Wednesday, July 16, 2025
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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Milwaukee Press Club 'Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism' 2020 & 2021 Award Winners

FREED: Norman Pepin Executed Two Milwaukee Tourists in an I-94 Ditch | Tony Evers’ Killers & Rapists #12

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Since 2019, Gov. Tony Evers’ Parole Commission has released hundreds of convicted criminals, freeing them early on parole mostly into Wisconsin communities, including more than 300 murderers and attempted murderers, and more than 47 child rapists.



Norman Pepin was one of them.

12th in our series.


Norman Pepin is a double murderer who was a suspect in one of the Midwest’s most notorious mass slayings.

The Wisconsin victims, John Brutcher and Roger Weeks, were engineers who had traveled to Milwaukee from California and Kentucky to attend an industrial training conference when they were robbed by Norman Pepin and another man alongside Interstate 94 in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

Pepin, who was a parolee from Massachusetts, ordered them to lie face down in a roadside ditch along I-94 and then murdered them both, shooting them execution-style, according to news reports from the time.

Norman pepin

According to a 1979 article in the Indianapolis Star, Pepin and his accomplice were also investigated for the notorious Burger Chef murders of four young people (three of them teens) in Indiana. No one was ever charged in that infamous case, which still haunts Indiana to this day.


Evers’ Parole Commission Freed Norman Pepin Early

Norman pepin
Norman pepin

Date paroled: 08/10/2021. [You can check his parole date here by putting in his name and clicking on “movement.”]

The released killer now lives: UNKNOWN. He has moved out of state

Age: 67

Convicted: Two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, three counts of armed robbery, and one count of Attempted murder.

Sentence: Double Life sentence

Norman pepin Norman pepin Norman pepin


The Victims: Roger A. Weeks, 46 & John R. Brutcher, 25Norman pepin

Norman pepin

 


What the Killer Did:

Norman Pepin and another man, Steven Coffey, robbed three engineers who were in Milwaukee for a conference. The victims were ordered to lie face down. Two of the victims were then shot and killed. The third was not injured, but was apparently left for dead, according to court records.

Although the third victim saw Pepin brandish the weapon prior to the shooting, he did not see the shooting itself.

An Associated Press story from 1979, accessed via Newspapers.com, said that the victims were out-of-town visitors who were slain on Interstate 94 in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

Pepin, then 24, was from Massachusetts. The victims were from California and Kentucky; the surviving victim said they had met Pepin and the other man at their motel in Milwaukee while attending an industrial training conference. They were invited to see nightspots and went to a disco in Menomonee Falls.

Then, their hosts stopped their car beside I-94 south of Milwaukee, demanded their wallets, and shot them in a roadside ditch.

Pepin was a former shipyard worker from Massachusetts, the story reported. Indianapolis News reported in 1979 that Pepin and his accomplice were “wanted in Massachusetts for charges involving passing bad checks, larceny, conspiracy and receiving a stolen car” and Pepin was already on Massachusetts parole.

Pepin was pinned as the main actor by the surviving engineer who told authorities Pepin’s accomplice, Steven Coffey, seemed “surprised” by the shootings, according to news articles from the time. The survivor was grazed by a bullet and told police Pepin and Coffey ordered them out of their car along I-94, took their wallets, and then shot them. The survivor pretended he was dead.

Police said the men engaged in a “jaunt” that started with a burglary in Massachusetts.

What of the Burger Chef murder investigation?

They were investigated in the Burger Chef murders because they resembled police sketches in that case.

Norman pepin

In the Burger Chef case, Pepin and the other Milwaukee killer were described as “dead ringers” for a police sketch of suspects in the slayings of four people abducted from the fast-food restaurant in Indiana on Nov. 17, 1978, a few months before the I-94 murders.

According to IndyStar, those victims were “Jayne Friedt, 20, was the assistant manager on duty, along with employees 17-year-old Ruth Shelton and Daniel Davis and Mark Flemmonds, both 16.”

The newspaper reported:

“Friedt and three teens who worked at the Burger Chef were abducted from the restaurant at closing time and taken to a remote field in Johnson County. Their bodies were found two days later.

Ruth Shelton, 17, and Daniel Davis, 16, were shot in the back of the head as they lay face down next to each other. Mark Flemmonds, 16, died choking on his blood. He might have run head first into a tree while trying to flee and been knocked unconscious.”

Money was missing from the restaurant. However, police messed up the crime scene by allowing the restaurant to be cleaned before evidence and photos were taken.

The slayings were never solved and, over the years, other viable suspects were investigated. The main one was a convicted rapist named Donald Forrester, who confessed to the murders to avoid getting sent to a worse prison. His ex wife backed up his story that he took her to the scene where the bodies were found and picked up shell casings, flushing them down the toilet.

Norman pepin

Shell casings were found in a septic tank. He knew details some investigators said were not widely known about the murders. However, he failed polygraph tests, and recanted after his name was leaked to the media, was never charged and has since died.

A 1979 article in the Indianapolis Star reported that Pepin and his accomplice were investigated as suspects because of their similarity to the sketch; the fact both crimes were robberies and senseless murders; and because the weapons in Indiana used .38 caliber ammo. The engineers were shot in Milwaukee with .357 Magnum handguns and it’s not uncommon for .38 caliber ammo to be used in that kind of handgun. Pepin was never arrested nor formally accused of the Burger Chef crimes. Authorities investigated possible suspects in multiple states.

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“In Washington County our budget cycle starts right now, and it’s not due until November. We will propose our budget goals to the County Board in the next couple of months. We will share ‘This is what we’re thinking.’ It gives them months of time to think those through, give us feedback, and [have] that kind of dialogue,” Schoemann explained in an interview on News Talk 1130 WISN.

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“That’s not how government is supposed to work,” Schoemann said. “It’s not the vision of the governor. It’s not the vision of any one person.”

Evers and the Republican legislative leaders who will write the budget have been involved in on-again, off-again budget talks this month. On Thursday, the governor’s office said those talks were off once again because of gridlock in the Senate.

“Ultimately, the Senate needs to decide whether they were elected to govern and get things done or not,” Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback said in a post on X.

Schoemann’s criticism of Evers is nothing new. He has long been a critic of the governor and has turned that criticism up since launching his campaign for governor.

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“Nobody else in this race on the Republican side, being rumored to this point, has the executive leadership of skills and history to be able to show ‘This is how I’ve done it before, and here’s how we’ll do it Madison,’” Schoemann said. “The results in Washington County speak for themselves.”

Northwoods Congressman Tom Tiffany is also rumored to be looking to get into the Republican race. Before he went to Congress, Tiffany was a Republican lawmaker in Madison.

Businessman and veteran Bill Berrien is also on the short list of likely GOP candidates for 2026.

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