Cold-case consultant helps grieving families get justice

Sheila Potocnik cried into her phone, gasping for breath. When her brother picked up, she wailed, “Jeffrey, I’m so, so sorry.” It was late on Sept. 10, 2015, when Potocnik learned that her brother’s son, 15-year-old Antonio DeMeules, had been killed by a hit-and-run driver in Isanti, Minnesota, while skateboarding along a two-lane road. “His ankle is totally crushed, and his face is all road rash. And his arms, oh God,” her brother stammered. As he trailed off, Potocnik asked a question that might be expected of Minnesota’s best known independent cold-case investigator: “Did they find who did it?” The following day, authorities did, in fact, find the driver who killed Antonio, who claimed he thought he’d hit an animal. That story stuck, for a time. Until Potocnik discovered critical evidence investigators had overlooked, which sent the driver to jail.

Getting justice for Antonio was the first high-profile case Potocnik cracked as a private consultant specialising in criminal case reviews and supporting victims as they navigate the criminal justice system. She’s one of the rare independent investigators taking on this meticulous, emotionally taxing work — the need for which is staggering. Since the mid-1960s, Minnesota has accumulated more than 2,000 unsolved homicides, along with an untallied number of suspicious deaths. While law enforcement has only so many resources, the digital era has made it easier for civilians to revisit cold cases. These private sector sleuths range from freewheeling armchair detectives to credentialed investigators such as Potocnik, and some of their efforts have sparked controversy.

But several of Potocnik’s clients say they consider her an invaluable lifeline, after they’ve spent years, if not decades, suffering from ambiguous loss and lack of closure. They’re wracked not only by the grief of a death, but also by not knowing what, exactly, happened to their loved one. And whether someone was at fault. “Sheila is here to give me another opinion on my broken heart,” said Patty Brunn, who asked Potocnik to look into the death of her 23-year-old son, Joseph Brunn, presumed to have drowned in the Mississippi River a decade ago, after drinking at an Otsego, Minn., bar. Like many clients, Brunn sought Potocnik both for her professional expertise and her empathy, knowing she was a fellow mother who would understand the depth of her loss.

Potocnik knows all too well the pain of experiencing a loved one’s traumatic death. And Antonio’s killing wasn’t the first time her family had lived the nightmare. Growing up in south Minneapolis, Potocnik and her older sister Laura DeMeules were inseparable. As a high-schooler, DeMeules developed a drug addiction that led to lawbreaking, Potocnik says. But she remained a bubbly, happy presence and had been working to get her life on a better track. On Nov. 6, 2005, 33-year-old DeMeules was found beaten and strangled to death along a gravel road near Northfield. A man had been driving his backhoe to a neighbor’s when he spotted her naked body at the edge of a field. The Rice County sheriff investigated, along with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and Minneapolis police. Potocnik put up a billboard seeking tips near the home off East Lake Street where DeMeules was last seen. She knocked on doors and handed out flyers. Throughout the investigation, Potocnik was grateful for Rice County Sheriff Sgt. Dave Stensrud’s responsiveness and compassion. He even sent the family a card on DeMeules’ birthday.

Nearly two years after DeMeules’ murder, Stensrud called Potocnik with shocking news: “We’ve got him.” Minneapolis police had picked up a man named Antonio Medina for drunken driving. When his profile was submitted to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), it matched a sample collected from DeMeules’ fingernails. Stensrud’s call flooded Potocnik with emotions: elation, sadness, hate. Her sense of vengeance was entwined with a vocational calling. “It inspired me to want to bring that same sense of justice and relief to others who are still waiting for answers,” she recalled. Although Potocnik went on to earn a law enforcement degree and has additional training in forensic pathology and digital forensics, she considers her sister’s case file her seminal playbook. Medina pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with intent and went to prison. Nearly two decades later, with Medina slated for release in May, Potocnik tries to focus on the good her sister’s death produced. “Laura wanted me to help all of these families,” she said. “And then in turn, so did Antonio.”

While Potocnik views her sister’s case as textbook police work, she considers her nephew Antonio’s the opposite.

When the family met with the Isanti County Sheriff’s Department, Potocnik felt officers blamed the crash on Antonio, painting him as a reckless teen who had been wearing dark clothing and skating in the middle of the road. “My gut told me something is not right here.” (The sheriff and deputy sheriff at the time are no longer with the department and either did not respond to or declined a request for comment.) Authorities released surveillance video images of the truck that hit Antonio. The next day, its driver, Adam Maki, turned himself in, claiming he thought he’d hit a dog or a turkey. The Isanti County sheriff described the crash as a “terrible accident.” Case closed. Weeks later, the pain of Antonio’s death was compounded by what Potocnik discovered in his file. She scrutinised each piece of the investigation, calling witnesses to fact-check reports and conducting additional research. Potocnik found gaps, inconsistencies and new information suggesting that Maki was more culpable than he let on.

Among the issues were discrepancies about Antonio’s location and visibility. Maki’s vehicle hadn’t been thoroughly inspected. Potocnik also learned that just before he hit Antonio, Maki had been at a club. Potocnik’s most damning discovery was that the sheriff’s office didn’t analyse the report from the forensic extraction of Maki’s phone. The information was delivered on Blu-Ray technology, which the department didn’t have. When Potocnik opened the report, she saw that Maki, who told officers he wasn’t on his phone, had sent several texts during his drive. In fact, he was likely on a call at the moment of the collision.

The log also showed that less than an hour after the crash, Maki searched for an Isanti County scanner, used to listen to police dispatch calls. Why would someone who thought he’d hit an animal do that? Potocnik asked the sheriff’s department. With this new evidence, Isanti reopened the case, and Maki was convicted of leaving an accident scene. Potocnik says that absorbing the details of Antonio’s violent end was gut-wrenching, but she felt responsible for getting her nephew the respect he deserved. “You almost have to try to disassociate yourself, as family,” she said of viewing his autopsy photos. “But you want justice, so you’re like, who else is going to speak for them, besides me?”

“CSI” and other popular crime shows portray law enforcement officers practically racing from investigating a crime scene to arresting a perpetrator. Potocnik says this has given the public an unrealistic expectation about how quickly and seamlessly cases can be resolved — and how many cases go unsolved. Sixty years ago, law enforcement solved about 90% of US homicide cases. Since then, the clearance rate has declined to roughly 50%. A broad range of factors can make it more difficult for officers to clear cases, from the prevalence of firearms to inadequate staffing and training, particularly in the realm of digital forensics. While the extra data available from social media and cellphones can help solve cases, it can also bog down investigations, says Prof. Ashlyn Kuersten, who oversees the Cold Case Program at Western Michigan University. Leads can be buried in a haystack of irrelevant information that law enforcement isn’t staffed to sift through, she said, comparing a 700-page case file from the 1980s with a 70,000-page file from a present-day case.