Susan Poupart (7 of Spades, Wisconsin)
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What happened to Susan Poupart?
Our card this week is Susan Susie Poupart, the Seven of Spades from Wisconsin. When 29-year-old Susie went to a house party on her reservation surrounded by friends and so close to home, she should have been safe. But when the mother of two left the party in a car with some younger men, things took a turn for the worst. Susie never made it home, and six months later, her remains were found in a nearby forest. The men Susie was last seen with became immediate suspects, but to this day, there just isn't enough evidence to charge them with her murder. Or is there? I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck.
How was Susan Poupart's body discovered?
It was Thanksgiving Day in 1990 when the Price County Sheriff's Department in Wisconsin got a call from some deer hunters in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. The hunters said that they were packing up to head home when a red and black nylon jacket hanging from a tree caught their eye. And when they got closer, they noticed something on the ground next to it, a partial jawbone. The hunters had originally called Price County because it was the closest law enforcement agency. But after one of them reached a hand into one of the jacket pockets, the group decided that they should probably call neighboring Vilas County instead. Because inside, there was an ID bearing the name Susan Poupart. And the hunters knew that name.
Once they saw the ID, they called us because they knew that Susie Poupart was an open missing person case. I think she was the only active missing person at the time.
That was Sheriff Joseph Fath. He was one of the Vilas County detectives that was investigating Susie's missing persons case, which had come to Vilas County six months earlier on May 22nd of 1990. When the report was filed by Susie's sister Dawn, she hadn't heard from or seen her sister in two days, which was especially alarming because the two weren't just sisters, they were roommates, along with Susie's two young children. Now, 29-year-old Susie was known to go out and maybe even stay out all night. So when she went to a party on the 19th and didn't come home by morning, it was no big deal. But two days passing with her not so much as checking in on her kids was completely unheard of. And that's how Dawn knew that something was wrong.
We got information that she was at a party on Chicago Street and some people thought she might have been intoxicated, left the party, walked through the woods because there's a lot of trails and then something might have happened to her. So there was a search, a ground search with fire department personnel and volunteers. It was a rather large area that we ground searched and didn't come up with anything.
Investigators at the time had canvassed the reservation Susie lived on in the town of Locke du Flambeau, and they made a list of other partygoers. There turned out to be a group of around 20 or 30 people who had been at the party that night.
Who were the main suspects in Susan Poupart's case?
We tried to interview everybody that we could identify that was at that party. I don't think anybody was afraid to talk, but the intoxication level at that hour of the morning skewed everybody's memories. It was hard to make heads or tails out of what they were telling us.
There was one detail that had come up again and again, though. A handful of partygoers seemed to remember that around 4 o'clock in the morning, they saw Susie leave the party wearing blue jeans and a red and black jacket that a friend had lent her. But she wasn't leaving alone. Per witnesses, she had gotten into a car with two men, 19-year-old Joe Cobb and 18-year-old Robert Elm. According to detectives, Locke du Flambeau is a small community where everybody pretty much knows everyone else. But it didn't seem like Susie and these men were friends or anything prior to the party. And although Susie was about 10 years older than Joe and Robert, partygoers say that Robert had been flirting with her that night.
That may have been a reason why she got in the car with him. I mean, she was intoxicated, but everything that we knew is that she got in the car voluntarily, and I think she thought they were going to give her a ride home.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What happened to Susan Poupart?
0:04–1:17
2
How was Susan Poupart's body discovered?
1:17–3:39
3
Who were the main suspects in Susan Poupart's case?
3:39–11:35
4
How did Susan Poupart's disappearance impact her family?
11:35–14:58
5
What challenges did investigators face in solving Susan Poupart's case?
14:58–20:56
6
What new information emerged after Susan Poupart's remains were found?
20:56–31:46