lois jurgens' death

You need a Find a Grave account to continue. Are you sure that you want to delete this photo? To receive the type of severe burns he suffered, Dennis would have had to be exposed to steaming-hot water for a significant length of time. Her secret was revealed after Sherwood began searching for the son she gave up for adoption and learned in 1983 that he had died of a bowel injury. She remembered the names, the faces--she particularly remembered Dennis. She is buried at the Union Cemetery, in Maplewood, Ramsey County, Minnesota . The prosecutor had a different attitude back then, Votel said recently. . The coroner noted in his report that Dennis had almost zero subcutaneous fat, at the level of a person who had died of starvation. They had shocked James Nelson. There was obviously going to be trouble, and he didnt want to get involved. During the early morning hours of April 11, 1965, Dennis Jurgens died at the hands of Lois Jurgens. . . Continuing with this request will add an alert to the cemetery page and any new volunteers will have the opportunity to fulfill your request. Only 5% to 10% of the bruises on Dennis could have been caused by such a fall. And her release from the states prison for women in Shakopee only angered the biological mother whose search for her child led to the discovery of the crime. Mornings there were wonderful, but the dusk was the doctors favorite time, for the sun set each evening over the water and trees, falling behind Manitou Island, leaving behind a fiery orange sky. Star Tribune photo by Donald Black. To use this feature, use a newer browser. She had not noticed anything was wrong until sometime later, when Dennis began holding himself and saying, Owie! It was then she saw that his genitals were burned and called the doctor. This was a murder. Translation on Find a Grave is an ongoing project. Oops, something didn't work. Sherwood's tenacity, along with the tragedy of her personal loss, kept the story in the public eye. Are you sure that you want to delete this memorial? Rekdahl thought that Lois speech betrayed a bit of cynicism. ?Tadeusz: I never remember pretty women. Together they went into Dennis room to inspect the body. Lois considered herself a devout Catholic and believed she was doing "God's work" by making Dennis "perfect" in her eyes. . There was testimony from other officers that he impeded the investigation into the child's death. They would not know for two weeks whether Dennis would need skin grafts, he had told Rekdahl. Lois obsessed about Dennis' weight, which according to medical records was appropriate for a child of his age and build at the point of his adoption. We have many In her effort to make Dennis "right" in her eyes, Lois embarked on a series of sadistic and corporal punishments: Angered at Dennis for rejecting certain foods, she responded by placing horseradish on the food and then force-fed it to him. It was just inconceivable to Woodburn that Dennis had been so injured by slipping and falling on a basement floor. She thought Dennis was sloppy fat. This particularly surprised Rekdahl. The electric streetcar with overhead power lines, running as a spur off the main railroad tracks along Highway 61, would stop just three doors down. In spite of extensive physical evidence pointing towards severe .

They had seen Lois yank Dennis violently by the ears. She is buried at the Union Cemetery, in Maplewood, Ramsey County, Minnesota. Yes! I was young then, just out of college, the social worker said recently in an interview. DENNIS JURGENS WAS ONLY 3-YEARS-0LD WHEN HIS LIFE ENDED AT THE CRUEL HANDS OF HIS MOTHER LOIS JURGENS AND SHE WOULD HAVE GOT AWAY WITH IT, BUT HIS BIOLOGICAL MOTHER JERRY SHERWOOD STARTED. He feared finding himself alone. I was not trained in mental illness. She was a good dozen years younger than the Jurgenses. They just buried the body in St.. My deputy reassured me from time to time. Last week, Judge David Marsden sentenced. Stanley Wiatros was one of them. Aside from the incident when Dennis was hospitalized with burns on his genitals, there were many other incidents of abuse which fell under the category of sexual sadism. One of Lois Jurgens responses was to call Father Riser, the priest who had so warmly recommended them to the county welfare worker. Lois attended cosmetology school in Des Moines, Iowa. She died aged 87 on May 7, 2013.

Try again. In addition, Lois took to tying Dennis' limbs to the bedposts to keep him in bed and tied him to the toilet to force a bowel movement. I thought you might like to see a memorial for Lois Germaine Josephine Zerwas Jurgens I found on Findagrave.com.

Heroes abound now in White Bear Lake, visible and proud of their roles in unraveling the mystery of Dennis death. The trial of Lois Jurgens for the murder of 3-year-old Dennis made national . I felt we actually checked out the concerns quite carefully.. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for The Death of Superman By Jurgens, TPB, DC Comics 1993, New, Sealed. This is a carousel with slides. Clothing retains the heat. . Lois Germaine Josephine Zerwas Jurgens was an American convicted murderer. . She talked about it all the time, in fact. On April 26, Korolchuk drafted an analysis of the information they had gathered. Lois Jurgens, know for her short, volatile temper, murdered him.

