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"A break in a Wisconsin murder-mystery from 24 years ago is sparking new hope for unsolved homicides across the Midwest.The case of Berit Beck dates back to July 1990. Beck was headed to a computer class in Appleton\u00A0one month after her high school graduation from Racine Case. She made it to Fond du Lac, but then was missing for six weeks until a farmer discovered her body near Waupun.Beck was one of hundreds of women who were abducted, murdered or discovered near U.S. highways over the last few decades. The pattern prompted the FBI's Serial Killings Initiative, which helped connect the dots in similar cases that were separated by time or distance.Officials said the initiative has resulted in at least 10 arrests that were connected to 30 homicides.Last month, investigators applied new forensic testing on evidence taken from Beck's 1990 case and were able to identify a suspect.The testing helped to link Kenosha truck driver Dennis Brantner, 60, to Beck's killing.\u00A0Fond du Lac County Sheriff Mick Fink said Brantner lived near Fond du Lac at the time of the murder, and court records show he had a history of stalking and violence against women, including a kidnapping arrest four years after Beck's death.\"I'm real comfortable with what we have from the crime lab with our suspect in that van that he has something to do with this girl's death,\" Fink said.\u00A0Fond du Lac County Sheriff Lt. Cameron McGee said the new developments in the Beck case have prompted interest from investigators in 14 other unsolved cases from Arizona to Iowa to Ohio, including that of Tammy Zywicki, another college-bound blonde.Two years after Beck's killing, Zywicki was driving to college in Iowa when her car broke down on Interstate 80 in Illinois. Witnesses saw her near her car. A man and a big rig stopped nearby. Zywicki's body was found later along Interstate 44 in rural Missouri; she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed.\u00A0Detectives working those 14 cases are now comparing their forensic evidence to Brantner.Fink said he is personally working on the case along with members of the FBI and other detectives who said they are closing the circle on their suspect.Brantner remains a free man and now lives near Beck's parents in Racine County.WISN 12 News found Brantner at his Kenosha home this week, but he declined to answer the door.\u00A0\"He's known for a long time that we're here, that he's this close to us,\" Diane Beck said. \"I need him to sit down and talk to us.\"Diane Beck said she's concerned that her daughter may not have been the only victim.\"That's what I'm afraid of,\" she said. \"And were they before Berit or have they been since Berit?\"Regardless of the answer, McGee said police will not stop until Berit Beck's killer is brought to justice.\"We are going to continue to search for the truth,\" he said. \"We're going to keep coming and coming and coming and we are not going to stop.\"Laurie Depies, another young blonde who disappeared two years after Berit Beck just 30 miles north of where Beck disappeared has never been found.Wisconsin's Department of Justice doesn't comment on open cases, but Brantner's DNA is at its crime lab. \u00A0WISN 12 News reporter Colleen Henry said she expects that it has been compared to Depies evidence.\u00A0\u00A0"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.wisn.com/article/evidence-testing-in-berit-beck-murder-prompts-interest-in-other-midwest-cases/6321305>