Our lantern will be lit from July 7th to July 14th for an unnamed baby and an unnamed man...

Lantern Project: Since October 2013, Hope House has joined with other domestic violence programs around the state by implementing the Lantern Project. For our part in this statewide project, we added to the lamppost in front of Hope House a purple wreath. We will turn on the light for a week every time there is a death related to domestic violence in Wisconsin. We will post information online about the person(s) that was killed. If you drive by our building and see our lamppost on, please reflect on the deadly impact that domestic violence has on our communities. We know the list of stories we post here is incomplete. We strive to learn about and share these stories but know that there are some that we and the media miss. If you see a news story of a death in WI related to domestic violence and don't see it posted here, please feel free to let us know about it here. Thank you.

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June 20th, 2020: Unnamed Baby – Age 6 Months 

PLOVER – Police arrested a 34-year-old man Monday on suspicion of first-degree reckless homicide in the June 20 death of a 6-month-old child. Meyer Willkom of Plover appeared Tuesday in Portage County Circuit Court, where Judge Thomas Flugaur set a $50,000 cash bond and ordered Willkom to have no contact with the child’s mother and no unsupervised contact with children.
Police are asking Portage County prosecutors to charge Willkom with first-degree reckless homicide in connection to the death of the child, for whom he was caring. District Attorney Michael Zell said a doctor who examined the baby said the child suffered a subdural hemorrhage, consistent with a head injury and shaken baby syndrome. Willkom was watching his girlfriend’s child, of whom he is not the father, when the child died, according to Plover police. A cause of death has not been determined, but police said it was not natural causes.

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July, 1st 2020: Unnamed Man, Age 25

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) -A 22-year-old Madison woman was arrested after police say she shot her ex-boyfriend Wednesday afternoon. Madison police say while they were investigating the shooting on East Bluff, the woman approached them saying she was responsible for the gunfire. She says she recently broke up with her 25-year-old boyfriend and he followed her car Wednesday.
After she pulled into a parking lot on East Bluff, she says he got out of the car and they got into an argument. She said he was trying to get into her car when she shot him.
Police said she drove away and the victim ended up back in the car he followed her in. They said there was at least one other person in the car with him. They said the driver stopped on the 400 block of North Sherman Avenue and tried to find medical help. The woman was arrested for first-degree reckless homicide.