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Suspect arrested in 1980 Wis. double homicide

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A man was arrested Thursday in connection to the 1980 slayings of two high school sweethearts in a case that has long haunted their southeastern Wisconsin community.

Edward W. Edwards was being held in Louisville, Ky., according to a statement released just before midnight by Wisconsin's attorney general and Jefferson County sheriff. He was arrested in connection to the deaths of Tim Hack and Kelly Drew, who were both 19 when they vanished after leaving a wedding reception in August 1980.

Information about Edwards' possible connection to the case was not provided. Messages left Thursday night with Louisville police and the Jefferson County district attorney weren't returned. Edwards wasn't listed as an inmate in Kentucky Department of Corrections online records.

Hack and Drew were reported missing when they didn't return home the morning after a wedding reception in Sullivan, a town about 40 miles west of Milwaukee. A 72-day search ensued as investigators slowly found pieces of the couple's clothing strewn in ditches. Hunters found the bodies in the woods east of Watertown, about 16 miles south, but they were so decomposed that a cause of death couldn't be determined.

No weapons were ever found and no suspects were ever identified.

The killings have haunted Jefferson County for the last three decades.

Hack, who was active in Future Farmers of America, and Drew, who had just finished beauty school, were last seen Aug. 9, 1980. Friends said they saw the couple leave the Concord House, where the reception was held, around 11 p.m.

When the pair wasn't home by the next morning, Drew's brother drove to the house and discovered Hack's 1977 Oldsmobile in the parking lot. The car was still locked with Hack's jacket, checkbook and wallet with $67 still inside.

Volunteers scoured the area on foot and horseback. Authorities searched by plane and helicopter. The search went on for more than two months.

Slowly, the searchers began to find the couple's clothes, strewn in ditches. A pair of squirrel hunters finally found the bodies on Oct. 19 in a spot in the woods east of Watertown popular with young lovers. The badly decomposed bodies were nearly 70 feet apart.

Six hundred people attended the couple's joint funeral. They were buried together in the Hebron Cemetery. Their grave is marked by a headstone that reads "kidnapped and slain."

Theories still abound about what happened to the couple. Hack's mother, Pat Hack, said in an interview The Associated Press ran in August 2000 that she thinks more than one person killed the couple and at least one of the killers knew the isolated area well.

Jefferson County detectives resubmitted evidence to the state crime lab in 2007.