Witnesses describe Zocco behaving oddly
Victim’s mom: Defendant asked for security footage
In the days after Kelly Dwyer disappeared, her sometime boyfriend Kris Zocco behaved oddly, witnesses testified at his trial for Dwyer’s 2013 death and disappearance.
Kelly Dwyer’s mother, Maureen Dwyer, told jurors that as she, her sister-in-law and Kelly’s friends were looking at security camera footage at Zocco’s east side Milwaukee apartment building, he appeared and asked specifically to look at the views of the garage, to see himself driving out Friday morning by himself.
She said she knew Kelly, 27, had been seeing Zocco about a year, but had not met him until after she went missing Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013. He joined her and Kelly’s friends and co-workers the next day at Lululemon, the Third Ward athletic apparel store where she worked, to make fliers, distribute them and speak to the news media for help in looking for Kelly Dwyer.
“What was his demeanor like?” asked Assistant District Attorney Sara Hill.
Maureen Dwyer paused and momentarily glanced down.
“It’s hard to characterize in hindsight because now I know what I know.”
Zocco, 43, is on trial, charged with first-degree reckless homicide, hiding a corpse and strangulation. Prosecutors believe he suffocated Dwyer during asphyxiation sex, then sneaked her body out of his building in a golf club travel bag and hid it in rural Jefferson County, where her remains were found 19 months later. Last year, Zocco was charged in her death.
Co-workers from Lululemon described Dwyer as a positive, upbeat person who loved her job and the “yoga lifestyle,” who used her phone constantly and got around by bus, bicycle or on foot. Some had seen Zocco briefly visit the store and one said Dwyer had introduced him to her at the store, but none said they had ever socialized with the couple.
“Kelly was one of the most joyous people I’d ever met,” said Tamara Arbeli, a co-worker. She said Dwyer did seem reluctant to discuss bruises Arbeli noticed on Dwyer’s wrists and neck, brushing an inquiry aside with a chuckle and remark about “a crazy night.”
Milwaukee police Detective Tammy TramelMcClain testified that when she asked Zocco to talk on Monday, two days after Dwyer hadn’t shown up for work, he invited her to his apartment, and let officers look around there and in his car. At that time, he was not yet a suspect; police were focused on finding Dwyer.
She said Zocco said he spent Friday working from home after Dwyer left his apartment about 9 a.m. after a night of clubbing, drugs and sex — a typical routine for the non-exclusive couple. He said he then drove some sports equipment to his parents’ home in Richfield about 6:30 p.m., noting, without being asked, very specific routes he drove there and back.
Tramel-McClain said Zocco also told her that he had given up cocaine but started using it again when he met Dwyer, and that they got the drug from her source. She was immature, he thought, and not interested in settling down with anyone or having children. Zocco also told the detective Dwyer was planning to have her ovaries removed.
She also testified she saw golf clubs in Zocco’s apartment, even though he had told her golf equipment was among the seasonal sports equipment he had taken to his mother’s house three nights earlier. Zocco’s attorney asked Tramel-McClain if she knew how many sets of clubs Zocco owned; she did not.