[chris]

Daniel C. Lieske was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide on January 16, 2019, in the shooting death of Jesse Faber, 21, at a duplex in the Town of Medina, Wisconsin. On April 19, 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility to petition for release to extended supervision after 20 years; the judge said he would then be 81.

Lieske, reported as 58 or 59 at the time, lived with his girlfriend, Meichelle Goss, on Box Elder Road near Marshall, in Dane County. Her son and daughter occupied the other unit. Faber lived in Sun Prairie. On the night of Monday, January 15, 2018, Goss's son hosted a party. Shortly before midnight, Lieske and Goss went over to break it up, and Goss and her son drove guests home. Officers reviewing footage from exterior cameras near the duplex saw Faber enter Lieske's unit and saw no sign of him or any vehicle leaving.

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinion describes Goss's account to police: She returned, saw Lieske pointing a gun at Faber as he lay on the floor, and left the room. She heard about four gunshots. When she returned, Faber was on his side, moaning and bleeding. She said Lieske wrapped the body in plastic and a rug, drove it to a farm outbuilding with her following, and later took it to a storage unit in Rio. The autopsy found gunshot wounds to the head, torso and left upper extremity. Medical testimony at trial showed most bullets struck Faber's back.

Faber was reported missing, and an extensive ground and air search continued through Wednesday, January 17. Lieske told police Faber had left after the party while Goss and her son were driving people home. Early on Thursday, January 18, 2018, police executing a search warrant found Faber's body in a storage unit Lieske rented in Rio, in Columbia County. Lieske was arrested, and bond was set at $350,000 cash on January 19. Goss was later charged with hiding a corpse. After a preliminary hearing on March 6, 2018, Lieske was bound over for trial on first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse.

In the recorded interview with detectives in the days after the party, Lieske described his day and the party. Detectives told him several times he was free to go. Near the end, they asked about a carpet in a shed; he said Faber had never been in it and told them they could look at it. Before trial, the circuit court suppressed statements Lieske made to detectives at the Marshall Police Department. It declined to suppress later statements at the Dane County Jail while officers executed a search warrant on his body; the State did not use those in its main case. According to search warrant documents, Lieske later told detectives he had lied, that Faber attacked him in a bathroom with a sickle and a metal pipe, and that he shot him five or six times.

Lieske pleaded guilty to hiding a corpse on January 2, 2019. His homicide trial ran nearly two weeks in Dane County Circuit Court before Judge Jill Karofsky. He claimed self-defense. The State argued he killed Faber intentionally. A jail cellmate testified that Lieske said Faber had rejected a sexual advance and threatened to tell others. Lieske's lawyer later called the testimony perjury; the district attorney said the witness was not paid, and a juror said the verdict rested on physical evidence rather than that witness.

Goss pleaded guilty to hiding a corpse on December 20, 2018. On April 8, 2019, she was sentenced to ten months in jail, plus week-long jail stays timed to Faber's birthday and the anniversary of his death. In September 2020, Lieske moved for a new trial, arguing the jury instructions were flawed. On March 23, 2023, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in an unpublished opinion, No. 2021AP163-CR.

[chris]

Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.