Terry Gene DuSell, a 56-year-old White/Caucasian man from Ladysmith, Wisconsin, was killed during the early morning hours of February 28, 2026, inside his rural Rusk County home. DuSell was well known in the area through farming and community service. He had served as president of the Rusk County Farm Bureau and was heavily involved with the Rusk County Junior Fair and local 4-H programs. His death initially came to the attention of authorities not as a homicide, but as a missing-person investigation after members of his family became concerned that they could not reach him.
Family members contacted the Rusk County Sheriff's Office on March 2. Investigators learned that DuSell had last spoken with family on February 27 and that his vehicle was no longer at his residence. The investigation quickly took a significant turn when law enforcement located DuSell's truck in Sawyer County. Charles Allers of the Exeland/Radisson area was driving it. Allers was taken into custody on an unrelated probation warrant. He initially claimed that he had found the truck at an AmericInn in Rice Lake with the keys inside and decided to take it.
When investigators interviewed Allers on March 3, the case changed from a disappearance to an alleged planned homicide. According to the criminal complaint, Allers told investigators that he had been involved in an intimate relationship with DuSell's wife, Elizabeth DuSell, for approximately two months. Allers had reportedly been staying at times in a secondary residential structure on the DuSell property without Terry knowing about either the arrangement or the affair. Investigators said Allers described numerous conversations between himself and Elizabeth concerning what their lives would be like without Terry and acknowledged that the two had discussed killing him at length.
According to Allers' account to investigators, the events leading to the shooting unfolded after 3 a.m. on February 28. Allers said Elizabeth told him where Terry kept a. 22-caliber Ruger handgun inside the cab of his truck. Allers retrieved the firearm and returned to the residence. The criminal complaint alleges that the pair continued discussing eliminating Terry before Allers went upstairs. Allers reportedly told investigators that he hesitated twice before going through with the shooting.
Allers told authorities that he shot DuSell six or seven times while DuSell was upstairs in the home. According to the complaint, Allers then began walking downstairs and heard DuSell fall from the bed. Investigators alleged that Elizabeth was downstairs and present during the events surrounding the killing. Allers reportedly told investigators that he felt no emotional connection to Terry and would not apologize to Terry's family for what he had done.
The complaint further alleges that the killing was followed by an effort to remove and conceal DuSell's body. Allers told investigators that a thick rope, duct tape and bedding were used to remove the body from the house. Once outside, another tow rope was reportedly attached, and DuSell's truck was used to drag his body away from the porch. The body was taken behind a cattle trailer on the property and covered with a blanket in a location positioned so that it could not easily be seen from the driveway or residence.
On March 3, the day after DuSell was reported missing, investigators located his body. The Rusk County Sheriff's Office announced that both Allers and Elizabeth were persons of interest and said there was no continuing threat to the public. The investigation involved the Rusk County Sheriff's Office with assistance from the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation, tribal law enforcement and conservation officers, and the Sawyer County Sheriff's Office.
Elizabeth was taken into custody early in the investigation and initially charged with felony hiding a corpse as a party to a crime. Her first cash bond was set at $25,000. Prosecutors subsequently expanded the case against her, alleging that she had participated in planning the killing rather than merely assisting with concealment afterward. She was later charged with first-degree intentional homicide as a party to a crime in addition to the corpse-concealment charge. Her cash bond was later reported at $100,000.
Allers was formally charged at the end of March with first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse. Prosecutors based the homicide allegation in significant part on the statements attributed to him during his March 3 interview, the alleged discussions about killing Terry, his description of obtaining Terry's firearm, and his account of shooting and disposing of the body. His cash bond was set at $1 million.
Allers pleaded not guilty to the charges on May 12, 2026. Elizabeth also pleaded not guilty when she was arraigned on July 24. Publicly available case information through the summer of 2026 indicated that both remained in custody while the prosecutions moved through Rusk County Circuit Court. Elizabeth had a review hearing scheduled for October 13, 2026.
No trial or conviction had been reported as of early September 2026. The criminal cases therefore remained pending, and the allegations against Elizabeth DuSell and Charles Allers had not yet been proven at trial. Prosecutors, however, were pursuing the case as a deliberately planned killing, alleging that an affair between Elizabeth and Allers developed into repeated discussions about removing Terry from their lives, culminating in the shooting inside his own home and the subsequent attempt to conceal his body on the property.
