Last Updated: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 10:19 AM CST
Judge tosses statements in case tied to Tomahawk murder
By Daily News Staff
A judge has suppressed some statements made by a Rhinelander teen accused of attempting to cover up her boyfriend’s alleged role in a Tomahawk homicide.
Judge Neal A. Nielsen ruled Tuesday investigators improperly continued to interrogate Katie Decker, 18, even after she invoked her right to remain silent.
Nielsen said all statements made after Decker said “I don’t want to talk at all” would not be admissible at trial.
“There wasn’t any time taken, any space given. We have the interrogation continuing by the same officer within a second. The state wants to characterize the right to remain silent as being scrupulously honored and I really don’t know how it could make that argument,” Nielsen said, according to WXPR public radio and New Radio Group.
Decker is charged with a single felony count of harboring or aiding a felon. She is accused of hiding bloody clothes allegedly worn by her then boyfriend, Seth Louis, when he allegedly stabbed Tracy Maurer to death on April 6, 2007. Maurer, 42, Louis’ co-worker at the Rhinelander Taco John’s restaurant, was found dead in her home at 211 W. Merrill Avenue in Tomahawk. According to a medical examiner she was stabbed some 70 times.
Louis, 26, of Rhinelander, has confessed to killing Maurer during a burglary.
Decker, who has also been charged with helping Louis burglarize two Rhinelander businesses, had a partial preliminary hearing on that charge Tuesday.
According to computerized court records, the state called one witness before asking for an adjournment so that Louis can testify in that case.
In the burglary case, Decker is accused of helping Louis steal computers, cash and food from Coffee Beans Etc and the UPS Store back in March of 2007.
Decker, who is currently free on bond, is also facing a felony murder charge in Lincoln County. In that case, she and another Rhinelander woman, Heather Ward, 19, are accused of plotting with Louis to burglarize Maurer’s home. Louis claims the two women helped him plot the crime and gave him knives to use in vandalizing the home.
He has testified that he didn’t expect Maurer to be home and ended up fatally stabbing her after she surprised him.
He claims the trio wanted to burglarize Maurer’s home as a form of revenge. Maurer, Louis said, had been threatening to tell police about his criminal activities.
Decker and Ward are due back in Lincoln County Court Dec. 4 on that case.
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