Chad Maurer murder

[DarkDante]

Agree 100% with the naive part but I think by reading some of the stuff Crystaldawn I believe has posted about Chad's friends they were basically gangsta wannabes. They probably liked the music, the style, the language but really were just wannabes (think Jesse James Hollywood only a decade earlier LOL) - Uh apparently after Mauer was murdered his friends tagged certain areas around Madison with tributes to him. Doesn't really sound like your "all american boy next door to me".

I think Chad got himself in a little too deep here as you said thinking he could make some quick money and get out. I don't think he was a part of the "drug scene" or had any desire to become an active member of that scene (such as becoming a dealer or a pusher or whatever) but I think Chad thought he could handle himself in this type of situation with people who were pretty dangerous folk and ended up getting himself snakebit.

I do feel bad for his parents of course but this was one case where I can't really feel bad for the victim as much as I'd like to. Chad really walked into his own demise here.

[compulsive dvd]

Originally Posted by NDAlum2003

I always had to think that maybe Chad got mixed up with the wrong people in an honest attempt to make some extra money. Sounded like he was fairly naive and could have been an easy target.

As to the photos a lot of them looked like high school senior types of photos.

Yeah, love that feathered combed hair. That was straight out of The Karate Kid. But yeah, this is one of those where I always felt I was missing something. I could never figure out how the boss didn't know Chad wasn't at work. The area he was from isn't that large, so someone knows something.

[nohwheregirl]

Originally Posted by Corky Kneivel

But to watch Mr. Maurer pretend like he's going through Chad's "soiled" clothes that he was wearing when he mysteriously died and to hear him struggle with the lines, "Oh no...oh no Chad" is recondite beyond measure.

My guess is that this was a very calculated move on the part of Chad's parents. They know that there are people watching who know what happened, and they're trying to tug at the heartstrings of potential informants. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it worked.

I think the murder probably involved Chicago PD drug informants and/or suppliers. Not to rub salt in the wounds of Chad's family (I feel very bad for them), but it always strikes me as odd that since Chad looks like the all- American boy, he's considered an outsider who just got mixed up in the drug scene, but if he was an inner-city black kid, he'd probably be considered a hardened criminal. Either way, he didn't deserve to die.

[curiousasever]

Originally Posted by kadrmas15

Yeah, Chad Mauer, well the acting isnt the best in some of those segments, but I think the parents were allowed to portray themselves but not forced into doing it. I actually thought Chad's parents did a pretty good job in the segment, I think there was at least some real emotions on their parts as they were reliving the experience. The guy that was playing the funeral home director was bad though with his line reading, unless that guy was the real life funeral home director I dont know.

Also in the segment we get to see the Chicago Police Department at more of their usual worst. Chicago PD arguably the most or certainly one of the most corrupt police departments in the country. They leave a car like that unattended in an unlocked garage overnight and big surprise the jacket gets stolen and the Chicago PD detective acted like he was so amazed it got stolen, what a joke!

is this a real murder case? it looks like everyone is talking about modeling and all that obviously he was murdered has anyone tried to figure out this case? instead of talking about acting guys??

[cocytus]

Hmmm....

1) Chad Maurer had probably done what he was doing in Chicago before as the area that he was found in would be very difficult for an outsider (this was before GPS) to have located w/o prior knowledge, a good map or a guide.

2) I'm surprised that after the death was reclassified that the detectives wouldn't have wanted to take another look at the forensics in his vehicle to see if there was an indication of this being a homicide.

3) I lived SW Chicago for about four years. I'm surprised that a vehicle could run in garage for the hours that it would take to run out of gas (if that's what happened) w/o attracting attention. In fact, I'm surprised that the care didn't have additional problems from running unattended and causing smoke or even a fire.

People in Chicago are quite nosy and I'm surprised that a running vehicle in a garage didn't attract more attention.

4) I don't believe that the vandalism in Madison had anything to do w/ Maurer's death. Even if there was a link to Maurer's disappearance and the people who committed the vandalism, the idea would be to not to call attention to yourself and make that link seem reasonable to the police.I wonder if the store owner even did it himself in an effort to attract publicity to his business.

5) If this was a case of police corruption, I would lean toward incompetence rather than actual criminal acts. The Chicago PD is a large organizations and unfortunately, keeping yourself employed is usually the main occupation of people in large organizations. Doing a high quality job isn't seen as being necessary by most and, in fact, can result in those who do being punished for doing it.

Chad Maurer, IMHO, picked a bad place to go, a bad place to be killed and a bad group of police officers if the case was ever going to be solved.

