Woman with Milwaukee murder victim in car’s back seat charged with hiding a corpse

By ED TRELEVEN

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    HARTLAND, Wisconsin (madison.com/Wisconsin State Journal) — A Hartland woman arrested last month in Cambridge, where Dane County sheriff’s deputies found the body of a man in the back seat of a car she was driving, was charged Tuesday with hiding a corpse.

Angelina J. Ruesch, 28, was also charged with second-degree reckless endangerment and intentionally pointing a firearm at a police officer, along with three misdemeanors, for the Jan. 17 incident in Cambridge that led to the discovery of the body of Adam R. McCormick, 34, of Kaukauna. Police said he had been shot to death in a Milwaukee home early that morning.

Ruesch is also charged in Milwaukee County with hiding a corpse and with aiding a felon for her alleged role in McCormick’s death. Mack D. Chambliss, 48, of Milwaukee, is charged in Milwaukee County with first-degree reckless homicide, and two other women — Melissa P. Calvert, 34, and Danielle F. Eaton, 35, both of Milwaukee — face charges of aiding a felon.

Ruesch appeared Tuesday in Dane County Circuit Court, where Court Commissioner Brian Asmus ordered her jailed on $50,000 bail. She is scheduled to appear by video in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on Wednesday morning.

According to the Dane County criminal complaint:

Deputies were asked to check on a woman at the BP gas station who was asking customers for money and acting strangely. Jefferson County authorities said she matched the description of someone who had been stopped there earlier but fled from the traffic stop.

A deputy found the woman’s car, a Mercedes, at the nearby Piggly Wiggly store but she wasn’t there. Instead, she was reported to be at a nearby home. When deputies went to the home, they found Ruesch outside with the home’s occupant. She identified herself as “Stephanie.”

Gun pulled The home’s occupant began to go inside, and Ruesch began to follow her. When deputies tried to stop her, she pulled out a gun. One of the deputies pulled out his gun and another fired a Taser, but Ruesch continued to fight the deputies and refused to drop her gun, telling deputies to shoot her.

After deputies handcuffed Ruesch, the gun was found to be loaded with a bullet in the chamber.

The woman at the home said Ruesch had come to her home and sought a ride. Ruesch had said something about being assaulted by her boyfriend, the woman told police, and that she did not know where she was.

At the Piggly Wiggly, a cashier said Ruesch had been alone earlier and bought some things with a $100 bill and was “muttering some things to herself.”

As deputies from Dane and Jefferson counties discussed who would arrest Ruesch, a Milwaukee police detective said he believed there was a body in the trunk of her car. Officers opened the trunk but found nothing in it but noticed some red staining on the car’s rear window.

Deputies then noticed there were blankets bunched in the back seat. They opened a car door and pulled back a blanket where they found the body of a man later identified as McCormick.

An autopsy found he had been shot once in the chest.

Security video from the Piggly Wiggly showed Ruesch getting out of the car with a blanket, then opening a rear car door and putting the blanket over something in the rear driver’s side seat.

Gunshots, fresh blood According to the Milwaukee County criminal complaint:

A woman told police she had been staying at a friend’s house on 41st Street in Milwaukee along with others that included Chambliss and Ruesch.

On Jan. 16, she said, McCormick came downstairs crying and said he and Ruesch were breaking up. She said Ruesch, Chambliss and McCormick then left in a Mercedes and did not return.

On Jan. 17 about 2:45 a.m., another woman told Milwaukee police she was awakened by two gunshots from an apartment building at 2036 W. Fairmount Ave. She heard a voice say “clean up the basement” and saw two people put something “big” into the trunk of a dark car.

Police found fresh blood on the front stairs of the building, and after entering, saw bloody footprints leading to the basement, where there was a strong smell of bleach. The homeowner said Eaton had been left in charge of the home while he was away.

Police talked to a girl who said she heard Chambliss arguing with another man and pistol-whipping him, yelling “You tried to set me up.” Then Chambliss shot the man, the girl said. She said she later heard Eaton and Ruesch grunting as they carried the shooting victim outside and put him next to Chambliss’ black Mercedes. Chambliss and Ruesch then put the man in the back seat of the car, she said.

A few blocks away at 8828 W. Fairmount Ave., where police went looking for Eaton, a fire was burning in a pit behind the garage and Calvert was there wearing rubber gloves and a gun holstered at her waist. She told police she had been told to burn a bag of clothes in the pit.

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