Accused of Poisoning Wife, Wisconsin Man Commits Suicide

Jack Stauffacher was a big man with a big dairy farm in the middle of Wisconsin cheese country, and nearly everyone in Darlington knew him. Or thought so.

Now they wonder whether they ever really knew him at all.

Stauffacher, 52, committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage Sept. 17, two days after he was charged with trying to kill his wife by putting pond water in her intravenous fluid as she lay in the hospital.

“I don’t know what to think. Could my brother have been capable of this?” asked his younger brother, Bill.

*

Stauffacher (pronounced STAHF-uh-ker) ran a 1,500-acre dairy farm, one of the largest in the area, with 450 Holsteins turning out 25,000 pounds of milk per year.

The 6-foot-2, 300-pound Stauffacher also was part of a local all-terrain vehicle club. In this farm town of about 2,300, he shared his land with those who wanted to play on it.

Police questioned Stauffacher and charged him with attempted murder after his wife, Donna, 47, almost died of infections after going to a Madison hospital Aug. 7. She had gone there for minor surgery; doctors wouldn’t disclose the type of operation but said it was no more serious than having a wisdom tooth removed and wasn’t supposed to require an overnight stay.

But about an hour after she was moved to a place where Stauffacher could be with her, she had a high fever and low blood pressure. She was taken to the intensive care unit. Doctors pumped her with antibiotics, but more infections set in. A heart attack nearly killed her two weeks later.

A doctor told police that Donna Stauffacher had a huge dose of bacteria in her blood--the kind found in lakes and ponds.

Another doctor said Donna Stauffacher’s infection got worse in the middle of the night, when she was alone with her husband. And a nurse told police she saw Stauffacher with a red duffel bag. Four syringes were in it, she said.

*

Exactly why Stauffacher may have tried to kill his wife is not clear.

Prosecutor Judy Schwaemle said during a bail hearing that Stauffacher had $2 million in debts. But Donna Stauffacher’s lawyer, Hal Harlowe, wouldn’t comment on how much life insurance Donna Stauffacher may have had. And he wouldn’t discuss a possible motive. Neither would Schwaemle.

“It’s over,” the prosecutor said.

Property tax records at the courthouse show Stauffacher was all paid up on his taxes. And his son Jay said: “We got a lot more assets than what the debt is. He took it on for expansion. It’s not overwhelming debt.”

When asked during his police interrogation whether he did anything to hurt his wife, Stauffacher replied, in tears: “I couldn’t tell you, because then I would lose Mom; she’d leave me.”

Asked the same question over and over, he said: “I would never want to do anything to hurt Mom. I can’t tell you because if I did, I could never face the community. It’s a small community. Everyone would know. I’m a pillar of the community.”

Donna Stauffacher, now out of the hospital, has refused comment.

*

After being charged, Stauffacher was freed on $40,000 bond. The prosecutor argued for high bail, suspecting Stauffacher might try to kill himself.

His son Jay found him dead two days later on the floor of the garage, next to his van.

“He was a proud man, and he just couldn’t take what was being said about him,” Jay Stauffacher said. The family does not believe the allegations against his father, he said.

*

The alleged attempt on Donna Stauffacher’s life has prompted the sheriff to reopen the case of Stauffacher’s first wife, Shirley, who was found dead in a car in a ditch in 1970. The coroner at the time ruled it an accident, concluding the victim died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a cracked exhaust manifold. Stauffacher remarried 10 months later.

Sheriff Scott Pedley said that the reopened investigation has not found anything so far that would change the coroner’s conclusion.

*

Stauffacher lived and farmed all his life near Darlington. About 40 miles from the Iowa state line, the town has half a dozen churches and almost as many bars. Farms surround the town, and cows dot the lush fields.

Tractors and pickup trucks poke along down the town’s main street and people wave as they go by.

More than 250 people went to Stauffacher’s funeral at the Immanuel United Church of Christ on Sept. 20.

“We had them flowing out the back door. We didn’t have seats for them all,” the Rev. William Kapp said.

Stauffacher came from a family of six children. He also had five grown children. He was a member of the Lion’s Club and the church.

Jay Stauffacher recalled how his dad would take his kids out fishing in the summer and snowmobiling in the winter. For Christmas and birthdays, Stauffacher would make shelves and bookcases for them in his workshop.

The sheriff respected Stauffacher for being reasonable during meetings with local officials about driving ATVs.

“At least he was decent enough to stand on his own two feet and voice his opinion in the meeting rather than voice it downtown in the tavern afterwards,” Pedley said.

Stauffacher also let people ride ATVs on his farm. He even let a bar up the road dig into his land for a volleyball court without charge. He wasn’t a regular there, but he mowed the grass and occasionally took his wife there for supper.

“I always thought he was a good guy,” bartender Mickey Schroeder said. “I never had any clue.”