In the quiet town of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, the story of Stanley Van Wagner, a 50-year-old White/Caucasian male, came to a tragic end in May of 2015. For three days, his whereabouts were a mystery, a puzzle his wife, Amy Van Wagner, purported to be trying to solve. She sent text messages from his phone and posted on social media, creating the illusion that Stanley had simply vanished. The search concluded on May 17, 2015, not in a distant location, but in the basement of his own home.
There, his body was found wrapped in a tarp, hidden from view. An autopsy would later reveal he had died from multiple gunshot wounds.
The discovery shifted the focus of the investigation inward, toward the home he shared with his wife and their son. Suspicion soon fell upon Amy. Investigators began to piece together a narrative of a troubled marriage strained by financial difficulties. Prosecutors would later argue that Amy had a pressing motive: she had borrowed money from friends without her husband's knowledge and needed access to his funds to repay the debt. The investigation uncovered that just before his death, Stanley had confronted Amy about financial dishonesty and had threatened divorce. These arguments over money, the prosecution contended, were the catalyst for the events that followed.
Evidence within the home began to tell a grim story. Investigators believed Stanley was shot in the early morning hours of May 15 while he was on his computer. A large bloodstain on the floor was concealed by a deerskin rug, a detail their son recalled his mother mentioning in a text message. The weapon, believed to be a. 380 handgun that Amy was known to carry, was never found. Nine months after her husband's body was discovered, Amy Van Wagner was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse.
During her trial, the prosecution presented their case, painting Amy as a deceptive wife who killed her husband over money and then orchestrated a cover-up. They suggested she used a pillow to muffle the gunshots, which would explain why their son, who was home at the time, heard nothing. The defense argued that the case was built on circumstantial evidence, emphasizing that there was no direct proof linking Amy to the crime and pointing to witnesses who they claimed saw Stanley alive after the time prosecutors said he was killed. Amy Van Wagner did not take the stand in her own defense. In March 2017, a jury found her guilty on both counts. She was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the homicide, with an additional sentence for hiding a corpse.
