Drug dispute cited in double homicide

Published on: 6/16/2011

Waukesha - Chad Lurvey killed two men with blasts from his shotgun nearly nine years ago because he owed them money related to drugs and he was worried they would harm him over some missing "product," Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel told a jury Thursday.

Schimel, in his opening statements at the start of Lurvey's trial, said the evidence will prove Lurvey killed Brian Lazzaro of Mukwonago and Andrew Long of West Milwaukee.

But Lurvey's attorney, Stephen P. Hurley, said the evidence will show Lurvey did not kill the men and that police didn't investigate associates of Lazzaro and Long, who may have had reasons to want them dead. Hurley called Lazzaro a "big-time drug dealer in the community" and said that Long owed more than $100,000 to his supplier.

Schimel, though, said Lurvey talked to others about killing the men.

"This is a murder case about drug trafficking," Schimel said, noting that Long had paid Lurvey to store kilos of cocaine and pounds of marijuana on Lurvey family property in Ottawa. Some of the cocaine was buried in buckets on the property, Schimel said.

Lurvey, 37, once asked an associate if he would kill somebody for money and told him the victims would be people police would not care about, Schimel said.

And on the day Lazzaro and Long disappeared sometime after showing up at a garage on Lurvey's property on Aug. 24, 2002, Lurvey told the associate there was a dispute over missing cocaine, and he was going to "kill the (expletives)," Schimel said.

The bodies of Long and Lazzaro, both 25, were found in September 2002 in a 6-acre private lake on Lurvey property off Highway 67.

Hurley countered that Lurvey told authorities he didn't kill the two men. "The use of violence isn't and wasn't in his nature," Hurley said.

Hurley also told the jury authorities did not find a single drop of blood, a bit of flesh and or any DNA from the victims during extensive searches of Lurvey's home, his shop where he and others worked on race cars and surrounding property.

Noting that authorities never found the cocaine said to be stored on Lurvey property, Hurley said the evidence will suggest whoever ended up with the cocaine committed the crime.

Lurvey was charged in July 2009 with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in connection with the deaths of Lazzaro and Long. It took authorities until then to gather enough evidence to charge him.

According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, Lazzaro and Long had been shot multiple times with a shotgun and their necks were cut.

Investigators had been called to the lake by Lazzaro's parents and other people who had gone there on Sept. 5, 2002, to search for Lazzaro and saw what they believed to be a body floating along the shoreline, the complaint says. The next day, Long's body surfaced on the lake while officers were watching the area as they awaited a search warrant.

Both bodies were covered in moving blankets and chains typically used for towing or securing cargo, court records show. The blankets and chains also were secured to the bodies with long plastic cable ties, according to records.

Schimel told jurors Thursday that moving blankets and tow chains were missing from Lurvey's shop, and the plastic ties matched ties found in Lurvey's shop.

In a search of the lake in 2003, investigators found a sawed-off Remington Express shotgun used in the crime, Schimel told jurors. The gun was a gift to Lurvey from a family friend. Although the gun was found in 2003, it took investigators until about mid-2009 to show that the shotgun shells found on the Lurvey property after the men were reported missing were fired from the gun found at the bottom of the lake, according to the criminal complaint.

Lurvey's trial continues Friday in Waukesha County Circuit Court and is expected to last for about two weeks.