Murder charges filed in 30-year-old cold case
WONDER LAKE — Arizona police have arrested a man charged with murdering his wife three-decades ago in a Wisconsin case that was originally deemed a suicide.
Mark Bringe, 70, was taken into custody Monday, the Northwest Herald reported. He has been charged with first-degree murder in Columbia County, Wisconsin in the 1988 death of his wife, Lorelei “Lori” Bringe, formerly of Wonder Lake in McHenry County.
Wisconsin officials reopened the case in 2014 and exhumed Lori’s body in 2017. Officials said that her body had been cleaned and embalmed prior to the autopsy, making a determination of death more difficult for the medical examiner.
Lori Bringe was found dead by a single gunshot wound to the head in August 1988, outside of Poynette, Wisconsin. Mark Bringe reported to police at the time that his wife had committed suicide.
That decision stood until the Columbia County Sheriff began re-examining the evidence in 2014. Mark Bringe was interviewed by law enforcement officials again in early 2017, changing some details of his story.
“Investigators spent thousands of hours needling through the case filed, reviewing and testing evidence, interviewing witnesses, exhuming Lori’s body and investigating this death,” said Columbia County Sheriff Dennis Richards in a release.
Mark Bringe is being held in Arizona awaiting extradition to Wisconsin. R.