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CORA'S KILLER PLEADS GUILTY Published on Friday, December 9, 1994 (Madison Newspaper Archives) (Author information unavailable) Rick and Vicki Jones should have been celebrating their daughter Cora's 13th birthday. Instead, they sat in a courtroom watching Thursday as David Spanbauer pleaded guilty to abducting, raping and killing the little girl who vanished on Labor Day while bicycling near her grandmother's Waupaca home. "Maybe that was our present to her, to get this guy," Vicki Jones said after Spanbauer was convicted of killing her daughter and two others. Like his wife, Rick Jones of Weyauwega was subdued and had little to say. He appeared teary-eyed as he sat staring straight at the back of Spanbauer through the court hearing. Wearing a pullover shirt with Cora's picture covering the front, Jones said later that he had few thoughts during the hour-long hearing. Asked if it provided some closure to the sadness of the last few months, he responded simply, "Not yet." Spanbauer, 53, who was released form prison on parole in 1991 and worked at an Oshkosh bottling factory, pleaded guilty to 16 charges and no contest to two others. Circuit Judge James Bayorgeon found Spanbauer guilty on all 18 counts. He pleaded guilty to first-degree intentional homicide in the Jones case and the similar abduction murder of 10-year-old Ronelle Eichstedt of Ripon, who disappeared while bicycling near her home in August 1992. Ronelle's body was found five weeks later, dumped in a ditch in Iowa County about 100 miles from her home. Cora's body was found September 10, dumped in a ditch in Langlade County, about 75 miles north of the spot where she disappeared September 5. Spanbauer pleaded no contest to first-degree intentional homicide in the shooting of 21-year-old Trudi Jeschke at her Appleton home July 9. Spanbauer faces three life terms for the killings and a maximum 403 years in prison on other charges when sentenced. Relatives of the victims questioned why Spanbauer, with a history of repeat sex offenses dating to 1960, had been freed from prison. "The system failed us," said Terry Schwirtz, an uncle of Cora. "I think there were 18 reasons in that courtroom why this guy should have been locked up." Rick and Vicki Jones have campaigned for setting the death penalty in Wisconsin for certain serious crimes, such as murders of children like Cora. Tricia Hummel, the sister of Trudi Jeschke, agreed with the other victims' relatives that laws need to be tougher. "We lost Trudi. Trudi's gone," she said. "We're moving on, but we're trying to do something so that other families don't have to go through this." Waupaca County Sheriff William Mork said investigators want to learn whether Spanbauer was responsible for other crimes since his release on parole in 1991. "We don't know everything about this guy," Mork said. "Where the hell has he been the last three years?" |
