04. Walter E. Ellis: The Milwaukee North Side Strangler

Badger Bizarre

For 21 years, a serial killer terrorized a north side neighborhood in Milwaukee, often times working right under the nose of the Milwaukee Police Department.

Suspected of killing at least 10 women, ultimately convicted of 7, Walter E. Ellis stalked those living in the seedy underbelly of the Cream City, preying on those often most vulnerable, struggling themselves to make a life.

Beginning in 1986, young women began turning up murdered in numerous abandoned properties, most of them strangled, in a two mile radius in north Milwaukee, leading to the residents of the area to suspect a serial killer was on the loose. Unwilling to endorse the one-killer theory, police struggled to crack the case, leading to accusations of not taking it seriously, as the majority of the victims were African-American and usually suspected of being sex workers.

As DNA technology advanced, and a task force was formed, police began to hone in on a suspect, one which had been in their midst for decades, working with them as an informant, incarcerated numerous times, and repeatedly given leniency for unknown reasons.

Scott and Mickey discuss this story which entails missed opportunities by the Milwaukee Police Department, Department of Corrections, Department of Justice, and the state legislature which could have curtailed these murders from happening and literally saved lives, along with the larger social and economic issues at play which helped create a monster like Walter E. Ellis, though also sadly dismisses those he took away from us.

Walter E. Ellis during a court appearance .

2 children of Irene Smith, a victim of Ellis, murdered in 1992.