Camille Brass knew the blue convertible belonged to Dr. Peterson. Harold's testimony in 1965 showed he was in Wisconsin from the evening of Friday, April 9, until 9 or 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 10. Man held is death of retarded foster child, Minneapolis Star, May 21, 1971. She knew that Lois came from a large, poor, Catholic family of 16 children, a family that at times survived on welfare. and Judith Ivey as Close this window, and upload the photo(s) again. You can customize the cemeteries you volunteer for by selecting or deselecting below. Placement with the paternal grandparents ended due to a house fire that occurred at a time when Robert was hospitalized with pneumonia, and his grandmother burned to death. By the second week, the investigation began to encounter obstacles. On Nov. 28, 1962, members of the Scott and Ramsey counties welfare departments, including Rekdahl, had a conference in the town of Shakopee. There is in the Scott County records a description of Dennis in the foster home where he lived his first year: He is solidly built, with blue eyes and blond hair. I didnt look after that; I couldnt, she said. Rekdahl, who graduated from St. Pauls Hamline University in 1957 with a bachelors degree in social work, had been in adoption services for less than one year. VanderWyst and Korolchuk had brought in the file themselves and lobbied for prosecution. By all accounts, Lois was obsessed with abusing Dennis, and she wanted the world to know he was a "bad child," and made no apologies about the inappropriate way she was disciplining him. The official cause of death was Peritonitis due to perforation of the small bowel. Lois Jurgens served only eight years of her sentence, released early for good behavior, and lived a secluded life in Stillwater, Minnesota, until her death in 2013. Failed to delete memorial. I was willing to wait. Votel was still waiting about two years later, when he retired from office. Lois' remedy for the toddler wetting his diaper too frequently was to place a spring-action clothespin upon the end of his penis. We came very close to trying to do something. This was the first child-abuse case he had handled. While he waited for the coroners investigator to arrive, he asked Lois Jurgens if there was anything he could do--such as take Robert to his own home, to be cared for by his wife. Try again later. They were independent of each other. Dennis Craig Jurgens (December 6, 1961 - April 11, 1965) was an American 3-year-old boy who was murdered in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, in April 1965. Lois Jurgens had not one good thing to say about Dennis. Whod listen? He was frequently starved, to rid him of "sloppy fat," as Lois called it (she also called him "Sloppy Fat" as a nickname). This post is sponsored by Open Road Media. They just werent going to get any damaging information from him. Please complete the captcha to let us know you are a real person. Its so expensive.My friend, after twenty thousand years murder is still a business thats mainly in the hands of amateurs.Orson Welles (19151985), Its almost as if they were saying, You live your life, and well live ours.Richard Fielding, and Lee Sholem. This browser does not support getting your location. VanderWyst didnt push the matter. To keep creating We will review the memorials and decide if they should be merged. When she was 17 and living in a juvenile home, she said, she gave birth to a boy, Dennis, who was quickly taken from her and eventually adopted by a family named Jurgens who lived in White Bear Lake. From the death certificate she had learned that the coroner never ruled whether the death was an accident, a homicide or the result of natural causes. Published Jan 18, 2023. DEATH OF SUPERMAN 30TH ANNIVERARY SPECIAL- 1:100 JURGENS & BREEDING FOIL VARIANT. It was full of redwood and log railings, and the lawn and trees ran almost to the waters edge, a good hundred feet of lake frontage in all. On January 13, 2000, she was initially suspected of poisoning her husband, Harold. Pitera would take photos later that day. Though there was an investigation, society and law enforcement of the mid-1960s did not accept the concept that a child in a middle-class home could be the target of abuse. The body was severely undernourished, nearly emaciated. Homicide was not the issue at the hearing. Father Bernard Riser of the St. Mary of the Lake Catholic Church had known the Jurgenses for years and considered them to be among his parishs best families. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Rekdahl did know that Lois had a history of psychiatric problems involving a nervous breakdown in the early 1950s. The next morning, six coroners jurors were asked to view the body of a dead boy, and to remember everything they saw. She believed that Lois had opened up a great deal and tried to be as truthful as possible. [citation needed][3]. Rekdahl could not so assure her. With the advent of highways, White Bear Lake has become a suburb of St. Paul, about 12 miles to the south. Lois Jurgens agreed, but seemed scared that she would not be offered another child. Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates). . There were at least a dozen bruises on the face alone, some large and others small. During her several postplacement visits to the Jurgens home in the following, probationary year, Rekdahl increasingly came to judge the placement a success. If you throw up, you are going to eat it. Testimony from neighbors and family members told of young Dennis showing up to public events wearing sunglasses at the age of two to hide his frequent black eyes. I tried to assure her that these things happen in any family.. At 2 p.m. on that Palm Sunday, Dr. Robert Woodburn, the coroners chief pathologist, conducted the autopsy. Lois obsessed about Dennis' weight, which according to medical records was appropriate for a child of his age and build at the point of his adoption. To this end, she forced religious training on her young sons; reports had young Robert flawlessly reciting the Rosary at 2. He naps both in the forenoon and the afternoon. Lois had grown up in an impoverished family of sixteen siblings and used her marriage to the middle-class Harold Jurgens as a means to improve her social standing. It would have been difficult at the time to prove that Lois Jurgens had committed murder. You see, Gingold said, I didnt have to go that far. There are no volunteers for this cemetery. The only witness to Lois's final abuse of Dennis was Robert, who was 5 years old at the time. On Feb. 11, 1964, the commissioner of public welfare, as legal guardian for Dennis, consented to his formal adoption by Harold and Lois Jurgens. . Are you sure that you want to remove this flower? He knew that parents otherwise free of major symptoms of psychotic illness could abuse children. Along with the aforementioned evidence of starvation and the scarring and bite-marks on his genitalia, the coroner discovered multiple lacerations and multiple generations of bruises covering most of his body. What to make of Dennis Jurgens death now was passed into the hands of the Ramsey County coroner.