[Race's Girl]

Who's Chad Mauer? I've never heard of him

[curiousasever]

he's a handsome young man that was found murdered in his car but the police claims it was suicide then they changed his death to undetermined so that's chad maurer.

[Race's Girl]

I can't believe you were so young, Chad. May the person who killed you get caught

[DarkDante]

So here is an interesting article from 1991 on the Chad Maurer case. I've highlighted the portions which should be of significant interest to the readers of this forum as they fill in some holes that were either not explained on the UM segment or in some cases altered for reasons unknown.
============================
First Ruled Suicide, Now A Puzzle
Police Revise View Of Wisconsin Teen`s 1990 Death
December 11, 1991|By Robert Blau.

With his mop of bleached blond hair and surfer physique, Chad Maurer cut a striking figure tooling around his hometown of Madison, Wis., behind the wheel of a yellow Mustang, hunched over a racing bike or balanced atop a skateboard.

But when Maurer`s body was found in an unlocked garage on Chicago`s South Side in May 1990, there was nothing at all striking about his death to the police who found him.

The ignition of his Mustang was engaged, the battery was dead, and the gasoline meter read empty. The initial police reports said Maurer, 19, had died of carbon monoxide poisoning, another teenage suicide.

The case might have ended there. But after a bombardment of inquiries from Maurer`s relatives, Wisconsin politicians and the media, Chicago police have revised their view of the death. Detectives now officially list the cause as ``undetermined.``

They also admit that mistakes were made in the early phases of investigating what has become one of the more disturbing and baffling police cases here in years.

``We can`t make a determination based on the information we have whether it was a homicide, a suicide or an accident,`` said Sgt. John Ridges, who is heading the Maurer investigation for the Wentworth Area violent crimes unit.

``To say it is a homicide, you have to say someone forced him into that garage with gas masks or at gunpoint, and we can`t say that.``

So far, there have been few clues about what happened to Maurer after he borrowed $20 from his father on the Saturday before his death, then headed toward the bicycle shop where he worked.

Friends and relatives described Maurer as an energetic, outgoing teen who spent much of his free time snow boarding, skateboarding and mountain biking. However, life after high school posed some problems for him. When he lost his job, he had to sell a motorcycle and a television set to finance his weekend getaways to the Wisconsin slopes. And he smoked too much marijuana, his mother said.

But by the time his body was discovered on May 21, 1990, in a garage in the 3300 block of South Michigan Avenue, Maurer`s spirits and resolve had improved, relatives said.

He had found the job at the bike shop and was planning to move to Boulder, Colo., at the end of May to compete in snow boarding and cycling and, perhaps, attend college, they said.

There have been no shortage of theories explaining why Maurer never showed up at work on the afternoon of May 19, traveling instead to Chicago that weekend. But investigators have been unable to substantiate any of them. ``Each day I buy a different theory. It depends on the mood I`m in,``said Dolly Maurer, Chad`s mother.

There`s the theory that Chad Maurer was a courier for a Chicago-Madison narcotics ring; that he came to the city looking for gay sex; that he was here to buy drugs for himself and met foul play; that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, a victim of random violence; and that he was, in fact, depressed and suicidal.

One suburban youngster has reported that Maurer skateboarded from time to time at Oak Street Beach, but police have not been able to confirm he was there during the weekend of his death.

``I really can`t tell you what happened to my kid,`` Dolly Maurer said.

``But I think suicide is out of the question.``

Others who knew Chad Maurer agree.

``I think he was on the run from something,`` said George Godfrey, owner of the Village Pedaler, the Monona, Wis., bike shop where Maurer worked.

``It was unlike him to leave without saying anything. The next thing we heard, he turns up in Chicago dead. He was a good kid. He was an honest kid. A good racer.``

Although early police reports discounted the possibility of foul play, evidence gathered in the weeks and months after Maurer`s death, much of it by investigators in Wisconsin, indicate it is a distinct possibility.

Chicago forensic and police records say that Maurer`s body showed no sign of trauma. But a review of the body by the Dane County, Wis., coroner found severe bruises on the knuckles and hands, indicating he had been in a fight.

``The medical examiner`s report in Chicago did not note some of the injuries we discovered,`` said Capt. Joe Topp of the Dane County Sheriff`s Department.

Roy Dames, chief administrator for the Cook County medical examiner, defends his office`s handling of Maurer`s autopsy, saying the cause of death has always been listed as undetermined.

