The Deck - Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Our card this week is Susan "Susie" Poupart, the 7 of Spades from Wisconsin. When 29-year-old Susie went to a house party on her reservation, surrounded by friends and so close to home, she should’ve been safe. But when the mother of two left the party in a car with some younger men, things took a turn for the worse. Susie never made it home, and six months later, her remains were found in a nearby forest. The men Susie was last seen with became immediate suspects, but to this day, there just isn’t enough evidence to charge them with her murder… Or is there?If you know anything about the 1990 murder of Susan Poupart in Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin, please speak up. You can call the Vilas County Sheriff’s Department at 715-479-4441 or the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Police Department at 715-588-7717. Or, if you’d prefer to remain anonymous, you can call the Vilas County Sheriff’s anonymous tip line at 1-800-472-7290.We found Susie's case back in 2021 while we set out to cover the case of Rhys Pocan, a 35-year-old Indigenous woman who was murdered in Wisconsin in the ‘80s. But while we were in the field, we uncovered a disturbing pattern of murders with similarities to Rhys’ that were just too blatant to ignore, including Susie's. So, we spent the next three years working with local and federal law enforcement to try and get to the bottom of it.Click here to listen to our Crime Junkie episodes WANTED: Justice for Rhys Pocan & MMIW Part 1, and here for Part 2!View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/susan-poupart Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo support Season of Justice and learn more, please visit seasonofjustice.org. The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Our card this week is Susan Susie Poupart, the seven of spades from Wisconsin. When 29-year-old Susie went to a house party on her reservation surrounded by friends and so close to home, she should have been safe. But when the mother of two left the party in a car with some younger men, things took a turn for the worst. Susie never made it home, and six months later, her remains were found in a nearby forest. The men Susie was last seen with became immediate suspects, but to this day, there just isn't enough evidence

to charge them with her murder. Or is there? I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck. It was Thanksgiving Day in 1990 when the Price County Sheriff's Department in Wisconsin got a call from some deer hunters in the Shawamagun-Nicolet National Forest. The hunters said that they were packing up to head home when a red and black nylon jacket hanging from a tree caught their eye. And when they got closer,

they noticed something on the ground next to it, a partial jawbone. The hunters had originally called Price County because it was the closest law enforcement agency. But after one of them reached a hand into one of the jacket pockets, the group decided that they should probably call neighboring Vilas County instead.

Because inside, there was an ID bearing the name Susan Pupart, and the hunters knew that name. Once they saw the ID, they called us because they knew that Susie Pupart was an open missing person case. I think she was the only active missing person at the time. That was Sheriff Joseph Fath. He was one of the Vilas County detectives

that was investigating Susie's missing persons case, which had come to Vilas County six months earlier on May 22nd of 1990. When the report was filed by Susie's sister Dawn, she hadn't heard from or seen her sister in two days, which was especially alarming because the two weren't just sisters, they were roommates, along with Susie's two young children. Now 29-year-old Susie was known to go out and maybe even stay out all night. So when she went to a party on the 19th and didn't come home by morning, it was no big deal.

But two days passing with her not so much as checking in on her kids was completely unheard of. And that's how Dawn knew that something was wrong. We got information that she was at a party on Chicago Street, and some people thought she might have been intoxicated, left the party, walked through the woods because there's a lot of trails, and then something might have happened to her. So there was a search, a ground search, with fire department personnel and volunteers. It was a rather large area that we ground searched and didn't come up with anything. Investigators at the time had canvassed the reservation Susie lived on in the town of

Locke Du Flambeau, and they made a list of other partygoers. There turned out to be a group of around 20 or 30 people who had been at the party that night. We tried to interview everybody that we could identify that was at that party. I don't think anybody was afraid to talk, but the intoxication level at that hour of the morning skewed everybody's memories. It was hard to make heads or tails

out of what they were telling us. There was one detail that had come up again and again though. A handful of party goers seemed to remember that around four o'clock in the morning, they saw Susie leave the party wearing blue jeans and a red and black jacket that a friend had lent her. But she wasn't leaving alone. Per witnesses, she had gotten into a car with two men, 19-year-old Joe Cobb and 18-year-old Robert Elm.