Donna Marlene Norton, Lois sister, was there that day and saw the same thing. Lois is survived by her. ``There is no justice. The way Lindholm figured it, instead of prosecuting Lois Jurgens for murder, lets move to take Robert away. based on information from your browser. Jurgens was the only fatal victim of Lois Jurgens, his adoptive mother and a prolific child abuser, who abused a total of six adopted children from 1960 to 1975. Well, I do, he replied. To view a photo in more detail or edit captions for photos you added, click the photo to open the photo viewer. All photos uploaded successfully, click on the Done button to see the photos in the gallery. A Death in White Bear Lake is a true crime book by journalist Barry Siegel, published in 1990, which recounts the murder of Dennis Jurgens. In the early 1980s, Jerry Sherwood went looking for the newborn son she gave up for adoption 20 years prior. Blankets covered him to the waist. Dennis Craig Jurgens (December 6, 1961 - April 11, 1965) was an American 3-year-old boy who was murdered in White Bear Lake, Minnesota in April 1965. To the casual observer, the Jurgens' seemed to be a normal, church-going family with a perfectly maintained house and yard.

With the exception of the severe burns, his health remained quite good. No prosecution was taken at that time. At the hearing a month later, Peterson was asked whether he saw anything unusual as he viewed the body in the crib. When he wet his pants, she said, she put a clothespin on his penis. By all accounts, Lois was obsessed with abusing Dennis, and she wanted the world to know he was a "bad child"; she made no apologies about the inappropriate way she was disciplining him. Lois Jurgens was at home alone with the children much of the weekend of Dennis' death. Retrieved 12 February 2015. It is one of a few crimes that FBI agent Kenneth Lanning argues can legitimately be described as "ritual abuse". According to sworn testimony by both Korolchuk and VanderWyst before a grand jury last year, Zerwas at the time warned the investigating officers that he would do everything in his power to keep his sisters name clear. I did my best.. The policeman did not, so they carried the body to the coroners van. Dennis had fallen and hit his head on the wet basement floor the day before, the Jurgenses said, and he also had been suffering from a bad cold. In the decade preceding the adoption of Dennis, Lois Jurgens had suffered bouts of depression and psychosis, including an extended stay at a psychiatric institution where electroconvulsive therapy was administered. She died aged 87 on May 7, 2013. They are good people. Thank you for supporting our partners, who make it possible for The Lineup to continue publishing the terrifying stories you love. Throughout the years of frequent abuse, it has been reported that while Harold Jurgens made little effort to curb his wife's abuse of young Dennis, he personally never mistreated the boy. Just past one year of age, Dennis was placed in the Jurgens' home in 1962, in anticipation of an adoption after spending much of his first year in foster care. To him, that was close to frightening. A Death in White Bear Lake er en sann krimbok av journalisten Barry Siegel, utgitt i 1990, som forteller om drapet p Dennis Jurgens. However, he was in failing health and his autopsy results did not indicate poisoning. and this case
No, she explained. Pitera stared at the body. Forever' w/ the How could the hot water splashing down on the baby have burned only his penis and scrotum? Notification of death or terminal illness, Office of Revisor of Statues . In the early 1980s, Dennis' birth mother, Jerry Sherwood, looked for Dennis, only to find out he had died in 1965. The investigation, trial, and conviction are considered landmarks in the history of child abuse law. He couldnt push Votel on this. updates the Murderpedia project stay alive. . The official cause of death was peritonitis due to perforation of the small bowel.