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The jury issued a split verdict in the federal obstruction trial of Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan.
A Wisconsin college instructor has been charged in the alleged November murder of his pregnant lover and arson of her home in La Crosse.
La Crosse County prosecutors charged Matt Sierra, 38, with the Nov. 13 killing of Alexis Pickett, 27, and with burning down her residence afterward. They say Pickett was pregnant by Sierra at the time.
Charges were initially filed against Sierra on Dec. 17, but La Crosse Judge Scott Horne dismissed the charges after finding the criminal complaint insufficient during a Dec. 23 hearing. On Dec. 26, the La Crosse District Attorney’s Office filed a new complaint against Sierra, with 14 additional pages of detail, and the case moved forward.
The basis of the charging document against Sierra, who is married to another woman, remains the same: Prosecutors say Sierra killed Pickett and burned down her home months after she told him she was pregnant with his child.
The two already shared a 2-year-old child. When Sierra attempted to persuade her to get an abortion after learning about this pregnancy, she declined.
“I barely kept my life together after [the previous child,]” Sierra said in a text to Pickett, cited in the complaint. “I told you I’m not having another kid.”
The criminal compliant does not cite how authorities allege Sierra killed the woman or how the fire started.
Sierra is an instructor at Western Technical College but is no longer listed on the school’s staff directory. The college did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sierra’s employment.
Sierra is charged with four felonies: first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree intentional homicide of an unborn child, arson and mistreatment of animals causing death. His next court appearance is a Jan. 5 preliminary hearing.
His bail was set at $1 million; he remained in custody Dec. 26 at the La Crosse County Jail, according to an online jail database.
An attorney for Sierra did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors cite footage, texts in charging document
In the complaint, authorities cited surveillance footage showing Sierra leaving the area of Pickett’s home at the same time smoke alarms were going off in her home. The footage showed no one else arriving or leaving from the area between when Sierra left and authorities arrived to respond to the fire.
During their investigation, authorities also found Pickett’s dog dead from the fire.
Pickett’s death and the fire occurred the night after she and Sierra spent portions of the day together, according to the criminal complaint.
In an interview with police, Sierra said he left her home between 1 and 2 a.m. but stayed nearby to see whether she would text him. Authorities said phone records showed his phone never left his home that night, however.
In determining Pickett died before the fire, the doctor who conducted the autopsy noted a lack of soot and carbon monoxide in her body, according to the criminal complaint. The doctor said it would be “difficult” to determine her ultimate cause of death, because there were “no obvious signs of injury” due to the extent of the damage to her body from the fire. There were no signs of internal injuries, the complaint said.
The amended complaint included pictures of text message conversations between the two as they argued over Pickett’s pregnancy. A friend of Pickett’s told authorities the two had been arguing regularly since Pickett found out she was pregnant.
“I’m going to do what I feel I need to do,” a text from Sierra reads in the complaint. “You aren’t going to change your mind and neither am I.”
“Well tell me what are you going to do because that sounds like a threat,” Pickett responded.
David Clarey is a public safety reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at dclarey@gannett.com.