Michael Lee, a 37-year-old Asian man from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was killed on the afternoon of August 30, 2025, inside a residence on Sunset Drive. Shortly after 2 p.m., Eau Claire police received a 911 call reporting that someone had been shot. Officers and emergency medical personnel arrived to find Lee on the kitchen floor suffering from gunshot wounds. He had no pulse and was not breathing, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Authorities treated the shooting as a homicide from the beginning.
The person who called 911 was Dakota Taylor Bilderback, who knew Lee and shared children with him. According to the criminal complaint, Bilderback initially told the dispatcher that someone was injured before revealing that the injury was a gunshot wound. She told the dispatcher that she had shot Lee and claimed she had done so to protect the children. She repeatedly asked emergency personnel to hurry and indicated that she had fired twice.
Investigators said the events leading to the shooting unfolded after breakfast that day. According to Bilderback's account to police, she sent the children upstairs so she and Lee could speak privately in the kitchen. She acknowledged having a firearm with her during that conversation. She reportedly told investigators that she had been thinking about using the weapon on herself and also intended its presence to intimidate Lee. Her statement described an emotionally unstable situation that quickly turned deadly.
Bilderback told investigators that at one point Lee stood up while she had the firearm near her own head. She claimed she interpreted his movement as a threat and fired at him. Investigators alleged that Lee was struck twice in the face. Bilderback maintained during questioning that she had not planned to kill him and characterized the shooting as an attempt to stop what she believed was a threat. The criminal complaint also stated that she disclosed a recent relapse involving methamphetamine and said the drug use had worsened mental-health problems she was experiencing. Those statements represented Bilderback's version of events and allegations contained in the prosecution's case, rather than findings that had been proven at trial.
Police took Bilderback into custody following the shooting. Authorities initially announced that she had been arrested on suspicion of second-degree intentional homicide. The investigation involved Eau Claire police along with Eau Claire Fire/EMS, the Eau Claire County Medical Examiner's Office, Wisconsin State Patrol, Eau Claire County Crisis Response and the Eau Claire County District Attorney's Office. Within days, prosecutors filed the more serious charge of first-degree intentional homicide with a domestic-abuse assessment. A judge set her cash bond at $250,000.
The case continued through the court system during the months after Lee's death. At an arraignment on November 17, 2025, Bilderback entered a plea of not guilty to the first-degree intentional-homicide charge. Court records cited in news reports showed that the case remained pending, with a status conference scheduled for March 12, 2026. Available reporting located for the case does not establish that Bilderback had been convicted or sentenced; the latest detailed reports describe her as an accused defendant who had pleaded not guilty.
Lee's death left a family confronting both a sudden loss and an ongoing criminal prosecution. A memorial fundraising description later portrayed him as a cherished son, brother and friend remembered for his kindness, laughter and warmth. What began as a Saturday-afternoon 911 call at an Eau Claire home ultimately became a first-degree intentional-homicide prosecution, with Bilderback accused of deliberately shooting Lee while maintaining that her actions occurred during a volatile confrontation and were motivated by what she perceived as a threat.
