Sudden Arrest in the Cold Case

As some people may question why I went to Laos, then came back to Duluth, Minnesota and then went back to Thailand, I feel it is necessary to give some more  background information/history about myself, before I continue to talk directly about the Langenbrunner case. Please bear with a few paragraphs (in italics, below).

After I found I could no longer get a visa to work in Laos in the fall of 2011, I considered crossing the Mekong into Thailand to look for teaching work there. I didn't know anyone in Thailand, however, or where to begin looking for a job. I ended up going back to Duluth, and stayed at my sister and brother-in-law's house in Munger. The neighbors and I talked about the Langenbrunner matter from time to time. 

I told one of the neighbors that I had a copy of that photograph of the Camel advertising jacket that the "friends" of Trina Langenbrunner had mentioned to me at a meeting at my house in Twig before I went to Laos, the jacket that I have mentioned in a previous post on this blog.

[Notice: I apologize that the information given about the jacket in this post and previously is in error. Please see Post 16 of this blog, for more details of how that error occurred.]

As this jacket matched the description of the jacket that Trina’s "friends" had told me was found at the murder scene, I was looking for an opportunity to take the photograph up to Brookston. I wanted to be sure that my friend up there had received the copy I mailed from Laos back in 2005, and to be sure that Trina’s “friends” had received it from him. At that time, I still thought that the two guys who had claimed to be "friends" of Trina were really only that, and I didn't suspect that they were more likely from the Sheriff's Department.
My friends from Munger were struggling financially, as a lot of people were/are in the USA, and I really didn't want to bother them to spend money to buy gas to haul me several miles up to Brookston. I didn't even have the phone number of my friend in Brookston, so I wouldn't even know if he'd be home when we got there.
However, I started using my sister's garage to make some rustic stools, which I began to sell, and thus I had a little money in my pocket again.
Then suddenly another person who lived in the Munger area showed up. This was Bob Stoneman, the guy who was the very first to tell me back in 2001 that he thought that Tom Hinze may have been the murderer, because the Sheriff’s Department had mentioned a “black Chrysler mini-van” in connection with the murder scene. As related in previous posts, Tom did indeed have a black mini-van of that description, but I knew first-hand that his vehicle was in impound the week of the murder. Therefore, I discounted any suspicions about him – until, also as related in previous posts, I (1) was made aware of the footprints of the size 11 or 12 New Balance shoes found at the murder scene, (2) heard from an excited Sheriff Litman about the tracks from mismatching tires, and then later, just before I left Minnesota for Laos, (3) heard of the red and tan Camel advertising jacket from the “friends” of Trina Langenbrunner.
Bob Stoneman was on “meds”, however, and had the reputation of switching back and forth without warning. In 2003 he told me in a gruff and angry voice, during the time that Tom Hinze was threatening my life, that no matter how sure I was that I had seen those shoes on Tom a few days before the murder, I had better "shut [my] mouth, or [I'd] end up losing the farm" (which did in fact happen, as I’ve related in previous posts).
Bob told me that he personally knew who had murdered a Hermantown boy named John Wold back in the 1960s, but when he had been told by the powers-that-be that he DIDN’T know who murdered John Wold, Bob had enough sense to shut his mouth as told. And, Bob told me in 2003 that if I didn’t shut my mouth as told, Tom Hinze would sue me for libel (which I kind of hoped Tom WOULD do, but he never did, of course).
Anyway, during the summer of 2012, Mr. Stoneman tried to cause a rift between my Munger friends and myself by slandering my personal character to them. One evening as I was at my friend’s house and we were sitting around a campfire enjoying a few beers, there was a small ruckus when Mr. Stoneman came over and grabbed me around the throat and repeated his slander.
I was a little hoarse for a couple of days after that, but there were no more serious consequences, so I figured I would forget about it. My friends told me that Mr. Stoneman had been getting weirder and weirder, as he has been taking "meds" for depression for years. I figured I’d just stay away from "Stonie" the best I could.
And that should be enough background information about myself, for the time being. I will now continue with my testimony in the Langenbrunner murder.

