Killing of Alfred Kunz

Overview The Rev. Alfred Joseph Kunz (April 15, 1930 – March 4, 1998) was a Catholic priest who served as pastor of St. Michael's Church in Dane, Wisconsin, for 32 years. He was found dead in the hallway of St. Michael School with his throat slit. He was known for celebrating both the Traditional Latin Mass and the Mass in English, and was described by a Diocese of Madison spokesman, Bill Brophy, as "a well-known expert in canon law" who "knew how to walk the lines." He was in communion with his diocesan bishop at the time of his death.

Nature of the crime In 2024, Detective Gwen Ruppert of the Dane County Sheriff's Office disclosed additional details of the attack to Catholic commentator Matt C. Abbott: in addition to having his throat slit, Kunz had been stabbed fewer than 10 times.

Investigation status The case remains unsolved more than two decades later. Investigators have said the case is unusually difficult because Kunz lived a private, solitary life with limited documentation of his daily activities. Detective Ruppert described the difficulty of the case: "This is the hardest type of 'who-dun-it' case for law enforcement: a solitary man, with no—or very limited—witnesses to his life. No calendar, no phone, not married, no close family. Someone who had to live his life in privacy while keeping the secrets of others."

A partial DNA sample was discovered in the early 2010s after forensic evidence from the case was retested. According to the Dane County Sheriff's Office, this sample has been used to eliminate several persons of interest, and investigators are confident the sample belongs to the killer. The Sheriff's Office continues to seek tips from the public.

Public attention Former Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney spoke about the case in a March 2023 interview, stating: "At some point in time, [the killer needs] to resolve it in their own soul and own mind and come forward. It resonates and haunts, if you will, myself and many, many others who want this resolved, and I look forward to the day that it can be resolved, and I'll sleep better."

The case received media attention through the 2019 podcast "Unsolved III: The Devil You Know," produced by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and through a 2022 episode of the HLN (owned by CNN) series "Real Life Nightmare with Paul Holes."

Status As of the most recent reporting, no arrests have been made and the case remains open, with investigators actively pursuing leads based on the recovered DNA evidence.