It was a midsummer evening in June of 1956, and forty-nine-year-old Louise Welk was relaxing with a beer in her Rice Lake, Wisconsin apartment. Shortly after pouring herself a glass, she heard a knock at her front door. Apparently with no hesitation, Louise went to answer it. As soon as she swung the door open, whoever stood on her doorstep shot her dead.
In a neighboring apartment, five-year-old Janet Rowin and her mother heard the gunshot, then distinctly heard footsteps on the stairs, followed by two sharp knocks on their own front door. Janet’s mother grabbed the child and both of them hid in a closet until more footsteps indicated that the visitor had left.
The following morning, two neighbor boys were playing outside and heard Louise’s dog Kim barking incessantly. When they went to investigate, they found Louise lying on the floor in a puddle of blood just inside her front door. They immediately called the police.
Investigators determined that Louise had been shot by a .22 caliber bullet, which was still lodged in her heart, along with a scrap of the screen door that she had been shot through.
Suspicion immediately fell on Louise’s husband Oren, a traveling salesman who admitted to purchasing a .22 caliber rifle more than a month prior to the killing, though he told police that he had lost it some time before. Authorities kept him in custody for three days, during which he refused a polygraph test, but it was eventually determined that there was insufficient evidence to hold him, and he was released.
No other suspects were ever seriously considered, and in later years the files on the murder were misplaced or thrown away, making it extremely unlikely that the case will ever be resolved.
Crime Immemorial 