Waukesha — A 29-year-old Town of Mukwonago man was charged Wednesday with first-degree intentional homicide in connection with the stabbing death of a Waukesha woman on Sept. 5.
David A. Wapp is accused of killing Samantha L. Peterson, 21, after quarreling with her in her car outside his aunt's home, according Assistant District Attorney Kevin M. Osborne and a criminal complaint filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court.
According to the complaint, he left the Oldsmobile Alero after stabbing her, but returned and found that she was still breathing and then stabbed her and cut her neck until she was dead. He then moved her body from the driver's seat into the back seat and covered it with bed sheet, the complaint says.
Peterson, who was stabbed multiple times, was found dead about 11 p.m. Sept. 5 in a car parked at the intersection of West Ave. and Wood St. in Waukesha after someone called 911, police said.
Wapp, who recently had been released from prison, was arrested at a hotel in the 10000 block of W. Appleton Ave. in Milwaukee about 6 a.m. Sept. 6 at gunpoint as he tried to escape through a window.
After his arrest, Wapp was not immediately charged in connection with the homicide because he was hospitalized for several days after he took an overdose of methadone and Xanax, a drug used to treat anxiety, sometime after Peterson's death and before Milwaukee police arrested him, according to court documents.
Investigators believe he had attempted to kill himself. According to the criminal complaint, Peterson came to visit Wapp at the aunt's home and the two watched TV and then went outside. Things got tense, a witness told police, when Peterson told Wapp she didn't want to go bowling, for a walk or to watch a movie. The two then went to her car to talk, the complaint says.
Later, a man who was at the home of Wapp's aunt that night saw that Wapp had blood on his hands and clothes and Wapp told him, "I stabbed her. I killed her, bro. I'm going to prison for the rest of my life."
Peterson was killed with a folding knife, and police recovered a knife with blood on it in Wapp's hotel room, court records show.
Wapp appeared in court on Wednesday and was ordered held on $1 million bail. Even if he were able to post the money, though, he would not be released. He also is being held on a probation hold, and authorities are trying to revoke his probation related to a previous conviction.
Wapp has an extensive juvenile and adult criminal record, Osborne said.
In 2003, Wapp was convicted of child abuse-intentionally causing harm and carrying a concealed weapon in connection with an incident in which he beat a teenager and used a knife to threaten a man who came to the boy's aid, according to court records.
He was sentenced to four years in prison and four years of extended supervision by a Waukesha County judge in that case.
After serving his prison term, Wapp was sent back to prison in October 2008 for violating the terms of his extended supervision.
Wapp had been out of prison only a few days before Peterson's death. He had been released Sept. 1 and was going to live in transitional housing in Waukesha, where he would have been under electronic monitoring. But there was no bed available, so he was approved to stay temporarily with an adult relative in Waukesha County without electronic monitoring, said John Dipko, state Department of Corrections spokesman.
Osborne said he argued for the $1 million bail because Wapp is an "extremely violent and dangerous criminal."
"He's got a history of violent behavior and now he's got a history of the pinnacle of violent behavior - he killed somebody. He's a risk to get out and get violent again," Osborne said.
A preliminary hearing for Wapp has been scheduled for Sept. 23.
Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report. On the Web To listen to audio of excerpted comments made by Waukesha County Assistant District Attorney Kevin M. Osborne after David A. Wapp's court appearance in connection with the killing of Samantha L. Peterson, go to www.jsonline.com/waukesha.