A retired Wisconsin judge was zip-tied to a chair, and shot in his home on Friday in what the state attorney general called a targeted attack.
Juneau County Sheriff’s Office received a call at 6:30 a.m. about shots fired inside the home of 68-year-old John “Jack” Roemer, a retired circuit court judge. A four hour negotiation with a suspect inside the home stalled and a tactical team entered the home to find Roemer deceased and the suspect in the basement with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The suspect was identified as Douglas K. Uhde, 56, and was taken to a medical facility where he remains in critical condition.
Wisconsin court records show that Roemer was involved in Uhde’s sentencing for a 2002 criminal conviction. In 2005, he sentenced Uhde to six years in state prison and nine years extended supervision for armed burglary, a felony, with concurrent sentences for three lesser counts. Uhde had pleaded no contest to the charges.
A hit list with over a dozen names found inside the suspect’s car at the scene included Roemer, Mitch McConnell, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, as well as Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers. Several names on the list also appear to be tied to Uhde’s armed burglary case, court records show.
Meet Douglas K. Uhde
Douglas Uhde, 56, had multiple Facebook pages with photos of cats and trucks, as well as some political posts.
A man who lives at the Saint Helen, Michigan, home that comes up as Uhde’s last address in online records said that Uhde left there about four years ago after he got in a car accident and had his probation revoked as a result.
While Uhde lived in Michigan, the man said he worked in “some factory up here,” and understood Uhde was going to live with some family.
Uhde had moved to Michigan when he got out of prison. The man described Uhde as a “pretty lonely dude” without kids or wife, who had “never had a long-term relationship.” He thought that was largely because Uhde was “in prison for a long time,” into his 50s. “He was very alone,” he said.
When asked if Uhde was in a militia, the man said Uhde “knew how to hunt, fish, make a fire” but that he did not see him do anything “really militia-related.”
“He’s a Trump supporter. He was an obvious Republican,” the man said. Told that Uhde was a suspect in the murder of a judge, the man said that lots of people have anger at politicians because “there is nobody to hold them accountable. People are pushed to the extremes. Anyone educated on it, understands it.” He volunteered that “an armed society is a polite society” and said that “any red blooded American” understands that “we have a failed system.”
“A gun is not the problem. It’s the person,” he said.
Uhde had an extensive criminal history in Wisconsin and Texas. Uhde was born in Indiana, but was raised in Michigan and also had family “down South,” according to the man at the Saint Helen address.