Lois Jurgens headed to trial. I didnt examine him further.. Two or three couples signed written statements. Rekdahl suggested that if she had negative feelings, it would be best for them not to take the child. Why was there no disposition of this case? By all accounts, Lois was obsessed with abusing Dennis, and she wanted the world to know he was a "bad child"; she made no apologies about the inappropriate way she was disciplining him. There are a lot of dead babies in the ground who were killed..
In 1992 A made-for-TV movie was made based on both Jerry's story The Jurgenses are not being attacked anywhere along the line. There were at least a dozen bruises on the face alone, some large and others small. I felt we actually checked out the concerns quite carefully.. In fact, they remain strangely forgotten. The St. Paul Pioneer Press ran a cover story about the investigation on Sunday, October 12, 1986. Lois Jurgens headed to trial. To the casual observer, the Jurgens' seemed to be a normal, church-going family with a perfectly maintained house and yard. He liked them. Still, she had never forgotten the case. . Sherwood became suspicious and persuaded authorities to investigate. I was young then, just out of college, the social worker said recently in an interview. This is a story about respectable men and women of the middle class--doctors, lawyers, priests, social workers, policemen, neighbors and relatives--whose behavior, taken as a whole, led not to that milieus promised decency and justice but to a moral outrage, dark and hard to understand. Aside from the incident when Dennis was hospitalized with burns on his genitals, there were many other incidents of abuse which fell under the category of sexual sadism. Family members linked to this person will appear here. . charles edward ed holland memorial park funeral homes and cemeteries.
She was the adoptive mother of six children in the 1960s and 1970s, and brutally abused them all, killing one of them, 3-year-old Dennis Jurgens, in 1965. Lois had talked to them all about her toilet training methods. and this case
Paul Lindholm, the assistant county attorney, considered it. In 2005, playwright Brian Vinero wrote a theatre piece, The Jurgens File, which was developed at New York City's 78th Street Theatre Lab; it told the story from the perspective of the community. You see, Gingold said, I didnt have to go that far. They would have to find out. I thought you might like to see a memorial for Lois Germaine Josephine Zerwas Jurgens I found on Findagrave.com. She seemed to Scott County welfare workers a hostile and sullen young woman, unhappy and emotionally underdeveloped. Thanks for your help! In 1965, Votel said, he thought this was certainly a battered-child case, but the reports indicated that the child had fallen down some stairs. The investigation, trial, and Clothing retains the heat. Soon after, Jerry Puckett dropped her plan to convert--but by then Dennis was already registered as Catholic on the adoption rolls. He eats well. Because they were Catholic and there were very few Catholic babies on the register, it was likely that they would have to wait quite a long time, she explained. After The Murder. Rekdahl, who graduated from St. Pauls Hamline University in 1957 with a bachelors degree in social work, had been in adoption services for less than one year. He knew that parents otherwise free of major symptoms of psychotic illness could abuse children. Lois Jurgens. Make sure that the file is a photo. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Desperate mountain residents trapped by snow beg for help; We are coming, sheriff says, Hidden, illegal casinos are booming in L.A., with organized crime reaping big profits, Look up: The 32 most spectacular ceilings in Los Angeles, This fabled orchid breeder loves to chat just not about Trader Joes orchids, Elliott: Kings use their heads over hearts in trading Jonathan Quick, 19 cafes that make L.A. a world-class coffee destination, Newsom, IRS give Californians until October to file tax returns, 12 reasons why Sycamore Avenue is L.A.s coolest new hangout, Best coffee city in the world? Dennis struggled with such training and was forced to pray and recite his Rosary kneeling on a broomstick for extended periods, until he did it correctly. Harold told relatives he was going to be out of town the weekend of April 10 and 11, 1965. In spite of extensive physical evidence pointing towards severe abuse, the medical examiner did not classify the death under any of the standard classifications of accident, suicide or murder; he simply marked it "deferred". Are you sure that you want to report this flower to administrators as offensive or abusive? She died aged 87 on May 7, 2013. He never wanted to say a bad word about anyone. Camille Brass knew the blue convertible belonged to Dr. Peterson. The boy was obviously dead. When the wind was up, Peterson would take out his sixteen-foot sailboat and glide toward Manitou Island and the town of White Bear. Retrieved 12 February 2015. Zerwas wouldnt let the rest of his family view the body. When he wouldnt have a bowel movement, she said, she pulled the feces from his rectum with her hands. White Bear Lake, Minnesota. But this death didnt look as though it was from natural causes. The night of his death, a great flood had hit the Saint Paul area and the Mississippi River's waters were rising to record levels, causing flooding in the region and inside the Jurgens' home.
Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates). Three-year-old Dennis Jurgens is murdered by his adoptive mother. This woman was no crank. That will make you swallow, Lois had said. [citation needed], Dennis Jurgens was born Dennis Craig Puckett in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Close this window, and upload the photo(s) again. The White Bear Lake police log for the morning of April 11, 1965--Palm Sunday--included the sort of events to be expected in such a town. The chief one involved the nature of the malady that killed Dennis. He would testify that he had talked to some lady down there. Late in August, Lois had called Rekdahl to report the matter. Are you sure that you want to delete this photo? Rekdahl found her judgment confirmed by the Jurgenses priest. We came very close to trying to do something. Adopted just after his first birthday, Dennis suffered years of abuse at the hands of his adoptive mother, Lois Jurgens. At this time there are a number of persons yet to be contacted who supposedly have information and are relatives of the family, Korolchuk wrote on Thursday, April 15, four days after the death. Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash. This is a carousel with slides. Searching him out, she discovers he died at 3 1/2, though the death certificate does not show what killed him. Initial placement was with a licensed, unrelated foster family, but Robert was then moved to his paternal grandparents at his parents' request. We thought it would be no use.. To this end, she forced religious training on her young sons; reports had young Robert flawlessly reciting the Rosary at 2. She wanted assurances. The hearing would prove to be a curious affair. Harold and Lois Jurgens, a middle-class, churchgoing couple in picturesque White Bear Lake, Minnesota, had adopted Dennis and five other foster children. I can recall seeing some, but its not very clear. They were of varying colors--black and blue, yellowish green, reddish--which meant that some were fresh, some old. Donohue, their attorney, had allowed Lois before the hearing to be examined by a psychiatrist only under the strictest conditions. Lois was accused of murdering and beating her adopted son Dennis Jurgens in 1965 but wasn't convicted until 1987 and only spent 8 years of her sentence before being paroled in 1995. In the early 1980s, Jerry Sherwood went looking for the newborn son she gave up for adoption 20 years prior. Harold (Harry) Jurgens, 76 of Filley passed away at Gold Crest Retirement Center in Adams on January 7, 2018. He doesnt look like a tiny little kid, he thought. Its easy today to say, Why didnt they prosecute? but it was a different time, a different time. But how did such an infection occur in the first place? Murderpedia has thousands of hours of work behind it. By this point, Lois' rage and mania had gone beyond her ability to maintain an appearance of normalcy, and she and Harold had relocated to rural Stillwater, Minnesota, possibly to escape the gossip of their former neighborhood where Dennis was killed. Nine months earlier, on Dec. 6, 1961, Dennis Craig Puckett, 8 1/2 pounds, had been born at St. Michaels Hospital in Sauk Centre, in nearby Scott County. The psychiatrist thought it fortunate that Lois Jurgens could not get pregnant because a child would only compound and complicate her emotional disturbances. Years later, Dr. Lynn Solem, the present director of the burn center at St. Paul-Ramsey Hospital, would explain that though this type of burn is now regarded as a sign of child abuse, in 1963 it would have been accepted as accidental. Jurgens was one of 16 children. The official records say 1,200 children died of abuse in 1986, but many experts believe the figure would reach 5,000 if closer attention were paid to some deaths attributed to accident or blamed on sudden infant death syndrome. The coroner noted in his report that Dennis had almost zero subcutaneous fat, at the level of a person who had died of starvation. There was also the matter of community attitudes. The trial of Lois Jurgens for the murder of 3-year-old Dennis made national headlines and was the top news story of the state of Minnesota in 1987. Gladys and Dorothy talked frequently to each other about what they had seen, not unaware that theyd recommended the Jurgenses to the welfare department caseworker. Add to your scrapbook. The word homicide remained unspoken. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, or jump to a slide with the slide dots. Lois Germaine Josephine Zerwas Jurgens (August 12, 1925 May 7, 2013) was an American convicted murderer[1] responsible for one of the most unusual child murder cases in history in Minnesota.
Obituary. They had only two requests. Testimony from neighbors and family members told of young Dennis showing up to public events wearing sunglasses at the age of two, to hide his frequent black eyes. They said it was from a fall down the basement stairs. Oops, something didn't work. Found more than one record for entered Email, You need to confirm this account before you can sign in. This relationship is not possible based on lifespan dates. Soon the word spread from house to housethered been a death, the younger Jurgens boy had died. Dan Jurgens, one of the chief minds at DC who spearheaded the Man of Steel's death and rebirth in the '90s, took to Twitter to share an unused design of Electric Superman -- sometimes called . I was willing to wait. Votel was still waiting about two years later, when he retired from office. Moments later, VanderWyst, rising to leave, asked Lois if there was anything else he could do, such as call her brother Jerome. A Death in White Bear Lake is a true crime book by journalist Barry Siegel, published in 1990, which recounts the murder of Dennis Jurgens. My clients have rights, he said. Sherwood's tenacity, along with the tragedy of her personal loss, kept the story in the public eye. Lois jurgens, 93, of arvada, colorado, formerly of malvern and glenwood, iowa, passed away june 13, 2022. lois jean jurgens, the daughter of lawrence a. and marjorie v. (johnson) jones, was born on may 26, 1929 in malvern, iowa. memorial page for Lois Germaine Josephine Zerwas Jurgens (12 Aug 1925-7 May 2013), Find a Grave Memorial ID 134346102, citing Union Cemetery, Maplewood, Ramsey County . Novel and Adaptations: Barry Siegel's true-crime novel A Death in White Bear Lake recounts the story via extensive research and oral history. ``She did a lot more than she should have.. Lt. Clarence (Buzz) Harvey at first did not know what to make of the blonde 42-year-old woman who appeared at the front desk of this towns solitary police station on the morning of Sept. 18, 1986. Thirty years later, writer and artist Dan Jurgens is revisiting the storyline that gripped the world. When Dennis Jurgens died at the age of 3 in 1965, authorities here never ruled whether his death was an accident, a homicide or the result of natural causes. Jerry Puckett was a Protestant by background, but at the time Dennis was born she was intending to take instruction in the Roman Catholic faith. She thought Dennis was sloppy fat. This particularly surprised Rekdahl. . On Feb. 11, 1964, the commissioner of public welfare, as legal guardian for Dennis, consented to his formal adoption by Harold and Lois Jurgens.