According to detectives, Locke- Flambeau is a small community where everybody pretty much knows everyone else. But it didn't seem like Susie and these men were friends or anything prior to the party. And although Susie was about 10 years older than Joe and Robert, party goers say that Robert had been flirting with her that night.

That may have been a reason why she got in the car with him. I mean, she was intoxicated, but everything that we knew is that she got in the car voluntarily, and I think she thought they were going to give her a ride home. It's important to note here that police were already well acquainted with Joe and Robert. They had a history of getting into fights and domestic abuse. Both had been violent toward women. So detectives were suspicious about their potential role in Susie's disappearance right from the jump.

Here's our reporter Nicole talking with detectives. Was it fairly easy for you to track down both of those men? Well, let's say that they were avoiding law enforcement. We did locate them and have them interviewed to get an initial statement. And did their statements line up initially? No. You know, they just weren't explaining why things happened. Joe for one had confirmed that he was in the car that night, but said that he'd been too

intoxicated to remember much else. Robert was the one who'd been driving, and he seemed to remember more. He said that he and Joe got into his car with Suzie that night to bring her home. But for some reason, on the way there, at around 4 or 4.30 a.m., they stopped to let her out in front of a local elementary school. Then they continued on to Joe's mom's house, where they ended their night. Now, this story left investigators with a bunch of questions. For starters, why did Suzy want to get out of the car near an elementary school on a Sunday at 4 o'clock in the morning? And by the way, this school wasn't on the way to Suzy's house,

so why were they driving past it in the first place? Why were they driving past it in the first place? Yeah, it didn't make sense. We tried to interview Robert's mother. She was very defensive, and we always came back, well, your son were the last two people seen with Susie. Until we can figure out what happened and why it happened, those two guys will remain our primary suspects. But it would be months before the hunters made their discovery of the jacket and jawbone

in the forest. And in that time frame, a third name popped up. Fritz Schumann. Fritz was a cousin to Robert. He was at the party, but he was not in the car when they left. But his name came up as having something to do with Susie's disappearance." Fritz was the oldest of the bunch at 22. He, Robert, and Joe all went to the same school and knew each other from the powwow circuit,

which is basically a series of cultural gatherings celebrating Native American traditions. According to Sheriff Fath, all three men had started behaving strangely in the wake of Suzie's disappearance. They'd started racking up domestic violence reports and acting differently toward their significant others. In no time, tons of rumors were flying around the reservation about all three of these men. Back then, when those guys were going to the bar still, people would talk to them and they would make comments.

There was information when Fritz was drunk, he made comments. Either he knew what happened to Susie or he saw Susie as a pretty powerful statement when at the time nobody knew what happened to Susie. There was just so many rumors that we had to chase down and either confirm or dispel. And it took a lot of time chasing all those down." Now, you can't arrest someone based on a rumor. But all that chasing down must have spooked the three men, because in quick succession, they all decided to leave the reservation.

Brit Schuman began working at a cranberry bog in a neighboring county, and Joe Cobb and Robert Elm suddenly tried to enlist in the Navy. So when we found out that they were all trying to leave the reservation, especially Robert and Joe, I told them, you were the last two people to see, Susie, we're focusing on you. You guys are right now our main suspects.

So they agreed to take a polygraph. Cobbs was inconclusive. He hemmed and hawed. It took us a long time to get a polygraph scheduled with him and he just didn't want to do it. He did finally take it and it was inconclusive. Robert came back as not being truthful and I gave him a ride back to the reservation after the examination and his post-test interview. I was hoping that he might tell me where she was, but that didn't happen. He enlisted in the Navy and left for boot camp. The next time I talked to him was after we discovered her body. After the discovery of the remains on Thanksgiving Day, investigators spent about six days out

in the Shawamagun-Nicolet National Forest with cadaver dogs processing the scene. And along with the jacket and ID, they collected a pair of jeans, a shirt, a bra, underwear, trash bags with duct tape, soda cans, chip bags, a piece of white mattress pad, deer hair, and a shard of plastic. Early on, it was determined that the clothing did belong to Susie, that the garbage bags were consistent with those sold on the reservation, and that the shard of plastic, which investigators thought could have been part of the trim on a suspect's vehicle, was actually just a broken piece of logging equipment that seemed to have nothing to do with the case. As for the rest of the evidence, since it was 1990 and they didn't really know about DNA yet,

