McHenry woman held on $500K bond in alleged murder of husband in 2003 in Wisconsin

A McHenry woman accused of first-degree intentional homicide in the 2003 murder of her husband will be held on $500,000 bond in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, jail, a court commissioner ruled Tuesday.

Roxanna Collins, formerly Roxanna Vanderzee, had been married just two months when, on Sept. 23, 2003, her husband David Vanderzee was found shot to death “execution style” in their Powers Lake home, with at least five shots to the back of the head, according to authorities.

Collins, 70, and John Viskocil, 70 – with whom authorities say Collins was suspected of having an affair at the time – are both charged with first-degree intentional homicide. If convicted, they could both spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Viskocil, of Genoa City, Wisconsin, made his first appearance in court last week and also is being held on $500,000. In Wisconsin, the entire bond amount must be posted in order to be released from the jail pretrial.

Collins was arrested Wednesday by McHenry County Sheriff’s Office deputies in what has been described over the years as a “cold case.” She was first taken to the McHenry County jail, where she remained until being transferred to Kenosha County jail Thursday, records show.

Kenosha County District Attorney Xavier Solis asked in court Tuesday that Collins be held on a $1 million bond, the same as what had asked Viskocil be held on.

Court Commissioner William Michel noted the “very serious” charge filed against Collins and that she has no local ties to the area. He said that, although the case has had ongoing interest over the years by previous DAs, he “can’t make statements why it was not charged earlier.”

In asking for a lower bond, Collins’ attorney, Jennifer Recktenwald, argued Collins is not a danger to the community or a flight risk. She said Collins has been married to her husband, who suffers from multiple medical issues, for 16 years. She retired last year after 20 years working as a medical assistant, and her income is made up of Social Security benefits and money she receives from the US Department of Veterans Affairs to care for her husband.

Collins’ husband “needs her help,” Recktenwald said.

The attorney also said Collins has no criminal history and the state’s case is “circumstantial.”

Collins had been living in Florida with her husband before a breast cancer diagnosis brought her to McHenry, where she has strong ties, including grown children and grandchildren, the defense attorney said. Though Collins recovered from cancer 10 years ago, she still has ongoing medical issues for which she needs medicine and care, Recktenwald said.

According to authorities, on the evening of Sept. 23, 2003, detectives from the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office responded to the Vanderzee home after Roxanna called 911. When police arrived, she reported that she had come home from shopping in Gurnee just after 8 p.m. and found her husband lying dead in a pool of blood, authorities said, adding that she reported that she grabbed the cordless phone, “dropped her purse, and ran outside to the neighbor’s house.” Because she was so “hysterical,” the neighbor said he talked to the 911 dispatcher, the proffer detailing the investigation that led to the couple being charged.

Police said that, among several investigative details, that in the hours leading up to when Collins said she entered her home to find her husband dead, she and Viskocil had made several calls to each other.

In the proffer authorities described “evening phone calls between the two defendants who are conspiring to commit a murder.”

A woman who at the time was dating and living wtih Viskocil told authorities they were having problems at the time Vanderzee was killed, the proffer said. The night Vanderzee was killed, Collins stayed at the home of Viskocil and his girlfriend, who said she saw Viskocil and Collins the next morning sitting on the couch together and holding hands, according to the proffer. Authorities said the woman told them that when “she was moving out of ... Viskocil’s house in October of 2003, she noticed ... Vanderzee had already moved some of her personal property into the home.”

In a later interview, the woman said that “looking back, it appeared that the two defendants were having an affair,” the proffer states.

Viskocil, who was friends with Vanderzee before Vanderzee married Collins, had told authorities that he was at Vanderzee’s house earlier on the day he was killed. In one statement to authorities, Viskocil said he was there from 3 to 4 p.m., but later said he was there closer to 2 p.m. and stayed for just a minute, the proffer said.

Viskocil told authorities he went fishing from 6 to 8 p.m. and fell in the water at the dock and had to go home and throw his clothes into the washing machine. But the woman he lived with at the time told authorities he did throw his clothes in the wash, which she found odd, but said they were not wet.

Viskocil also allegedly made odd statements and told a witness Viskocil was shot before police made that public, police said, according to the proffer.

The case went cold until police started reinterviewed people in 2012. When a detective called Viskocil, on April 26 of this year and introduced himself, without prompting, Viskocil said: “I have a lawyer if this pertains to that shooting case years ago.” He also said “it all went down because it was a big mess” and that he didn’t want to deal with it, the proffer said.

According to the court document, detectives then told Viskocil “the entire investigation led to a ‘chain of related behavior’ that all led right to him.” Viscokil responded, the proffer said: “‘Yeah, I guess it all does, it looks bad. ... I had no real alibi other than I was out on the boat.’”

When talking to Collins at her home that same day, a detective “confronted” her “with his opinion that defendant Viskocil shot and killed David,” the proffer stated; she replied by saying, “I really don’t think so” and that she would be surprised if that were true.

The detective also told Collins that “he knew she knows what happened and that she helped plan David’s murder,” at which point Collins looked away, the proffer stated. “She looked at [the detective] with a blank face and then went inside her residence,” the proffer said.

Collins met Vanderzee in 2000 on an online dating site and married him July 26, 2003, not quite two months before Vanderzee’s murder.