurgens home, Rekdahl saw the matter differently. One might get a first impression that Lois was cold and indifferent, but to Rekdahl, this seemed a defense for insecurities. Dennis lay in the ground at St. Marys Cemetery, no name given to his death. It was awful. If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. In 2005, playwright Brian Vinero wrote a theatre piece, The Jurgens File, which was developed at New York City's 78th Street Theatre Lab; it told the story from the perspective of the community. They felt sad, and also naggingly disturbed. Years later, Dr. Lynn Solem, the present director of the burn center at St. Paul-Ramsey Hospital, would explain that though this type of burn is now regarded as a sign of child abuse, in 1963 it would have been accepted as accidental. At the hearing a month later, Peterson was asked whether he saw anything unusual as he viewed the body in the crib. We are sad to announce that on September 25, 2019, at the age of 92, Lois Jurgens (Petersburg, Illinois) passed away. the Murderpedia project stay alive. Throughout the years of frequent abuse, it has been reported that while Harold Jurgens made little effort to curb his wife's abuse of young Dennis, he personally never mistreated the boy. The adoption should be approved. Thirty years later, writer and artist Dan Jurgens is revisiting the storyline that gripped the world. He had lived in this home since 1953, and it gave him much pleasure. Judge Gingold would not back down either. She was diagnosed as having mixed psychoneurosis and also unable to conceive a child with Harold. The mother was an unmarried 17-year-old, Jerry Ann Puckett, an attractive blonde of Danish-German extraction. All I could do was shake my head.. Testimony from neighbors and family members told of young Dennis showing up to public events wearing sunglasses at the age of two to hide his frequent black eyes. Robert was leaving things alone at the age of 1 year. It is fair to say that this finding raised considerable questions. The psychiatrist also observed that Lois had an obsession about order and cleanliness. When patrolman Robert VanderWyst arrived at the Jurgens home soon after, he found the doctor, the Jurgenses and 5-year-old Robert in the living room. It did not occur to him to question Robert. No, she explained. . . How could a kid fall down the steps and die? Lt. Clarence (Buzz) Harvey at first did not know what to make of the blonde 42-year-old woman who appeared at the front desk of this towns solitary police station on the morning of Sept. 18, 1986. The Jurgenses had wanted a younger child and Dennis was almost a year old. She had talked about this with the whole family, but not with the authorities. Lois attended cosmetology school in Des Moines, Iowa. How could a little boy not scream out in pain as soon as he was burned? Are you adding a grave photo that will fulfill this request? | Dennis and Robert Jurgens, 1965. Lois Jurgens had been sentenced to up to 25 years for the 1965 slaying of 3-year-old Dennis Jurgens. A Death in White Bear Lake er en sann krimbok av journalisten Barry Siegel, utgitt i 1990, som forteller om drapet p Dennis Jurgens. When they cleared land for his basement, theyd found old rolls of amusement park ticketsthree rides for a nickel. Lois Jurgens served only eight years of her sentence, released early for good behavior, and lived a secluded life in Stillwater, Minnesota, until her death in 2013. Harold Jurgens, an electrical foreman, made $10,000 in 1962, and this placed his family a cut above many of their friends and neighbors. Verify and try again. Votel went through living hell, one local judge said. You couldnt get action from the prosecutor and police. Now VanderWyst was looking at him, asking a question: What was the cause of death?. Are you sure that you want to report this flower to administrators as offensive or abusive? Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. There was also a great deal of suspicion surrounding Jerome Zerwas, the brother of Lois Jurgens, who was a police lieutenant in the city of White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Rekdahl did know that Lois had a history of psychiatric problems involving a nervous breakdown in the early 1950s. The trial of Lois Jurgens for the murder of 3-year-old Dennis made national headlines and was the top news story of the . A jury deliberated about five hours Friday before finding Lois Jurgens, 61, of Stillwater, Minn., guilty of third-degree murder, or an unintentional killing. | However, he was in failing health and his autopsy results did not indicate poisoning. Lois is survived by her. This drove Lois further into madness, as she felt she needed children to complete the "perfect picture" of her life. Placement with the paternal grandparents ended due to a house fire that occurred at a time when Robert was hospitalized with pneumonia, and his grandmother burned to death. |