Suspect arrested in 1985 murder of UWL student Terry Dolowy – The Racquet Press

After the murder remained unsolved for 40 years, movement began in the Terry Dolowy case. Dolowy and her poodle Suzie went missing from their trailer in Barre Mills on February 14, 1985, after their shift at Piggy's, a restaurant in downtown La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Her body was found five days later in Vernon County. She was found decapitated and burning in a culvert on Mohawk Valley Road. Both her head and her dog were never recovered.

Dolowy was a 24-year-old student at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse at the time of her murder. She lived with her fiancé, Russel Lee.

After considering it a cold case for 40 years, Vernon County police arrested Micheal Reymond Popp on Sept. 24 and charged him with first-degree murder.

He is in the Vernon County Jail and his bond is set at $1 million. If convicted, Popp will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Popp is 60 years old, meaning he was 21 at the time of Dolowy's murder.

He was living as a truck driver in Tomah until his arrest.

According to the criminal complaint, a search warrant issued against Popp in January 2023 linked DNA evidence from him to the crime, giving authorities grounds for the arrest.

UWL students filmed “The Dolowy Files,” a documentary about the case, just a few months ago, in May 2024, in a communications department class.

As part of the semester-long project, students collected known facts about the investigation and compiled all the key information about what happened to Dolowy.

The documentary includes interviews with John Benden, Dolowy's manager at Piggy's, and commentary from Ken Kosirowski, a WKBT news anchor who recently did a report on the murder on Valentine's Day of this year.

“We wanted to create a place where people could get information about this case,” said Anna Lancaster, a student who worked on the documentary.

When the students sought interviewers for this project, they were disappointed that the police did not want to participate.

“The police were difficult for us to reach during this time, but it's now clear why given how close they wanted to get this information to make an arrest,” Lancaster said.

Until Popp's arrest, Dolowy's fiancé was the main public suspect. The student film discussed the possibility of Lee's involvement and explained the facts.

“We knew Lee had gambling debts due to the pool, so it was always suspected that it had something to do with it, but we didn't want to assume that,” said Olivia Oberheide, the project editor.

The complaint revealed that Popp and his then-girlfriend played pool with Dolowy and Lee and that Dolowy and Popp were having an affair.

“We didn't want to point the finger at Russel because we felt that if he had done it, he would have been arrested when it happened,” said a student who worked on the project.

For the UWL students involved in the documentary, they are relieved that this forty-year-old case has come to pass.

“We really encourage people to watch this documentary because even though there is new evidence in the case, it is still a story that raises awareness of what Dolowy and the La Crosse area went through during this time,” Oberheide said.

The arrest may help bring relief to the La Crosse community and hope for justice in the long-running case.

The complaint says Popp denied killing Dolowy and said he was not a violent person.

Although an arrest has been made, Popp is presumed innocent until proven guilty.