I'm from the Chicago area and just recently saw a snippet on this case in the "Cold Case" section of a local paper. Very ironic because I just watched this segment on one of CrystalDawn's DVD's.

If you guys remember, this is the young, cleancut teenage boy who worked in a bike shop in Madison, WI and was found murdered in his car in a garage on the South Side of Chicago.

Police believe it was drug related, as some dealers who from Chicago recently moved into the apartments by where Chad lived.

The case apparently has still not been solved and his friends and family are still looking for information.

Anybody remember this one?

I remember it very well.

My in-laws are from Madison and while visiting there one time a few years back, I read an article in the Wisconsin State-Journal about this case. Still so sad. You have to feel for his parents.

I suspect it was drug related. Chad was probably a minor player who was very naive and got talked into making a drug run, or knew too much about something he shouldn't have. Maybe friends of his got him involved.

What makes me think it was drug related or something similar was the brick being thrown through the bike shop's window later on. It's obvious someone didn't want to be found out.

What always bugged me about this case was that Chad left in the middle of the day and then ended up in Chicago. What the hell would make him take such a drastic action like that?

Sadly, I don't think we'll ever know. The odds of this being solved especially this long after aren't very good.

His parents seemed like good, common midwestern people. They were heartbroken by the death of their son, and their seach for answers hasn't turned up much. My heart goes out to them.

I feel badly for Chad's parents too but I think they were a bit naive or unaware about their son's activities. Chad is portrayed in the segment as the "All American Boy" something which I've never believed is true. There was an article posted here some time ago that after Chad's death his friends tagged a bunch of different locations around Madison with messages to Chad as a tribute to him. This along with the fact that he was involved with these drug dealers leads me to believe that Chad much like Jesse James Hollywood ten years later was a wannabe gangster.

Thats just what this case seems likes to me, Chad wasn't a bad apple per say but I think he was naive enough to get himself into some situations that someone a bit more worldly would've avoided. I think he got himself involved with some really dangerous people and got himself snakebit. I feel bad for his parents but I've never been able to muster up a ton of sympathy for Chad himself because he essentially put himself in the situation that caused his demise.

This was always one of my favorite segments and one of the most memorable. I really feel for his parents because like many cases, there are no real answers. Often people have an idea who killed their child, whether the evidence is there or not. The photos they showed of Chad gave the viewer the impression that he was the All American Boy. I specifically remember some 80s feathered hair and white sweater. Once it was suspected that he got involved with drug dealers in his apartment, I could not for the life of me figure out what posessed him to go anywhere near the south side of Chicago. I think the police sort of tossed this case aside because there was no evidence either way. It would be up to someone to talk in order for this case to ever be solved. I still do not understand how the bike shop manager did not know Chad was at work.

I still do not understand how the bike shop manager did not know Chad was at work.

Bingo...

What made Chad leave in the middle of the work day to run off to Chicago? And how did NO ONE know he had done so?

I have the feeling a lot of people know something but are afraid to speak up.

Bingo...

What made Chad leave in the middle of the work day to run off to Chicago? And how did NO ONE know he had done so?

I have the feeling a lot of people know something but are afraid to speak up.

Which adds to the drug trafficking theory. Of course no one is going to want to piss off a drug dealer, whom can take them out.

This case just reeks of a kid getting involved in drug dealing, and not knowing the type of people that he was working for.

I agree with much of what's been said in this thread. A kid like Chad doesn't seem like the type to have many enemies. The only way would be through drug dealing, or something of that nature.

If Chad did intend on moving to Colorado, he might have thought that drug dealing would have been a fast and easy way to make cash. However, he could have crossed a big time drug dealer, and was killed as a result. Also, the drug dealer could have paid off the Chicago cops to keep quiet. That seems like the most likely scenario, IMO.

Yeah. I think Chad got involved with a drug ring. It's well known that there are drug runners that come from Chicago and deliver to Minneapolis and I'm sure Wisconsin as well. He was probably recruited by the drug ring to bring the drugs into the state or sell them. Maybe he went to Chicago to meet these people and to tell them he wanted to back out of the deal, and ended up dead for it. IMO, he found out too late that it was a bad deal and with guys like that, if you tell them NO you end up 6 feet under! I definitely think there are quite a few people that know what happened to Chad, and have been threatened that if they spill the beans they'll end up dead too.

I agree that Chad was probably mixed up in running drugs, or with low-level dealing around Madison with drugs scored from Chicago. So the following is all conjectured with that assumption in mind.


From the accounts from his parents, as well as the photos we saw during the UM segment, he seemed like an out-going energetic kid who liked the “thrill” sports. Drug running or dealing might very well have provided him with the same type of nervous adrenaline rush he got from his sports.


Perhaps other bike shop employees were involved with him in this enterprise, perhaps the bike shop job was simply that…a bike shop job. I never got the impression from the segment that he left the shop alluvasudden. I know the manager offers the line “He better be here” or something like that, but I guess I never inferred that to mean he left early. My bad, I guess. If he did leave alluvasudden, perhaps he believed the score he was about to make in Chicago would allow him to blow off his bike shop pay. Or perhaps, as others here have suggested, he felt he was dealing with someone in Chicago who you didn’t want to be late on. Or perhaps he felt, as I’ll expound on below, he felt that where he was heading was not the place to be when its late at night and wanted to get out and on the road ASAP.


I think the theories put forth so far are basically correct about Chad and his activates but I think most of you are putting too much emphasis on motives. Chad didn’t necessarily need to rip-off a dealer, cross a dealer, or back out on plans with a dealer. It might simply be, and frustratingly hard to investigate, that a whiteboy with a nice car with out-of-state plates was cruising through a part of South Side of Chicago where whiteboys go for one thing only. He might have even been lost and never met up with the people he was supposed to meet up with. I think a very simple and possible scenario is that some predators clock him cruising around the area, IMMEDIATELY size him up for what he is and why he’s there, signal to him to pull over and they take advantage. Or the people he was supposed to be dealing with never even had the drugs but knew they could just jack him for the money because…who’s he going to tell?


I don’t think Chad ripped anyone off or backed out of anything. I think he willingly went to get a deal done with some very bad people and ultimately what happened was:

they double-crossed and killed him.
he was killed by a pack of predators unknown to him

All those drug-dealing scenarios seem right-on. I've never been to the south side of Chicago but I've heard it's a really rough area. My first impression of Chad is that he was your typical all-American teenage kid. Perhaps he was introduced to someone at school that was involved in drug-dealing and was persuaded to join in. Chad was probably lured by the possibility of fast cash. Chad was close to finishing highschool and then starting his college years, so he was probably desperate for cash.