it was pretty much just set aside without any forensic testing. What investigators really wanted to find in their continued search of the forest were more remains, mainly the rest of Susie's skull to see if there was any trauma or something that would help to determine a cause of death. But they never located it. So we recovered about a shoebox full of small bones like finger bones, toe bones, but nothing like an arm or a leg, nothing big. The jaw bone is probably the biggest piece of evidence

that we found. It took about three or four weeks for dental records to definitively confirm that the remains belonged to Susie, but the ID and the clothing were enough for detectives to notify her family. Here's Jared Pupart, Suzy's son. He was only eight years old when his mom was taken from him. And in that instant, it felt like his whole world

turned upside down. I remember the day my uncle told me that my mom wasn't coming home and was on Thanksgiving. I didn't want to believe it. I was like, no, no. I just remember getting so angry and just being angry and not believing them and just calling myself, my mom's coming home. That's not true. And then, you know, through time, it sunk in. I think I went inward. I just kind of bottled up everything, all my

feelings and just became a very angry child. To me, Thanksgiving doesn't hold much to it as it should, you know what I mean? Family, this and that, because on that day, to me, it just is a reminder that I know my mom isn't here and that she was taken away and we were denied a life with her that we should have had, that we've seen everybody else have a mom except for us. After my mom was gone, my grandma, she'd tell me every day that she wished she was dead because she wanted to be by my mom was gone, my grandma, she'd tell me every day that she wished she was dead because she wanted to be by my mom. And hearing that as a kid growing up, that my grandma was so broken-hearted about it,

it hurt. It hurt till today. Another reason why I was so angry is that kids would constantly say stuff to me about my mom being dead or murdered. They would tease. So then I'd have to beat them up. So I got into doing that. my mom being dead or murdered, they would tease. So then I'd have to beat them up. So I got into doing that.

I knew what was wrong, but at the time I was so angry that they'd make fun of me for not having a mother. So then I did what I had to do. At nine years old, Jared couldn't understand how something like this could happen, especially to his mom. He adored her. Here's Jared talking with his younger sister, Alexandria Poupart.

She was only three when they lost their mom. She was very loving. She always had a smile. I always remember laughing and having a good time with people. She was, you know, really outgoing and funny and adventurous. She was really an art. She did ceramics. She had a big heart. I remember going out to other people's houses and she would always help them clean up their house. She was good in that way, like, help people.

If they're having a hard time, she'd go help them in any way she could, whether it be watching the kids cleaning the house or just being there, you know. She was a good person. She didn't deserve what she got. Unfortunately, after the forest search concluded, it still wasn't clear what exactly it was that Susie got. With the little he had to work with, a pathologist ruled Susie's death a homicide. But there was just no way to figure out her cause of death.

Not only were there so few remains, but the warm, swampy condition of the forest had also aided decomposition. Plus, the forest had also aided decomposition. Plus, the remains had been disturbed by animals. The bones actually had gnaw marks indicative of bear, wolf, or coyote activity. What we buried was the few bones that were left. They didn't show us when we were kids, you know, but as I got into my late 20s, they showed us a picture of what was in the casket. It was a ziplock bag with a couple few bones and a dress. That's what was in there. It all fit in a ziplock. I remember seeing

it laid out and that's what I was told. It could all fit in a ziplock bag and that's what was left. Now, local media has published that Suzie had been, quote, sexually assaulted and left naked. But I'm not totally sure where they got that from. Investigators told us that considering the state of the remains, there really was no way for the pathologist to determine that one way or another. In the end, the most helpful thing the remains gave detectives was a reason to reach back out

to their primary suspects, because both Robert and Fritz were known to hunt for deer in the forest where Susie was found. Fritz is probably the biggest deer hunter of all of them. I think early on, we kind of assumed that Fritz helped identify where to get rid of Susie. So detectives began tracking down all three men. They found Joe in Illinois working at a popcorn factory. Apparently,

