A Waukesha woman who was reported missing by her family in January was strangled in Fond du Lac by her boyfriend before her body was burned and the ashes deposited in then-frozen Lake Winnebago, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in Fond du Lac County Circuit Court.
Brandon J. Mueller, 36, along with his mother, Nancy J. Pinno, 53, of Fond du Lac, and their friend, Donald R. Worth, 48, of the Town of Friendship in Fond du Lac County, were jailed after investigators found bone fragments and a burn barrel on Worth's property.
They are accused in the death of Renee Redmer, a 29-year-old mother of two who was reported missing Jan. 13, eight days after her family last saw her.
Pinno and Worth are charged with mutilating a corpse and aiding in a felony, and a misdemeanor of obstructing an officer. If convicted, Pinno and Worth each could face up to 16 years and 9 months in prison. Pinno was being held on $250,000 bail; Worth on $150,000 bail.
Mueller is named in the criminal complaint filed Tuesday, and Fond du Lac County District Attorney Dan Kaminsky said charges are expected to be filed against him later this week.
Redmer and Mueller had been dating less than a month, and family and friends told investigators the relationship was violent, according to the complaint. Mueller allegedly strangled Redmer at Pinno's residence, cleaned up the blood and hid her body in a cooler in the garage, according to the complaint. In January, he told a friend that he "finally did it, he killed Renee," the complaint says.
The friend told a woman, and Mueller confronted the friend about telling others and said that would force him to get rid of the body, the complaint says.
In February, the friend was told what had been done with the body, the complaint says.
Mueller took the cooler containing Redmer's body to a residence belonging to Worth, the complaint says. Using a 55-gallon drum, oil and gas, Mueller and Worth burned the body for 12 to 14 hours, then drilled a hole in the ice on Lake Winnebago and deposited the ashes in the lake, the complaint says.
Investigators searched Worth's property in the W6300 block of Kinker Road and found a barrel, according to the complaint. Last week, authorities were informed that the State Crime Laboratory in Madison had found three fragments of human bone in the barrel and a forensic anthropologist had identified them as belonging to a petite female, the complaint says.
Worth and Pinno denied having any knowledge of Redmer's disappearance, the complaint says, but Worth later told investigators that Pinno had driven her son to his home with the cooler, the complaint says.
On the day of her disappearance, Redmer was in court and pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor cocaine possession.