Chilton man convicted of killing Starkie Swenson in 1983 now charged with obstructing an officer
CHILTON - An 83-year-old Chilton man convicted of killing Starkie Swenson in 1983 has been charged with obstructing an officer during law enforcement's 2021 investigation into the whereabouts of Swenson's remains.
John C. Andrews will have an initial appearance on the misdemeanor charge Nov. 28 in Calumet County Circuit Court. If convicted, the charge carries a maximum penalty of a $10,000 fine and nine months in jail.
In April, Andrews was charged with hiding the corpse of Swenson, a felony. The case was dismissed in July, when Judge Carey Reed ruled that Andrews' denial of knowing the whereabouts of Swenson's remains when questioned by police on June 7, 2021, didn't constitute hiding a corpse as defined by state law, but it might rise to probable cause for obstructing an officer.
Prosecutors heeded Reed's words and charged Andrews with obstructing.
Eric Tillman, Swenson's grandson, praised District Attorney Nathan Haberman's persistence in the case.
"I don't know that there was a lot of DAs out there who actually would have pursued this from the start," Tillman told The Post-Crescent. "I'm happy they're still going at it. Anything that can bring us some measure of justice is definitely better than none. It's not an issue of vengeance. It's a matter of principle."
Swenson, 67, vanished on Aug. 13, 1983, after leaving his home on a bicycle.
In 1994, Andrews was tried on a charge of first-degree murder for Swenson's death. Police alleged Andrews became enraged over Swenson's extramarital affair with his ex-wife, Claire Andrews, and ran him over with his Pontiac Firebird on the grounds of Shattuck Junior High School (now Shattuck Middle School) in Neenah. Shattuck is across the street from the house where Claire Andrews lived.
The trial ended after four days when Andrews accepted a plea bargain to a lesser charge of homicide by negligent use of a vehicle. He was sentenced to two years in prison. The first-degree murder charge carried a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Despite the plea, Andrews maintained his innocence in Swenson's death and disappearance.
Swenson's disappearance resurfaced in the public eye in April 2021 when investigators — aided by University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh anthropology associate professor Jordan Karsten and his students — began searching for Swenson's remains by excavating a nine-acre property west of Omro that Andrews was thought to have frequented in 1983.
The Omro search came up empty but led police to question Andrews about the location of Swenson's remains on June 7, 2021. Andrews not only denied any knowledge of Swenson's whereabouts, but he also denied ever seeing or speaking to Swenson in person.
Coincidentally, Swenson's body was found Sept. 28, 2021, in a rocky, partially secluded section of High Cliff State Park in Sherwood. Four days earlier, two hikers had discovered a tibia in the area.
According to the criminal complaint against Andrews, Swenson's body was covered intentionally with limestone rocks and appeared to have been placed in the park around the time of his death.
Fond du Lac County Medical Examiner Adam Covach determined Swenson died from multiple injuries. "The majority of these injuries were likely caused by a motor vehicle vs. pedestrian/bicyclist type of incident which occurred on the day Mr. Swenson went missing," the criminal complaint says.
Tillman said justice hasn't been fully served for his grandfather's murder.
"(Andrews) ended up being charged with homicide by negligent use of a motor vehicle and served 14 months of a two-year sentence for intentionally killing somebody," Tillman said. "Anybody should be disgusted that something like that could come out of our justice system."
Contact Duke Behnke at 920-993-7176 or dbehnke@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DukeBehnke.
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This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Chilton man charged with obstructing Starkie Swenson investigation