he'd never made it to the Navy. And this time around, he suddenly seemed to recall a bit more about that fateful May night. He told detectives that he remembered going back to his mom's house with Robert after dropping Susie off and having a beer before Robert went home. Obviously, this sudden recollection matching Robert's story almost five months after his initial interview was suspicious to detectives. It just seemed all too convenient. As for Robert, detectives flew down to Pensacola, Florida to interview him at Navy boot camp. His story didn't change, but something else bubbled up after that conversation. It had to do with a car crash that Robert had gotten into

just a month before Susie's remains were found when he was home from boot camp. A story had begun to spread about the circumstances of the crash because the road Robert was speeding down, Shawamagun Forest Trail, was right next to where Susie's body would be found. Shawamagun Forest Trail kind of zigzags

through the National Forest. And some people believe that he was visiting or checking on the remains. Obviously we didn't know anything about that at the time. It could have been that he was scared or really upset and trying to get out of there as fast as he could. He never admitted to that later, you know, but there's a good chance that that may be what happened."

Robert had been driving a friend's car during the accident. But after this conversation, detectives decided to seize his personal car, which he would have used to drive Susie home from the party that night. They brought it to their crime lab, where it was processed and vacuumed, but that evidence was shelved, along with all of the other evidence from the dump site. Regardless, after this round of interviews, detectives believed that Robert, Joe, and Fritz

were likely involved in Susie's murder. But without a confession or DNA evidence, there just wasn't enough for an arrest. Here's Detective Sergeant Cody Remick, who is working Susie's case today. Pretty much every investigator who's come in on the case, we think what likely happened is that they left the party together. Robert likely made a move to Susie, which she probably did not like, which either caused an argument or he continued to come onto her. And obviously when they did not go towards her house, probably asked to get out of

the vehicle. We think that she probably did not get out of the vehicle at that point. And whether a struggle ensued or they continued to drive or if there was an altercation or a fight or something in the car, where she did get out and they did try to force her back in the car. We don't believe that she had ever actually gotten out of the car and left that area. The theory is that she was likely sexually assaulted and dumped out in the forest. But this theory is completely based on circumstantial evidence. So for a few years, the case was in limbo. Meanwhile, Susie's children were growing up and beginning to understand more about their mom's tragic death. Jared, who was six years older than Alexandria,

began picking up on things first. I remember my grandma always telling me there's certain places or people I couldn't go around. She would say, don't go over there. And I'd be like, why? And she'd say, I'll tell you when you're older. I got a lot of that. I wasn't allowed to go around certain families because they didn't tell me who it was when

I was a child. I mean, I found out probably about 13 names and stories I started hearing. But my grandma, she had to keep me away from those people because she knew they were no good. And when Jared began putting the pieces together, he wanted his sister to know the truth as well. Alexandria had grown up thinking that her aunt was actually her mom. He told me that my aunt really wasn't my mom and to quit calling her mom and he told

me what happened to my mom and it was hard for a five-year-old to try to understand what he meant but I knew it was serious because he was so upset about it. As both children grew up, it was impossible for them to escape the rumors. Everyone on the reservation seemed to think that Joe, Robert and Fritz were getting away with murder. When I first heard their names, I was really young. And then I got older and realized who they were. And that's when people started pointing them out to me,

saying, that's one of the guys right there. That's one of the guys right there. They're the main suspects. They've been the main suspects since day one." Two years into the investigation, not much had changed. The suspects were the same, but little progress had been made. Investigators hadn't even sent off all that shelved stuff for forensic testing to see if it would shake anything up. Detective Remick said that he doesn't really know why it took so long, but he assumes that maybe investigators at the time

just put testing on the back burner while they focused on talking to witnesses and interviewing their prime suspects. But Susie's children actually have a different theory. You know, the question has gone by. My mother was white. Would they have solved this? I think to myself, you know, I am grateful that they kept this evidence for this long and honest DNA evidence.

It could be a possibility, but it's like, why sit so long? Why are these guys, their life with their family and have kids and just live life like nothing happened while we sit here and hurt? Why is life so unfair? Are we not people to them? This is a question we've grappled with before. In fact, we just covered the stories of other murdered Indigenous women in Wisconsin on Crime Junkie.

