Bernard Fonder, a 49-year-old White man, was killed inside his Milwaukee, Wisconsin, home on March 3, 1980, during a period when a series of violent home-invasion murders was terrifying residents of the city. Fonder was found dead on his bed after suffering several blows to the head. His death initially appeared to have an obvious suspect because of trouble he had experienced with a former roommate in the months before the killing.
Only days before his death, Fonder had taken the unusual
precaution of giving his downstairs neighbors a note containing the name and address of that former roommate. The man had reportedly beaten Fonder the previous December, leading Fonder to force him to move out. During February 1980, however, the former roommate returned for a night after his girlfriend had put him out. Concerned enough about the situation to leave written information behind, Fonder instructed his neighbors to give the note to police if anything happened to him.
When Fonder was subsequently found murdered, investigators naturally focused on the former roommate identified in the note. He was initially charged in connection with Fonder's killing. Physical evidence from the scene, however, changed the direction of the investigation. Fingerprints recovered in connection with the crime did not match the former roommate, and he was released. What at first appeared to be a killing connected to a personal dispute would eventually be linked to a much larger series of murders.
Fonder's death became associated with a succession of Milwaukee killings committed between July 1979 and April 1980. Investigators came to believe the same offender was entering victims' residences, sometimes after gaining entry with seemingly harmless requests such as asking to use a telephone or bathroom. Once inside, the attacker used readily available objects to beat, bludgeon, or stab victims and, in several cases, searched their homes and stole money or property. The victims included both men and women, and the seemingly unrelated nature of the attacks initially made identifying one offender difficult.
The investigation finally broke open after David Allen Van Dyke was arrested on May 23, 1980, following an attempted burglary. Police compared his fingerprints with prints recovered during their investigation of the Milwaukee murders and obtained matches. Investigators had been comparing evidence from the homicide scenes with fingerprints belonging to local burglary suspects, and Van Dyke's arrest provided the connection they had been seeking. After hours of questioning, Van Dyke confessed to the killings, according to accounts of the investigation.
Authorities charged Van Dyke with six counts of first-degree murder, encompassing the series that included Fonder's death, as well as attempted murder and armed robbery charges arising from a separate attack on a woman who survived. Fonder was therefore no longer regarded as the victim of the former roommate police had first suspected; investigators concluded that he had instead become one of six people murdered by Van Dyke in Milwaukee homes between 1979 and 1980.
Van Dyke went to trial in February 1981. A woman who had survived one of his attacks testified about what had happened to her. Van Dyke also took the witness stand against the advice of his attorney. Although he admitted committing numerous burglaries and acknowledged striking the surviving woman with an ashtray, he denied being a murderer and contended that police had manufactured his murder confessions. The prosecution relied on the connections investigators had made between Van Dyke, the physical evidence and the series of attacks.
After approximately four and a half hours of deliberations, the jury rejected Van Dyke's defense and found him guilty on all charges. He was ultimately sentenced to six life terms for the murders, along with an additional 40 years for the other offenses. At the time, the punishment was reported as the longest sentence imposed in Wisconsin history. The conviction established David Van Dyke as the person responsible for Bernard Fonder's murder, bringing an end to the earlier suspicion surrounding Fonder's former roommate and placing his death within one of Milwaukee's most disturbing series of residential killings.
