Weyauwega man charged with two counts of murder in 30-year-old Waupaca County cold case
WAUPACA - A Weyauwega man has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the 1992 deaths of two people in Waupaca County.
Tony G. Haase, 51, was charged Friday morning and made an initial appearance Friday afternoon in Waupaca County Circuit Court. Judge Raymond Huber set Haase's cash bail at $2 million.
Haase is charged in the March 21, 1992, stabbing deaths of Tanna Togstad and Timothy Mumbrue at Togstad's home on Butternut Ridge Road in Royalton, just north of Weyauwega.
Togstad, 23, had been dating Mumbrue for less than a year before they were killed. They were last seen alive in a Clintonville tavern between 11:30 p.m. and midnight March 20.
Mumbrue, 35, was stabbed multiple times and appeared to have tried to defend himself. Togstad was stabbed twice, and her dog was killed.
Recent DNA testing led to the arrest, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
“This arrest happened because of investigators’ unwavering pursuit of justice over the course of three decades,” Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a news release. “Thank you to everyone whose commitment to this investigation made this arrest possible.”
According to the criminal complaint, Haase's name came up recently in the course of the investigation by the DOJ's Division of Criminal Investigation.
Police obtained Haase's DNA at a traffic stop on July 6. On July 18, a Wisconsin State Crime Lab analyst found that the DNA was "consistent with the profile previously detected from the bodily fluids recovered from the body of Togstad," the complaint said.
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DCI special agent Jay K. Yerges, who has been working on the case since 2015, and other agents interviewed Haase on Thursday at the Waupaca County Sheriff's Office.
Haase told investigators, according to the complaint, that his father and Togstad's father had been friends. He said his father had been killed in a 1977 snowmobile crash that involved Togstad's father.
Haase said that on the night of March 20, 1992, in a "drunken stupor" and thinking about the accident, he went to Togstad's home. He told investigators that he couldn't articulate why he went there but it wasn't to hurt anyone.
At Togstad's home, Haase said he got into a "scuffle" with Mumbrue. He said he didn't know if he brought a knife or there was one at the house, but while he and Mumbrue were wrestling while standing up, Haase moved his arm in a stabbing motion toward Mumbrue's chest. Haase said Mumbrue fell to the floor.
Haase said that when Togstad yelled at him, he punched her in the face. He said that, at some point, Togstad started to "stir" and Haase stabbed her in the chest.
According to the complaint, Haase said throughout the interview that he had only "snippets/blurbs" of memories that he attributed to the murders. He told investigators that, when he first saw the news report of the deaths in 1992, "he was afraid he was involved."
He told investigators he didn't know why he did it. Asked why he didn't tell investigators right away, Haase said, "I didn't want it to sound like I had it planned."
In February 2013, authorities disclosed that Glendon Gouker was a "person of interest" in the murders of Togstad and Mumbrue. That revelation came when Gouker was charged in 2013 with raping a woman in Iola in 1990.
Gouker was convicted in 2014 of first-degree sexual assault in the Iola case and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
He's serving four consecutive life sentences in Oklahoma, where he was convicted of killing a man in 2010 and stuffing his body into a 55-gallon drum.
In 2002, at the 10-year anniversary of the murders, Sgt. Don Conat, a detective with the Waupaca County Sheriff's Department, told The Post-Crescent that investigators strongly believed the murderer knew Togstad.
"There is no doubt that he was fixated on her," Conat said.
Tanna's sister, Veronica, who lived in a mobile home next door, said she saw a small pickup truck with a cap back out of the driveway about 4 a.m. March 21 and head west of Togstad's home, on Butternut Ridge Road.
Mumbrue was stabbed repeatedly and his throat was slashed.
"There was a struggle because Mumbrue had wounds on his arms where he was slashed while defending himself," Conat said in 2002. "He had to kill Mumbrue first. He was in the way. The guy wanted Tanna."
Togstad was stabbed twice. She also had an abrasion across the bridge of her nose.
"We never found a weapon," said Capt. Don Berglund, head of the sheriff's detective bureau at the time. "It was a single-edge knife with a blade, probably longer than five inches."
"It was a murder scene showing the gamut of emotion," DCI special agent Kim Skorlinski said in 2002. "There was obvious anger in the murder of Timothy Mumbrue. On the other hand, the guy had strong feelings for Tanna."
Togstad was a machine operator at Kraft's Churney Cheese in Weyauwega, where she had worked since graduating from New London Senior High School in 1987.
Mumbrue was employed at Waupaca Foundry, where he worked second shift in the core room.
As the investigation began, authorities said the couple's large number of acquaintances complicated the case.
In July 1992, then-Waupaca County Sheriff William Mork said investigators had conducted 500 to 600 interviews.
"They dealt with a lot of people and that's where our problems are," Mork said.
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Contact Larry Gallup at (920) 996-7216 or lgallup@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @LarryGallup.
This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Weyauwega man charged with 2 murders in 1992 Waupaca County cold case