And their loved ones share the same grievance about how the cases of indigenous women are so often mishandled. You can listen to the stories of those women told in two parts through the link in our show notes. Ultimately, it's hard to determine what effect, if any, the delay in forensic testing had on Suzie's case. But the garbage bags, the clothing, soda cans, chip bags, and the mattress pad cutting that

were eventually sent to the FBI lab for blood, print, and fiber testing in 1992 didn't actually produce anything of evidentiary value. So after that, the case went cold for about a decade. The case kind of, it's never just like done. It's not done being investigated, but it does ebb and flow with technology information. So there are times where nothing happens for a few years. In a moment when things were flowing, during a case review in 2003,

investigators realized that a detail that they had overlooked could actually hold the key to a breakthrough in Susie's case. And it all revolved around that deer hair that they had collected from the forest where the partial remains were found. Now, detectives hadn't thought much of the deer hair at first because the area where Susie was found was meant for deer hunting. But eventually, someone put the pieces together that there was also deer hair in the trunk of Robert's car, which had been vacuumed by detectives after his crash.

So, we took the deer hair from the scene and sent it to an independent lab down in Mississippi, and we sent the vacuumings of the deer hair from the trunk of the car, and we sent the vacuums of the deer hair from the trunk of the car, and we wanted to do analysis, DNA, identify the deer hair to see if we could connect deer hair from the crime scene to deer hair in the trunk. I remember back then it was very costly to do that with that independent lab. I mean, we were really hoping. It could have been a big break for us in this investigation. And unfortunately for us, I don't remember which hurricane it was. There was a hurricane that came in and destroyed the lab. It flooded all of our evidence

that we sent to them. So that was never done because the evidence that we sent to them was destroyed. Investigators took this blow hard. It was their first possible break in the case in a decade, and just like that, it got washed away. Another decade would pass before they did any more testing, but in 2014, the garbage bags, clothing, beer cans, and mattress pad cutting were sent off a second time, along

with oral swabs from Robert, Joe, and Fritz with the hope that new technology might bring different results. And this time, the lab was able to find some things. For one, Susie's green underwear had a small amount of what was determined to be male DNA. And when I say small, I mean very small. Detective Remick actually said it was, quote, pretty much as close to zero as you can get. They tried again in 2024, sending off the underwear for

MVAC testing, coincidentally with funding help from the nonprofit I founded, Season of Justice. But unfortunately, there just was too little DNA material to develop any sort of profile then either. But back in 2014, the other thing that the lab found were some strands of hair on the mattress pad cutting. We sent those to a private lab to do rootless hair DNA. And they told us that they have like a one in three chance

to get DNA from mootless hair. I think we sent like six or seven of them and struck out on all of them. So we got no DNA from those hairs. They may have been Suzie's hairs, we don't know. Over the years, detectives routinely sent out whatever items they had left for DNA testing. But every time they struck out. And now they're running out of things to send. Reading back on the evidence reports and then now sending evidence, you know, years later, it just seems like we just need that one break. And it just seems like we haven't gotten the chips to fall our way.

We had to talk about, do we try to do stuff with DNA now or do we give it another, you know, five years, another 10 years? Because think of all the DNA advancements that have happened over the last five to 10 years already. How much more sensitive, how much less DNA you need. Is it possible that, you know, continues to happen? And are we going to ruin whatever DNA that we are looking for now and be able to find that five to 10 years from now? As for the suspects, Joe, Robert, and Fritz, detectives continued to interview them over

the years, any time that they could. They tried everything to get more information out of them, but they were always met with the same response. They just said, I already told you what happened. I don't have anything more to say. At one point, when Joe was in jail on an aggravated battery charge, the DA offered him a deal if he would go talk to Fritz while wearing a wire.

