Kelly Nolan 2007
Timeline
May 18: Kelly Nolan moves to Madison from UW-Whitewater for the summer and sublets an efficiency apartment at 434 W. Mifflin St.
June 20: Works a week (three shifts) as a waitress at the Orpheum Lobby Restaurant, then is dismissed for lack of experience.
June 22: Spends the day with her sister April, then joins three friends for a night of partying on State Street, separating from them at around 11:30 p.m. Stops include State Street Brats (top), 603 State St., and the Lava Lounge, 461 W. Gilman St.
June 23: Leaves the Lava Lounge at bar time; a man starts to walk her home but they run into another man who says he knows Nolan and her escort leaves her. Also around 2 a.m., Nolan calls her sister April from her cell phone and tells her where she is.
June 24: Family reports Nolan as missing to the Madison police.
June 28: Madison police send divers into Lake Mendota near Union Terrace and comb the campus area, searching for Nolan.
June 29: Madison police send Nolan's photo and information to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
July 2: Police release a photo of a purse similar to one that Nolan was believed to have been carrying when she disappeared.
July 3: Family announces unspecific reward for information leading to the return of Nolan or arrest and conviction of person responsible for her disappearance.
July 7: Amount of reward is revealed to be $10,000.
July 9 : A body is discovered in rural Fitchburg during a massive evidence search related to the Nolan case. Officials say the body is probably Nolan's, but the identity hasn't been confirmed.
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Body Found In Search For Nolan
Discovery Made Outside Oregon; Cops Wait On Id
Monday, July 9, 2007
The search for a missing 22-year-old woman from Waunakee came to what may be a tragic end this morning outside the village of Oregon when police found a body during a search for University of Wisconsin-Whitewater student Kelly Nolan.
Police are treating the case as a homicide.
Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said at a news conference this morning that there is no positive identification yet that the body is that of Nolan, who has been missing since June 23, but the remains were found during a massive search for her on private property near a quarry northeast of Schuster Road, which forms the eastern boundary of the village.
There was no word on the cause of death, and DeSpain said he is not aware of anyone being in custody.
Nolan's disappearance and her family's subsequent pleas for her safe return have prompted nationwide news coverage.
DeSpain said at least 100 police officers from a number of agencies, some as far away as Illinois, were called to this morning's search, including officers from Madison, Fitchburg, the Dane County Sheriff's Office, the Columbia County Sheriff's Office and the FBI. Retired officers and volunteers from the Salvation Army have been enlisted as well. Police were using both police dogs and horse patrols in the search.
DeSpain said the search started at about 4:30 a.m., but he didn't say exactly what prompted it. The body was found sometime before 8:30 a.m.
Members of Nolan's family were at the scene of the investigation early this morning, but left before the body was found, DeSpain said. He added that Dane County Coroner John Stanley was en route to help identify the body. Another news conference is scheduled for this afternoon at Holy Mother of Consolation Church in Oregon. That happens to be the church where funeral services were conducted for Angela Drake, another young woman who disappeared and was found dead two years ago.
SKETCHY DETAILS: Nolan, who was living in Madison for the summer, was last seen early the morning of June 23 after a night out with friends at downtown Madison bars.
A Madison cafe owner said Saturday that an employee reported seeing Nolan early that morning. The employee walked Nolan toward her home until they ran into another man who said he knew Nolan, according to Tom Paras, the owner of Amy's Cafe.
The employee left Nolan with the other man. Two days later, when he learned of Nolan's disappearance, the employee called police with the information, Paras said.
Police have released few details, saying they don't want to jeopardize the investigation. They have searched through surveillance tapes of a bar where Nolan was reportedly seen, but she wasn't on those tapes, police said.
DeSpain has said detectives don't know whether alcohol is a factor in Nolan's disappearance.
Family members have been advised not to discuss details of the case.
April Nolan, 20, has acknowledged talking to her elder sister by phone on the day Kelly disappeared, but declined to discuss details of the call, saying it's irrelevant to the search. She did say her sister told her during the call where she was.
April Nolan has said her sister was recovering after the deaths of their father in 2006 and their stepmother in May, both in Illinois. Kelly Nolan grew up in Waunakee.
The reward money was donated by the Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, a California group that helps find missing persons and an anonymous corporation with ties to the family, according to Kelly's mother, Mary Jane Nolan
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In Kelly Nolan Case, All Is Silence
Police Are Particularly Mum About Details On The Murder Of The Uw-whitewater Student.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
By DEE J. HALL dhall@madison.com * 608-252-6132
For two and a half weeks last summer, newspaper headlines blared and the airwaves crackled with the search for Kelly Nolan, a popular 22-year-old UW-Whitewater student who disappeared June 23 after a night of partying in Downtown Madison.
