Detectives wearing hazmat suits removed bags of evidence and a refrigerator from the suburban Milwaukee apartment of a man arrested in connection with two suitcases found stuffed with the remains of two women.
Prosecutors have not yet charged the 52-year-old security officer, identified by theMilwaukee Journal Sentinel as Steven M. Zelich. Investigators searched his West Allis home Wednesday.
Highway workers discovered the suitcases June 5 on a rural highway in the Town of Geneva, about 50 miles southwest of Milwaukee.
Police have identified one of the women found in the suitcases as 37-year-old Laura Simonson who was reported missing in November. Her father, Richard Wierson, tells the Sentinel that the Farmington, Minn., woman struggled with mental illness and that he has cared for her seven children since 2010.
The paper reports Zelich is an independent LegalShield, which offers legal advice. He is also a licensed private security officer.
After Simonson was reported missing, an ad was placed on a site called SecondCityClassifieds.com that claimed she was mentally disabled and had been abused, tortured and enslaved by Zelich, according to the Sentinel. The ad provided a cellphone number for Zelich which matched the contact number on the LegalShield website, and an email address for him that appears on an