The DA was hoping that we would get some information, but all he did is he drove right out to Flambeau and told his cousin, don't talk to me, I'm going to be wearing a wire. Detectives even coordinated with the DA's office to facilitate John Doe hearings in 2003 and again in 2007. John Doe hearings are specific to Wisconsin. They're a special kind of court process that helps the state decide if there's enough evidence to charge someone with a crime. And their goal is to protect people

from unnecessary prosecution, and also to allow law enforcement to gather evidence needed to establish probable cause. Basically, the prosecutor calls witnesses and presents everything they do know, and then the judge determines if the case should move forward with formal charges and against whom. They're labeled John Doe because at the start,

the state might not know who exactly to charge with the crime. It's essentially the DA trying to connect the dots before going full speed ahead with charges. In Suzie's case, the John Doe hearings allowed Joe, Robert, and Fritz to be subpoenaed and questioned under oath about Suzie's case without being arrested or charged. The hope was that the hearing would elicit some sort of confession. But unfortunately for detectives, on the stand at the hearings, Joe, Robert and Fritz all maintained their innocence

and pleaded the fifth in response to a handful of questions. Now we've tried every listed number for Joe and Robert. We've left multiple voicemails and wrote a letter to Fritz who is currently in prison for unrelated offenses. But as of this recording, we haven't heard anything back from any of them. To this day, the general consensus among the Locke Du Flambeau community seems to be that the three men were involved in Suzie's murder.

Suzie's children are more vocal than anyone. But there's only so much detectives can do without more physical evidence. Really all the rumors that have gone around, I think, hasn't really helped bring factual information. I guess 34 years later, it is like a game of telephone. People's memories probably fade over the years, and over time those stories probably get a little bit more foggy. Even if people do remember certain things that happened, that information isn't as fresh anymore. I think that's what those people are bolting on, that enough time will go by that they just think they're gonna get away with it.

Today, Jared and Alexandria still live in Locke de Flambeau. They've been there their whole lives, close to their mom. Alexandria gets told all the time that she looks so much like her mom, that sometimes it's hard for people to even be around her. And her house is actually on the same road as the house where her mom was last seen. But while staying in that town has kept Susie's kids close to the memory of their mom, it's also kept them close to her suspected killers. I see them today. I see them going to work in the morning. I see them every single day.

So like I said, I'm reminded of it every day Another reminder comes in the form of a billboard with Susie's picture on it that has been up on the reservation since 2007 Detectives are actually getting it replaced with a new version soon the hope is that it will keep Susie on everyone's minds and Eventually someone will come forward with the puzzle piece they need to get justice for her and her children. Here's our reporter Nicole again, talking with Jared.

Do you ever think about how your life and your sister's life would have been different if this had never happened? That's my everyday question. I always wondered what we would have been if my mom was alive and how our lives would have turned out. I ask myself that all the time before I go to bed, when I wake up, it's always there, you know what I mean?

It's in the back of my mind all day long. I ask myself questions about my life. And I wonder if my mom would be proud of me. In our culture, they say, you know, the Creator only puts in front of you what you can handle and I ask them every day like, why, why did you do this to me? What, what did I do to deserve this kind of life? Without a mother, without someone to protect me, someone to stand up for me, even it's always just been myself. I stand up for myself or others. I had to do that and I didn't

have that for me. I had someone to protect me instead of me being protector. I had to do that and I didn't have that for me. I had someone to protect me instead of me being protector. I think that's what hurts the most. It does not happen to anybody. Every now and then when Jared starts to really miss his mom, he'll take out her picture and talk to it. You know, I do have that conversation every once in a while and I tell her, you know, and now I and man, I really could use you right now.

You know, it's usually when life's hard, and you know, I've been through a lot of hard experiences in my life, but still, you know, even at 43, I still need my mom. You know, I need help. There's certain things in life that you just need somebody to help guide you, and you know, I'm tired of being the one that has to do the guiding. I honestly believe something's going to come up. I'm not trying to get my hopes up too high, but I have hope for it.

There was nothing for a long time. If you know anything about the 1990 murder of Susan Susie Pupart in Locke de Flambeau, Wisconsin, please speak up. You can contact the Vilas County Sheriff's Department at 715-479-4441 or the Locke de Flambeau Tribal Police Department at 715-588-7717. Or if you prefer to remain anonymous, we'll have contact information for their local crime stoppers in the show notes. The Deck will be off next week, but we will return the following week with a brand new episode.

The Deck is an AudioChuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?