On July 9, a signal from Nolan's cell phone led searchers to a patch of woods in the town of Dunn, about 10 miles south of where she was last seen. There, police found a woman's body later determined to be that of Nolan.
It was to be the last new information the public would hear of the case, now seven months old.
Madison Police and Dane County Coroner John Stanley still refuse to provide even the most elemental details of Nolan's death, including how or when she died, or whether her death is believed to have been an intentional act or resulted from someone else's recklessness or negligence.
The media clamor surrounding Nolan's disappearance and death has dwindled to near silence. Gone, too, is the crowd of gawkers who prompted residents on rural Schneider Drive to post no-trespassing signs. Horses meander on the hilly fields near the site where Nolan's body was found, and the site is now buried by a gleaming blanket of snow.
Longtime town of Dunn resident Eleanor Killerlain said she and other residents remain puzzled about how their quiet neighborhood became the scene of one of Madison's most notorious crimes.
"I hope they can solve it. That poor family..." Killerlain said, her voice trailing off. "How they picked this road, I don't know."
SILENCE DEFENDED
Stanley and Madison Police Capt. Mary Schauf defend the official silence surrounding the case. They say divulging information beyond what was released in the days following Nolan's disappearance could jeopardize their investigation, which Schauf stressed remains active.
Three Central District detectives, led by veteran detective Sid Woods, are continuing to pursue leads among the "mountain" of tips they've received, Schauf said.
"We continue to work the case. But it's not like there's a big break or anything like that," she said.
But, Schauf added, "We think there are certain things that only certain individuals know. If there are certain things about the (crime) scene, for example, that only certain people know - like the people who did it - then we don't want to release it."
Police Chief Noble Wray was equally terse during an unrelated press conference earlier this week. "We've got leads we are following, both forensic leads and other leads," Wray said.
Nolan's mother, Mary Jane Nolan, of Waunakee, who attended a prayer vigil, held press conferences and announced a reward for her daughter's safe return while Kelly Nolan was missing, declined last week to talk about the case. Nolan's family has refused to publicly divulge what they know of the young woman's activities that night or what she said in a phone call to her sister, April, in the early hours of June 23.
Investigators' decision to keep details of the crime confidential is not unusual, said Michael Scott, a clinical associate professor at the UW Law School who runs the Center for Problem Oriented Policing.
Scott, a former police officer and chief, said police often hold back information to avoid false confessions or to discourage copy-cat crimes. In this case, Scott said, the official silence probably means "they don't believe they have a random killer on the loose that they need to warn the public about."
A CAUTIONARY TALE
Although little is publicly known about what happened to Nolan, her struggle with alcohol - including two drunken driving arrests prompting a 15-day stay in the Walworth County Jail - and her decision to continue bar-hopping the night she disappeared after her friends returned home provided a cautionary tale to students.
Police said the UW-Whitewater communications major, dressed in light-colored jeans, a green sleeveless scoop-neck top, heeled sandals and carrying a slate-gray purse, had last been seen by her friends when they left and she stayed behind at State Street Brats at 11:30 p.m. that Friday.
At 2 a.m. Saturday, Nolan left another bar, the Lava Lounge, with a young man. The man told police he started walking Nolan back to the West Mifflin Street apartment she had sublet for the summer when the two ran into a second man who claimed to know Nolan and offered to escort her home.
That was the last time she was seen alive. Police have never identified either man as a suspect or person of interest in the case.
'REALITY CHECK'
Although Nolan didn't attend UW-Madison, the way she spent her time before she vanished is familiar to many at the campus, which routinely ranks among the nation's top party schools.
"Those experiences very much resonated with current students and students joining our campus for the first time this fall," Dean of Students Lori Berquam said. "It was that reality check that this could happen to any of us."
Evidence of that can be found in the increased participation in the Associated Students of Madison's Neighborhood Watch Program this fall, said student Kelly Arendt, who recently turned over direction of the program to a paid coordinator.
The neighborhood watch features groups of students dressed in brightly colored clothing carrying flashlights and cell phones who patrol the neighborhoods around campus on weekend nights. The patrols began in fall 2006 in response to a spate of Downtown muggings, most targeting men, said Arendt, who chairs ASM's Campus Safety Committee.
"Students are definitely scared," Arendt said, adding that Nolan's disappearance and death brought a "sense of urgency" to campus safety.
But Scott believes students aren't scared enough. During recent patrols with the Madison police, Scott said he found it "remarkable" how many students disregarded basic safety measures by walking alone, in dark places or absentmindedly chatting on their cell phones. Police officers call such stu dents "walking victims," Scott said.
