When the walls began closing in on suspected serial killer Christopher Revak in July 2009, he hanged himself in his Missouri jail cell.
Case closed, right? Not quite.
Cops say that Revak — once named as a person of interest in the infamous disappearance of Iowa news anchor Jodi Huisentruit — has been named as the monster behind the 2006 killing of a Wisconsin woman.
More chilling, detectives believe Revak is responsible for more murders throughout the Midwest.
The Wood County Sheriff’s Office in Wisconsin announced last week that Revak was behind the death of Deidre Harm , officially closing a case that had gone unsolved for nearly two decades.
“This may provide some closure for many, but won’t bring Deidre back,” the Wood County Sheriff’s Office and Wisconsin Rapids Police said in a joint statement. “Our thoughts and prayers will always be with Deidre’s family.”
VANISHED IN 2006
Harm was a 21-year-old single mother who vanished following a night at a downtown Wisconsin Rapids bar on June 10, 2006. Hunters discovered her remains five months later in a wooded area about 8 km from where she was last seen.
The modus operandi was similar in the murder of Rene Williams, 36, a mother of three. She was last seen on March 13, 2007, at the Eagle Lodge bar in Ava, Missouri, where she worked. Drinking at the bar that night was Christopher Revak.
He was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. But before he could go to trial, Revak, a Wisconsin native and former EMT, killed himself.
MORE MURDERS?
Cops believe Revak may be linked to as many as five murders over 14 years, including the disappearance of Huisentruit, whose body has never been found.
“When I started working on the Christopher Revak case, he was my suspect in the murder of Rene Williams,” Douglas County (Mo.) Sheriff Chris Degase told KY3. “I didn’t think it was his first go-around at it.
“We had his DNA at the scene. We had her DNA inside his truck. I think the biggest thing was that they weren’t able to find a body. They had no witnesses to come forward to say that she was dead.”
Degase said he began looking at similar crimes.
“Actually, shortly after his arrest, I Google searched ‘women abducted from bars’ in all the towns that he had lived in. And when I Google searched from Wisconsin Rapids, Deidre Harm came up,” Degase said, adding that the discovery prompted him to call Wisconsin detectives.
‘A DARK SIDE’
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said. “I called the authorities out there and gave them the information I had.”
Degase added: “We’re dealing with what’s possibly a serial killer. During his day, he’s doing his deed to society and helping people and saving people, but there was a dark side to Chris Revak.”
The disappearance of Huisentruit , a 27-year-old morning anchor for KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa, is one of the most vexing unsolved missing persons cases over the past three decades. Revak is a person of interest.
The bubbly blond vanished around 4 a.m. on June 27, 1995, after phoning a colleague to say she was on her way to work. She never arrived, and cops later discovered signs of a struggle outside her apartment. Huisentruit was declared dead in 2001.
A $50,000 reward remains in place for information leading to answers in Huisentruit’s disappearance. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Mason City Police Department or the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
@HunterTOSun