    It was less than a week after that little ruckus, that I read in the News Tribune that Sheriff Ross Litman had suddenly held a press conference to announce the arrest of Joseph Couture in the "cold case" of the Trina Langenbrunner murder. I immediately asked my friend to take me up to Brookston, as I wanted to talk to my friend up there and take him that photograph.
We went up to Brookston, and my friend was home. He was angry at me, and told me that it should have been obvious to me that those two “friends” of Trina’s who had been at my house back in 2004 were not really “friends”, but cops. He said that if I had wanted to send the cops that picture of the jacket, I should have sent it to the cops, and not tried to involve him. Then he told me that evidently the Sheriff’s Department had some “witness” to testify that Joseph Couture had done the murder, and that’s why they arrested him.
I really didn’t know what to do, after that. I knew for sure I had seen the size 11 or 12 New Balance shoes on Tom Hinze (who normally wore size 9 shoes) just a few days before the murder, I knew for sure Tom had told me he’d burned clothing in the wood-stove in the trailer the week of the murder, I knew for sure that Tom had every opportunity to take my Nissan car that week (and in fact had told me that he DID take it), I knew for sure that I’d had that conversation with Ross Litman about the mismatching tires on the Nissan, and I knew for sure that the Sheriff’s department had never even bothered to take an official statement from me – but I didn’t know who the “witness” supposedly was and I didn’t know who Joseph Couture was. I thought I’d better just lay low and see what happened next, in the case. 
Below (indented) is the account from the Duluth News Tribune telling about the arrest in the Langenbrunner case, annotated with some of my comments (in red font). This article is being quoted for educational purposes.

Published June 18, 2012, 03:20 PM

Bail set at $1 million for suspect in Cloquet cold-case murder

UPDATE: According to the criminal complaint, an unnamed witness said that around the time of Tina Langenbrunner's murder, Joseph John Couture came to a home covered in blood, lighted a fire with the aid of gasoline, stripped off his clothing and shoes and burned them.

By: Mark Stodghill, Duluth News Tribune

St. Louis County Sheriff Ross Litman said he and his office’s investigators, both those retired and active, never considered Trina Langenbrunner’s murder a “cold case,” because they continued to work it since her slaying.

It took nearly a dozen years, but Litman and St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin said Monday that they are confident enough evidence has been produced to convict Joseph John Couture of murder for allegedly stabbing Langenbrunner to death on Sept. 3, 2000.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested Couture at his Cloquet home on Friday afternoon and he was arraigned in State District Court on Monday, charged with intentional second-degree murder and second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

“I, and the officers working on this case — many of whom are standing here in this room against that back wall — have no doubt that the person that we arrested last Friday is responsible for Trina’s death,” Litman said during a Monday afternoon news conference at the Public Safety Building on North Arlington Road.

“Joe Couture’s arrest on Friday is the culmination of nearly 12 years of investigative work consisting of follow-up of just under 1,000 leads, hundreds of interviews, forensic results and the cooperation of witnesses,” Litman said.

However, none of the authorities was prepared to say what new evidence was developed, or what changed to allow them to bring charges now, and why it took nearly a dozen years for witnesses to come forward.

After the news conference, Litman, Rubin and Assistant County Attorney Jessica Smith, who will be the lead prosecutor in the case, all said those questions will eventually be answered as the case proceeds toward a potential trial. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-25-2014: None of those questions were answered, however. All that the public has got is what the police CLAIM that the unnamed witness said, plus Couture’s sudden confession, some of which doesn’t exactly match, either. I’ll say more about that later.)

A $100,000 reward had been offered to solve Langenbrunner’s murder. Litman and Smith both said no one has come forward to claim it.

Judge Dale Harris granted Smith’s request to set Couture’s bail at $1 million. The defendant is a convicted Level 3 sex offender.

Langenbrunner, a 33-year-old mother of three, was last seen hitchhiking in the area of Brookston Road between 1:30 and 2 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2000. Couture was a neighbor of Langenbrunner at the time. The victim’s stabbed body was discovered off a rural road in southern St. Louis County.

Couture has provided a number of statements to authorities. He said he knew the victim but had no contact with her for a significant amount of time before her death. However, he admitted he was driving his gray minivan in the immediate area and at the approximate time the victim was last seen alive. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: Back in 2000-2001, word was out that the police were looking for a BLACK mini-van, NOT a gray minivan. Tom Hinze’s minivan WAS black, and that is one reason some neighbors, including Bob Stoneman of Canosia, suspected Tom in the murder. However, I knew for a fact that Tom’s black minivan was in impound the night of the murder, and so I initially discounted their suspicions. My 1987 Nissan WAS charcoal gray. No one was talking about a charcoal gray vehicle then, or my suspicions may have been aroused right away, then. Inexplicably, the minivan in the murder has changed colors from black to gray over the years. Unfortunately, I don’t have any old newspaper clippings of the story available – I did save them, but they are not readily available to me, if indeed they still exist, in storage.)

