Steven Zelich pleads guilty to killing Jenny Gamez during a sex game
A former Wisconsin police officer pleaded guilty to killing an Oregon woman and ditching her body in a suitcase along a highway on Monday, the same day his trial was set to begin.
Steven Zelich pleaded guilty in the death of 19-year-old Jenny Gamez, of Cottage Grove, Oregon, whose body was found decomposing along a Wisconsin highway in August 2012.
Zelich, 54, also is accused of killing a woman from Minnesota a year later whose body also was found in a suitcase along the same highway.
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Killer: Former police officer Steven Zelich, 54, on Monday pleaded guilty in the death of 19-year-old Jenny Gamez (right), whose body was found in a suitcase along a Wisconsin highway in August 2012
Lesser of two evils: Zelich's attorney, Jonathan Smith (right), said his client decided he would rather plead guilty than go to trial
Zelich pleaded guilty to first-degree reckless homicide with use of a dangerous weapon and hiding a corpse in the Gamez case.
The former West Allis police officer also is charged with killing 37-year-old Laura Simonson the following year. Authorities allege she died in Minnesota, so charges in her death were filed there.
Kenosha County Deputy District Attorney Michael Graveley said he will push for the maximum 75-year prison term when Zelich is sentenced on March 30.
Zelich was originally facing charges that carried up to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but Graveley said the former officer's defense attorneys reached out to him Friday about a plea agreement.
Zelich's attorney, Jonathan Smith, said his client decided he would rather plead guilty than go to trial. He declined to elaborate, but has long said that the death 'was a non-intentional act.'
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Dangerous game: Zelich met Gamez online and took her to a Wisconsin hotel, where the two played a sexual game in which he would choke the college student. During one encounter, Zelich lost control and choked Gamez until she died
Zelich's attorney said that Gamez's killing was a 'non-intentional act' on the part of his client, pictured here in court in July 2014
Zelich met Gamez on a bondage and sadomasochism website and invited her to Wisconsin, according to court records and testimony. He picked her up at the Milwaukee airport and they drove to a Kenosha hotel, where they spent several days.
Zelich told investigators they played a sexual game in which he would choke Gamez. On the last day, he lost control and choked Gamez until she died, according to the criminal complaint.
Second victim: The former West Allis police officer also is charged with killing 37-year-old Laura Simonson, of Minnesota, by choking her to death during sex
Zelich told investigators that he put Gamez in her suitcase and took it to his West Allis apartment, and then stashed her body in his refrigerator.
Simonson, of Farmington, Minnesota, died in similar circumstances in November 2013. According to court documents, Zelich said he met her online and killed her while playing the same choking game at a hotel in Rochester, Minnesota.
He drove home to Wisconsin with her body and later put both bodies in suitcases in his car's trunk. When they began to smell, he dumped them on the roadside, where highway workers mowing grass found them in June 2014, according to investigators.
Police quickly identified Zelich as a suspect in Simonson's disappearance, and surveillance video from the hotel showed the two had checked in together. Investigators who interviewed Zelich in March 2014 took a DNA sample that later matched DNA taken from ropes used to bind Gamez.
Zelich worked for the police department in West Allis from February 1989 until his resignation in August 2001, following an internal investigation that found he stalked women while on duty and used his position to get access to their personal information.
His resignation allowed him to avoid discipline and pass state background checks for a private security officer's license. He was working as a licensed private security officer when he was arrested June 25.
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