An early case of forensic evidence in a local murder trial, 32 years ago

On this day in 1985, a Wisconsin appeals court upheld the murder conviction of Terry Shaw of La Crosse.  Shaw had been found guilty of the 1981 rape and killing 29-year-old Susan Erickson.  La Crosse district attorney Michael Mulroy based a key part of his prosecution on a piece of fingernail found under the victim’s body, which scientists showed was a match for Shaw’s fingernail.  When Shaw tried to appeal his conviction, the higher court agreed with the scientific evidence.  Publicity from the trial, which was aired on local cable TV, was credited for helping Mulroy win his first election for circuit judge in 1983.
 
La Crosse got its first pro basketball franchise in the summer of ’85, when the Catbirds of the CBA left Louisville after two years to come to Wisconsin.  Businessmen D.B. Reinhart and Norm Gillette were among the owners who brought the Catbirds to the five-year-old La Crosse Center.  The team played at the arena for nine seasons, and won a pair of league championships under future NBA coach Flip Saunders.
 
And the second-oldest building on the U-W-L campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places that April.  It was Wittich Hall, which had been built as a physical education center 70 years earlier.  Wittich gets the honor in 1985…32 years ago, Yesterday in La Crosse.