Brothers who served 25 years in prison for femicide have been exonerated

Two Wisconsin brothers who spent the last 25 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murdering a woman in 1987 were released after DNA evidence linked the murder to another suspect, the Wisconsin Innocence Project announced announced on Friday.

David Bintz, 69, and his younger brother Robert Bintz, 68, were sentenced to life in prison in 2000 after prosecutors said they killed Sandra Lison, 44, a mother of two, the Green Bay Press Gazette reports.

According to Robert Bintz's eviction petition, Lison's body was found on August 4, 1987, near a trail in Machickanee Forest about 30 miles from Green Bay. Investigators noted that Lison's panties and nylon stockings had been removed and that most of the buttons on her dress were undone. They discovered that she had been beaten, strangled and sexually abused.

Using vaginal swabs, semen was collected from Lison's body and from her dress, which was also stained with blood. According to the Wisconsin Innocence Project, this DNA evidence did not match the Bintzes, but after the case remained quiet for a time, the Brown County District Attorney's Office finally charged the two brothers with killing them in 1998.

Prosecutors alleged in the Bintzes' trial that the two killed Lison during a robbery at the Good Times Tavern, a bar where she worked, the night before her body was discovered, the eviction filing says.

Prosecutors also relied on testimony from David Bintz's cellmate in a prison where he was serving time for an unrelated crime. The cellmate told guards about nightmares David Bintz had, claiming he screamed “make sure she's dead” in his sleep, according to the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center. The cellmate also said David Bintz later admitted to helping his brother kill Lison.

In their closing statement in the Bintz brothers' trial, prosecutors argued that “it is clear that this was not a sexual assault” and that there is “no evidence” that the person who left the sperm , also killed Lison.

In 2023, the Great North Innocence Project, with the help of the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College in New Jersey, determined that DNA evidence found at the crime scene belonged to another man, William Joseph Hendricks. The late Hendricks had been convicted of similar crimes.

The brothers were released after a hearing on Wednesday.

Judge Donald Zuidmulder told the court: “Sandra Lison will rest in peace because her true killer is now known,” according to reports from NBC affiliate WGBA.

When asked how the brothers were able to be sentenced to life in prison despite a lack of evidence, Brown County District Attorney David Lasee told the outlet that officials “followed the evidence that was in front of them at the time and that conviction is justified.” was.”

Christopher Renz, Robert Bintz's attorney, told HuffPost in an email that he and his colleagues were excited about Robert's vacation.

“It is an injustice that can never be fully corrected, but we are glad we received this relief so he can enjoy the freedom that should never have been taken away from him,” Renz said.

James Mayer of the Great North Innocence Project has started a GoFundMe to help Robert Bintz rebuild his life after 25 years in prison.

“Innocent exonerees like Bobby come out of prison with almost nothing – no savings, no bank account, no driver’s license, no credit or rental history, no current employment history, no housing,” Mayer wrote. “All of this comes with the trauma of a quarter century of wrongful incarceration.”

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