Milwaukee woman charged in fatal shooting of romantic rival
Two women fighting over the same man had been separated before one of them used her permitted gun to shoot the second woman dead in the street, a new complaint charges.
Misti Krutchen, 37, of Milwaukee is charged with first-degree reckless homicide in the Nov. 11 incident.
According to the complaint: Elaina Rookard, 19, was driving to dinner with a friend and the friend’s son about 7:30 p.m. when Rookard saw the silver Jeep her boyfriend drives and followed it because she suspected he was with another woman. Both cars pulled over and stopped on North 11th Street, north of West Keefe Avenue. Rookard and the man each got out and began arguing.
Krutchen, who had been driving the Jeep, then got out and started fighting with Rookard. Both the boyfriend and Rookard’s friend tried to break up the fight, and the friend thought it was over when the two combatants did finally separate. But then Krutchen returned to the Jeep briefly before raising a gun and shooting Rookard in the head from less than two feet away.
When police arrived, Krutchen, who has had a state license to carry a concealed weapon since 2014, was standing on a porch with her hands up and said she had done it. Her .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun was on a nearby railing. Police recovered a single shell casing from the street.
“At various times during the investigation, the above-named defendant variously claimed that she was defending herself, that she was only firing a ‘warning shot,’ that the gun accidentally went off, and that she could not remember the shooting at all,” the complaint states.
The man in the middle of the confrontation had fled, according to the complaint.