A Juneau County man accused of killing three people has been taken into custody after a week-long manhunt.
The Juneau County Sheriff’s Department said in a press release that 47-year-old Virgil Thew was arrested Thursday afternoon in the city of Elroy, about 13 miles from where the triple homicide took place.
A deputy identified Thew while responding to a report of a suspicious individual. Thew was taken into custody “without incident,” according to the release.
Prosecutors charged Thew for the shooting deaths of his girlfriend, 33-year-old Elizabeth Kolba, his 12-year-old step-daughter and the girl’s 13-year-old friend last Friday. The victims’ bodies were discovered at Thew’s mother’s house in New Lisbon on Dec. 30.
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Local and state law enforcement agencies, as well as the FBI and U.S. Marshal Service, had been searching for Thew after a statewide crime alert was issued on Friday. Prior to his arrest, Thew was last spotted on Jan. 1, when his image was captured by a trail camera in a wooded area just outside New Lisbon, according to a criminal complaint.
In a statement shared Wednesday before the arrest, Juneau County Sheriff Andrew Zobal and New Lisbon Police Chief Kyle Walker said they had received 172 tips on Thew’s whereabouts.
Walker and Zobal expressed their sympathies to the families of the victims and thanked a number of local businesses for their support in the press release on Thursday.
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