(Comment from Lloyd Wagner 11-10-2014 These original notes in red font dated 5-26-2014 were written and sent to Bob Boone, publisher of the Duluth Reader Weekly, an “Alternative Newspaper” in Duluth, nearly 6 months ago, along with other documents I’ve published in this blog. I’d been hoping that the Reader would be aware that all testimony concerning a murder case should be thoroughly investigated, and that the telling point should be DNA evidence, rather than a “confession”, which has so often in history been induced by police, and then later recanted and proven faIse.

I never got a direct answer from Bob Boone at all. I asked my brother-in-law Ed Newman, from Munger, who writes an art column for the Reader, if he would try to get an answer from Bob Boone. Mr. Boone's "final answer" was no comment, no refusal, no nothing at all, but he just left me hanging, until I finally decided to start this blog on my own. Some real "journalistic integrity" there, Mr. Boone.

According to the criminal complaint:

A witness told investigators that Couture, 41, of Cloquet, went to the Brookston Bar, also known as Stoneybrook Saloon, on Sept. 2, 2000. The witness said they were awakened when Couture returned to the residence. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014:  The Stoneybrook Saloon is in the town of Brookston, about ¾ mile from Highway 2. I vaguely remember reading that Langenbrunner had last been seen in a bar near Saginaw, right on Highway 2, and not that she was seen hitch-hiking … but as before, I don’t have the clippings anymore.)

 (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 1-3-2015: I finally, after a long delay, have received the original newspaper articles, and they have, as I feared, shown that some of my recollections were not correct. Some of it is irrelevant, but my misconception about the Camel jacket is relevant, and I sincerely apologize. Please see Post 16 of this blog for explanations and corrections.) 

