Cops hope science can crack grim 1985 La Crosse killing

On Valentine's Day in 1985, college senior Terry Dolowy went missing from a mobile home near Barre Mills, Wis., some time after a late night shift at Piggy's Restaurant in downtown La Crosse.

Four days later, Mike Weissenberger, now retired from the La Crosse County Sheriff's Department, was one of the officers who responded after a report of a glowing object in a ditch along a rural Wisconsin road.

There, they found the burning and decapitated body of the 24-year-old woman.

Weissenberger is one of dozens of investigators from several agencies who have done thousands of interviews and spent a large part of their careers trying to find Dolowy's killer.

Now, he's hoping that the crime can be solved.

Dolowy's exhumed body was brought to the Minnesota Regional Medical Examiner's Office in Hastings on Friday, where a crowd of investigators -- including a forensic anthropologist from Hamline University's Anthropology Department, and the Cook County medical examiner from Illinois -- did an autopsy in hopes of finding what, and who, killed her.

By day's end, the body was sent back to Illinois for reburial, said Dr. Lindsey Thomas, who heads the regional office.

Thomas said some lab tests could take weeks. Results would be released only if a suspect could be charged or if new evidence might trigger leads, said Vernon County Sheriff Gene Cary, who was among those at the scene 22 years ago.

Authorities exhumed the body from its grave south of Chicago on Thursday after new tips surfaced. Neither current officials nor Weissenberger, who has continued to help on the case in retirement, would discuss what they are looking for.

"We didn't even have computers back then," Weissenberger said. "There is a lot of new technology they can use."

Recalling a grisly crime

At the time of her slaying, Dolowy was living with her fiancé, Russell Lee Jr., who worked at a local hotel. He told authorities he came home about 4:30 a.m. that day to find the front door ajar. Dolowy was missing, as was her poodle, Suzie. The couple had argued earlier, he said.

Judy Pritzlaff, Dolowy's mother, told the La Crosse Tribune this week that Lee had a gambling problem and her daughter was planning to leave him about the time she disappeared.

But Lee was not the only suspect.

"We checked out her boyfriend, people she went to school with, people she worked and played pool with," Weissenberger said. "There were five or six strong leads at the time."

Hundreds of tips came in, but they dwindled as time passed. Weissenberger passed the case along to younger officers when he became sheriff.

"It's always good to have someone new look at a cold case," he said. "They see it from a new direction or pick up things you might have missed."

Anniversary brought leads

After the La Crosse Tribune wrote a story on the 20th anniversary of the murder, and authorities put up billboards, more leads came in.

"Sometimes people remember things years later," Jacobson said. "Sometimes they come forward because a relationship has changed, or the fear diminishes."

Susan Myster, an anthropology professor at Hamline University and a board-certified forensic anthropologist, will assist in the investigation. Myster is an expert in determining things such as cause of death based on bone nicks and cuts, and her specialty is one of the things that separates contemporary times from the time of Dolowy's death.

"In 1985, there really wasn't such a thing as a forensic anthropologist," Thomas said.

"I'm always optimistic," Weissenberger said. "All it takes is finding the right detail, or someone making the right statement, and I think they'll be able to solve this case."