Bernard Fonder, a 49-year-old White man, was killed inside his Milwaukee, Wisconsin, home on March 3, 1980. He was found dead on his bed after suffering several blows to the head. In the months before the killing Fonder had trouble with a former roommate who reportedly had beaten him the previous December; Fonder had forced the man to move out and days before his death left his downstairs neighbors a note with that former roommate’s name and address, instructing them to give it to police if anything happened to him.

Investigators initially charged the former roommate after Fonder’s murder, but fingerprints recovered at the scene did not match him and he was released. Fonder’s death was later linked to a string of Milwaukee home-invasion killings from July 1979 to April 1980. After David Allen Van Dyke was arrested on May 23, 1980, fingerprints tied him to the murder scenes. He confessed after questioning, was charged with six counts of first-degree murder including Fonder’s death, and in February 1981 was convicted and sentenced to multiple life terms.