Anna “Annie” Weyenberg Van Camp, identified in genealogical records as Johanna Weyenberg VanCamp, was a 77-year-old White/Caucasian woman who was murdered on the night of May 11, 1940, at the family farm in the Town of Freedom in Outagamie County, Wisconsin. She lived there with her son William, who operated the farm. The property was about five miles north of Little Chute, near County Trunk U and Highway 55.
By the following morning, Mother’s Day, both mother and son were dead inside the farmhouse, victims of a shotgun attack that would remain unsolved for decades.
Farm worker and neighbor John Verkuilen discovered the killings early on May 12. William normally came to the south barn for milk in the morning, and when he failed to appear, Verkuilen went to the farmhouse. He first encountered William lying on his back in a pool of blood on the enclosed rear porch. Continuing into the house, he found Anna in her bedroom. She was still in bed and appeared to have been caught completely unaware. The lights in the farmhouse were still burning. Verkuilen later reported that he had noticed the lights on at approximately 2:00 that morning, something considered unusual because the Van Camps normally retired early.
Investigators determined that Anna had been shot in the right cheek at extremely close range with a 12-gauge shotgun. Her son had also been shot in the face, suffering a blast to his left cheek. Outagamie County Coroner Dr. H. E. Ellsworth believed both victims had been dead for at least six hours when they were discovered, and authorities concluded that the wounds would have caused virtually immediate death. Examination of the shotgun wounds showed that the shells contained No. 4 shot, ammunition commonly used at the time for hunting ducks and rabbits.
The condition of the house suggested that the attack occurred while the household was settling down for the night. William reportedly had been playing ball with people in the neighborhood until about 9:00 p.m. He had returned home and apparently begun preparing for bed. His bed had not been disturbed, and he was barefoot when he was found on the porch. Investigators believed he may have gone to the rear of the house after hearing or noticing someone outside and was shot at or near the doorway. Anna, meanwhile, was found undisturbed in bed, with no clear indication that she had gotten up or attempted to flee. Authorities generally placed the killings sometime between approximately 9:00 p.m. and midnight.
A large shepherd-type dog described by neighbors as a good watchdog was reportedly tied roughly 30 yards from the farmhouse. Historical accounts do not establish whether the dog had been moved there by the killer or was routinely kept at that location, and no reliable evidence has surfaced identifying anyone who was seen entering or leaving the property that night. Investigators were therefore left with very little eyewitness information about who had approached the farmhouse.
Robbery quickly emerged as a possible motive. In Anna's bedroom investigators found an empty purse or leather drawstring sack on top of a dresser, while the drawer where it was normally kept stood open. Family members apparently could not determine exactly how much money, if any, had been taken. A container holding some change remained behind. The circumstances suggested that someone may have searched for cash after the shootings, although authorities were never able to conclusively establish what property had disappeared from the home.
The investigation was complicated almost immediately because the interior of the farmhouse had been entered by several people before law enforcement could preserve it as an untouched crime scene. Accounts of the case indicate that people who discovered the bodies and relatives moved through portions of the house while attempting to determine what might have been stolen. That made it difficult for investigators to know whether fingerprints, moved objects or other physical evidence had been left by the killer or by people who entered afterward. Sheriff John Lappen and other Outagamie County authorities took charge of the investigation.
Police located a 12-gauge shotgun in a corner of William's bedroom with other firearms and examined it as part of the investigation. Authorities reportedly determined that it had not been fired recently and did not believe it was the weapon used in the murders. The gun was nevertheless taken for examination and fingerprint testing. No shotgun was ever positively identified as the murder weapon.
An inquest was held, and surviving accounts indicate that investigators questioned a suspect during the original investigation. Later retrospective reporting states that several possible suspects were interrogated, but police were unable to connect any of them to the available physical evidence. No publicly available historical account identifies a person who was formally accused as Anna and William's killer. There were no murder charges, no trial and no conviction in connection with their deaths.
The killings became one of Outagamie County's oldest unresolved double homicides. Later reporting by the Appleton Post-Crescent listed the suspected circumstance as robbery and confirmed that the Outagamie County Sheriff's Office still regarded the deaths as unsolved. The department indicated that the case was not undergoing continual active review but could be revisited if new information surfaced or circumstances allowed another examination. Family members have also reported that the original investigative file has apparently been lost, further limiting what modern investigators can reconstruct from the 1940 inquiry.
Anna was buried at St. Nicholas Catholic Cemetery in Freedom. More than eight decades after the farmhouse killings, no arrest has ever been made and no killer has been publicly identified. What began as a quiet Saturday night on a rural Wisconsin farm ended with two members of the Van Camp family dead, an apparent search for money inside the home, and a mystery that has never been conclusively resolved.
