Good afternoon. Thank you for coming here today on Labor Day. I'm joined by District Attorney John Chisum, Mayor Thomas Barrett, Attorney General JB Van Holland, and members of the Milwaukee Cold Case Homicide Task Force. We're announcing today the culmination of the labors of many people in many agencies with today with the arrest of a person we've linked to the homicides of nine women over a 21-year period. His name is Walter Ellis, aged 49. We're requesting that you not use his photograph as we still have to do possible witness identifications. Good police work and good police science have led us to Walter Ellis. The Milwaukee Police Department homicide task force unit was announced on May 18th. But these homicides, some more than 20 years old, were never forgotten by the Milwaukee Police Department. We offer our condolences to surviving family members with the hope that today's news gives them confidence there will be justice to mitigate the pain of their loss. Many tools were used to develop suspects. Analysts at the Wisconsin Regional Off the Wisconsin Regional Crime Lab, both the Madison and Milwaukee offices sifted through years of resubmitted DNA evidence. These samples were provided by our task force. As the technology evolved, their results improved through their work and the work of homicide task force members. We have cleared three other homicides not linked to this serial set of cases. In the past two weeks, we identified two additional homicide victims linked by the same DNA profile of the previous seven we told you about in May. Irene Smith, aged 25, was killed in 1992. Karen Kilpatrick, aged 32, was killed in 1994. Both were strangled. This makes nine homicides of women who were linked with the same DNA profile found at the crime scene. Now, it's important to note that this DNA profile did not turn up in any national databases. So, it is not linked to any other unsolved murders in other states at this time. In Wisconsin, DNA collection was mandated for all incarcerated felons in 2000. Ellis, our suspect, was incarcerated for a felony in 1998 and was released in 2001 and therefore was not in our database. This search was about shoe leather and science. Over 700 names were contained in the nine homicide files. We researched 15,000 sexual assault cases spanning 23 years. About 6,000 prostitution related investigations and arrests were reviewed. 2,000 arrests in the geographic areas where the bodies were discovered were queried over a 15-year period. 1,000 names were queried through the Wisconsin Department of Correction. Searches were conducted in the state DNA datab bank of 125,000 people and 6 million were cross-referenced in national DNA datab banks. All pieces of this investigation began to align in the past two weeks. The task force had a list of 200 names that were identified as people that we wanted to secure DNA samples from. Milwaukee police detectives were already looking at Ellis very closely based on their investigative leads. Crucial technical assistance was provided by the FBI which enabled us to narrow a suspect list to a small subset of people. and Ellis's name came up once again, as it had in other searches. A search warrant was conducted for DNA evidence on August 29th at his residence, and that DNA was submitted to the Wisconsin State Crime Lab. On September 4th, we issued a warrant for his arrest after the State Crime Lab returned a result that linked Ellis's DNA to nine homicides. He was arrested September 5th after Franklin police officer Jason Fininsell spotted a car that the MPD believed Ellis was using and had issued an alert for. He saw the car in the parking lot of a Franklin motel and notified the MPD. I'm joined by Officer Finel to my right and I commend him for his alert and solid police work. [Applause] Standing next to Officer Finel, we have the members of the Milwaukee Cold Case Homicide Squad, and I commend them as well for their hard work, dedication, and persistence. Now, you all have in front of you a list of the many agencies that assisted us in this investigation. We're grateful for all of their help, from the State Crime Lab to the FBI to the Marquette University Police interns who provided invaluable staff work to our people. Now, we're not announcing the conclusion of this investigation. Rather, we're announcing that a new phase has begun. This means that the work of the Milwaukee Cold Case Homicide Task Force continues in earnest to investigate these deaths to assist with the prosecution and to determine if our suspect is linked to any other unsolved homicides. This time, I introduce Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisum. Thank you very much, Chief. Last Friday, September 4th, a criminal complaint was issued by my office charging Mr. Walter Ellis with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide. The maximum penalty for those offenses is life imprisonment. Count one relates to the murder of Miss Joyce Mims on June 20th of 1997 in the 2900 block of North Fifth Street here in the city of Milwaukee. Count two relates to the murder of Miss Weren Stokes on April 27th of 2007. that in the 3100 block of North 7th Street. The initial the initial criminal complaint was drafted after extensive investigation by the Milwaukee Police Department resulted in the identification of a suspect. Biological evidence was submitted to the Wisconsin Crime Lab and the results were returned Friday morning. The complaint was filed and a warrant was issued by Friday afternoon and Mr. Ellis was located and arrested by the Franklin and Milwaukee Police Department early Saturday morning. We are now entering a new phase in the investigation and prosecution of this case. We still have a significant amount of work to do and we intend to bring justice to these victims and to their families. I anticipate that additional charges will be forthcoming uh in the next day or so. I do want to take the opportunity to thank the members of the task force for the incredible dedication and professionalism that they have shown during this time. I knew that because of who they are and what they have done in the past that they would bring us to this point. I never had any doubt about that. I'm proud and honored to work with them and we'll be proud and honored to continue working with them. I want to in particular thank Lieutenant Keith Beish. He has led this effort superbly. Detectives Krasco and Hine are present. They live up to and exceed uh the often unrealistic demands and they represent the heart and soul of this investigation. I have some homegrown talent as well. I have uh assistant DA Norm Gan, Mark Williams who are working very closely to guide this case to a successful conclusion. Again, I anticipate issuing additional charges uh by the end of this week. And as always, I must remind you that Mr. Ellis is presumed innocent until the conclusion of this case. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. District Attorney. I now introduce Mayor Thomas Barrett. Thank you, Chief Lynn. And on behalf of the citizens of the city of Milwaukee and behalf of the families of the nine victims, um I want to say thank you. I want to say thank you first to the hard men and uh hardworking men and women of the cold case task force. Um this was a phenomenal phenomenal feat. Officer, thank you as well. To the police chief, to the district attorney, uh to the attorney general, to the FBI. This is a demonstration of what happens when, as the police chief said, you combine good shoe leather with good technology and good science. Because of advances in DNA testing, we are able to do more testing and we are able to bring more of these cases to conclusion. But I think the message here is that there is never a totally cold case in the city of Milwaukee. This task force uh time and time again has stepped forth and continued to comb through these cases when most people have forgotten about them. But because of our commitment to having a safe city and having citizens be able to live in this city safely, um our commitment is very very strong. So again, I want to thank these men and women for their hard work. This is a wonderful day and as the police chief said, it's not a conclusion of the case, but it is a very very important next phase and our hope is that this will move forward through the courts and will res will result in a con in a conclusion that is just for all. Thank you very much.