``The pathologist handled the case perfectly,`` Dames said. ``There`s no question Maurer was involved in a fight. However, it had nothing to do with the cause of death. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Should someone investigate where he got the marks? Probably.``

The police investigation has been complicated by several factors, including the loss of physical evidence. A windbreaker shown in photographs taken by evidence technicians, and which Maurer`s parents insist did not belong to their son, was lost by Chicago police.

``We just can`t account for the jacket,`` Ridges said.

In addition, the Maurers say, investigators from Chicago and Madison have yet to examine a window of their son`s car that appears to be smudged with bloody fingerprints.

``It probably could have been done better,`` Ridges said of the investigation. ``There were some problems. But the Kennedy assassination could have been handled better, too.

``It had the earmarks of a suicide,`` he added. ``The ignition was on, the battery dead, the gas tank empty. The problem was, the victim didn`t fit the suicide victim profile. If he was going to commit suicide, why would he drive 150 miles to do it?``

There is one point on which Maurer`s relatives and Chicago Police agree.

``Something happened up in Madison that caused him to come here,`` Ridges said. ``If we had that, we`d have a starting point. . . . We`re running out of ideas.``
==============================
Some real solid stuff in this article. First off it provides a link between drug activity and Chad Maurer. According to his mother, Chad "smoked too much marijuana". Where did this marijuana come from? Was Chad on the south side of Chicago on the night he died attempting to buy marijuana and this was a case of a dope deal gone bad?

There is obviously also the question of some shoddy police work in preserving the crime scene as per the UM segment we already knew about the lost jacket and now can add bloody fingerprints to the mix. Has testing ever been done on Chad's vehicle to determining whether the blood on the vehicle is his or that of his attackers?

[wiseguy182]

I must admit I laughed at the "he smoked too much" marijuana line. It's like she's saying it was o.k. for him to use some drugs, but too much was a bad thing. It just seems like a really non-chalant thing for her to say, which would be something if that's what led to his death. The police sounded pretty non-chalant themselves in this article. I wouldn't know, I've never used any sort of drugs, but would he have to travel across state lines to get some? Seems a little implausible there.

that's the first i've heard of the gay sex angle.

[curiousasever]

Originally Posted by NDAlum2003

I always had to think that maybe Chad got mixed up with the wrong people in an honest attempt to make some extra money. Sounded like he was fairly naive and could have been an easy target.

As to the photos a lot of them looked like high school senior types of photos.

why? why? why must this happen to such innocent people??? why??!!! chad maurer you rest in peace i am so sorry for what happened to you and all the other victims that hasn't done a single thing to deserve death. if only life could give some of the innocent a second life and not give death all the time but peace to him and his family.

[NDAlum2003]

Originally Posted by curiousasever

why? why? why must this happen to such innocent people??? why??!!! chad maurer you rest in peace i am so sorry for what happened to you and all the other victims that hasn't done a single thing to deserve death. if only life could give some of the innocent a second life and not give death all the time but peace to him and his family.

I'm still here reading this because it's such a tragic thing. The 1991 article did give some more direction to our theories. The marijuana angle, while interesting, probably doesn't say much, but I can see the money problems and how that could result in Chad being convinced to do something to make some quick cash to finance his activities and possibly to attend school.

Let's say Chad was either naive and innocent, and/or a wannabe gangster type. He would be overpowered by the more experienced people...kind of like the scenario they showed on the re-enactment.

I'm going to guess based on lifestyles that the people who killed him are likely dead themselves (people in the drug world do not tend to live long lives) or can't even remember what they did.

[Kyle416]

Here is another article I found that has a little bit more information, including that he used LSD.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...&pg=7142,35711

It also goes into more detail about the wounds found on his body, and a few more other things.

[bigsir58]

Interesting article. Was it ever mentioned what type of residence the garage where Chad was found in belonged to? Was it a house? Did people live there, or was it abandoned?

[Lakeboy]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

I must admit I laughed at the "he smoked too much" marijuana line. It's like she's saying it was o.k. for him to use some drugs, but too much was a bad thing. It just seems like a really non-chalant thing for her to say, which would be something if that's what led to his death. The police sounded pretty non-chalant themselves in this article. I wouldn't know, I've never used any sort of drugs, but would he have to travel across state lines to get some? Seems a little implausible there.

that's the first i've heard of the gay sex angle.

I laughed at this also. It is okay to smoke some marijuana but he smoked too much. WOW Unsolved Mysteries showed him as a sweet innocent naive child who never did anything wrong. These articles show a whole different side. Sounds like the drug delivery theory was probably what happened here. He still didn't deserve to die though. How Sad.