The witness said Couture was covered in blood, lighted a fire with the aid of gasoline, stripped off his clothing and shoes and burned them.  
The defendant’s burned shoes were New Balance brand and had been purchased by the witness. The witness said that Couture drove an ATV toward a river behind the residence. When he returned, he demanded that his van be taken to be washed immediately and he took a shower. The witness saw large amounts of blood smeared on the outside of the van and coated on the steering wheel of the vehicle. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: On the first anniversary of the murder in September 2001, the Duluth Budgeteer news article specifically mentioned SIZE 11 or 12 New Balance shoes. I remember that very distinctly, as it made me jerk when I read it, as I vaguely remembered Tom wearing some sporty shoes when he was released from jail that day just before the murder, and I distinctly remember that they were bigger than his feet.   
Is that the size shoes that the witness bought? Who did the witness buy the shoes for? I would assume that he bought them for someone with size 11 or 12 feet. Also, it would be interesting to know just WHO took the van WHERE to have it washed.  
These questions will all be answered, as the case proceeds towards trial (wink wink).
I never noticed any blood on my charcoal gray Nissan – but I had an outdoors garden hose with the faucet about 200 feet from my house, and it would have been very simple for Tom to have rinsed the car off using that hose after returning in the middle of the night. I never would have noticed anything, as the area around the faucet was unmown grass. Tom did tell me he had “borrowed” the car one morning that week, and he did tell me that same morning that he had “burned some old clothes in the stove in the trailer.”
XXXXXXX(Name redacted), XXXXXXX(Name redacted’s) son and XXXXXXX(Name redacted’ s) brother, did look at the Nissan before his father had it scrapped, and he told me that it looked as though there were streak marks on the head-liner of the car that looked as though someone may have wiped blood off their hands on the headliner of the car. The car was almost ridiculously worn-out at the time of the murder, and I don’t ever recall having looked at its headliner, nor would I have taken notice of any particular marks, if I had looked … not until after my phone conversation about the car with Ross Litman, that is, when he was at first all excited about that Nissan and it’s mismatched tires, then just as suddenly, wasn’t at all interested. As I’ve said, the police absolutely refused to go look at the charcoal-gray Nissan before it was scrapped, even though they were informed of the streaks on the head-liner.) 
The witness said that after that day, Couture would comment on his ability to kill a person, having done it before. The witness reported that Couture said he had killed Langenbrunner, and he threatened to kill the witness in the same fashion.
The witness said that before Sept. 3, 2000, Couture had carried a knife in a sheath on his belt. After Sept. 3 of that year, the witness never saw the knife again.
The witness said that Couture claimed to have disposed of evidence down the trail where he drove his ATV.
At 10 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2000, a passerby in the area of Duff Road and Highway 2 discovered Langenbrunner’s body lying in a driveway near a gravel pit.
The victim had been repeatedly stabbed in the torso, back and face. The medical examiner determined the cause of death to be blood loss from multiple stab wounds. She also appeared to have been sexually assaulted.
Investigators found tire marks and shoe patterns for both Couture and Langenbrunner at the scene where her body was found. The tire marks were determined to have been made by a Dodge or Plymouth minivan. The shoe pattern for the suspect’s shoes were consistent with a New Balance model shoe. At the time of the homicide, Couture owned an older-model gray Dodge minivan. A witness saw a vehicle matching that description at the crime scene about 3  a.m. on Sept. 3, 2000. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: I asked some mechanic friends of mine if it is possible to tell with certainty from tire tracks just what make of vehicle made those tracks. Their general answer was “No”, though you CAN tell for sure what kind of tires were on the car. As far as type of vehicle, you can narrow things down by measuring the width between left and right tracks (though that’s not certain, of course, because there are in-set and out-set rims, and there would be no way of knowing what kind of rims were on the vehicle). Also, you can narrow things down by measuring the length between front and rear wheels (this would only be measurable by the tracks if the vehicle were in the process of making a turn while making the tracks).
One mechanic did tell me that Dodge and Plymouth minivans used 13 inch tires in their earliest year(s) of production, then later went to 15-inch tires. But the hubs changed also, and you couldn’t just switch between different sized tires without changing the whole hub assembly as well. The wheels wouldn’t fit.
As I’ve said elsewhere, the tires on my Nissan were 13-inch, with the exception of the one (left rear, if I remember correctly), that was a small 14-inch tire mounted on the donut spare rim.
The questions of what size tires made the tracks at the murder scene, just exactly how it was determined with certainty that those tires were mounted on a black charcoal gray Dodge or Plymouth minivan, and the name of the witness who actually saw this vehicle at the scene of the crime will all be answered as the case proceeds towards trial (wink wink).) 
The criminal complaint refers in generalities to DNA gathered from the victim’s body that can’t be excluded as coming from Couture. Smith said there will be more precise scientific evidence linking the defendant to the crime if the case goes to trial with an expert on DNA testifying. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: It’s generally the same kind of DNA as Couture’s, and that's close enough, I guess. IF (not “when”) the case goes to trial, there’ll be more precise linking (wink wink).) 
The witnesses are not referred to by name or gender in the criminal complaint. They are identified simply as Witness 1 and Witness 2.
Witness 2 also said that Couture confessed to committing the murder. The witness said that Couture believed he was going to have sex with Langenbrunner that night but she rejected him. The witness said that Couture said he “snapped,’’ and “it went brutal.” Couture said he “whooped the dog s--- out” of the victim, “stabbed her, choked her out,” according to the witness.
At this point, authorities are taking precautions to protect the witnesses.
Prosecutor Smith filed a certificate of nondisclosure of witnesses under the Rules of Criminal Procedure. She cited Couture’s history of threatening witnesses in past cases and told the court that she wanted to protect the safety of witnesses in the current case.
Court rules permit witnesses’ names to remain confidential until they testify at trial if the prosecutor files a written certificate with the trial court stating that to identify a witness may endanger the integrity of a continuing investigation or subject witnesses or other persons to physical harm. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: And the witness never needs to testify at all, or to be identified at all, if the case never goes to trial, at all! (Wink wink).) 
Trina Louise (St. Germaine) Langenbrunner was born Sept. 12, 1966 in St. Paul and attended Humboldt High School there. She was a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe and worked as a home health aide while living in Cloquet. She’s survived by three children, Sheila, Todd Jr., and Shelly Tormanen.
Rubin said that no decision has been made on whether to file a notice to present the case to a grand jury to seek a first-degree murder indictment. His office has 14 days to file such a notice.
Smith will be assisted in prosecuting the case by assistant St. Louis County Attorney Jonathan Holets.
The court ruled that because of a lack of income and assets, Couture qualifies to be represented by a public defender. Northeastern Minnesota’s chief public defender Fred Friedman has appointed lawyers Cynthia Evenson and Kevin Cornwell to represent Couture.
Couture’s next court appearance is scheduled for June 28. 
Tags: news, crime, courts, police, cloquet

What happens next in this story is a new accusation of a mysterious and nonsensical nature, and a confession that makes no sense.
Please stay tuned!