Jury finds Tuinstra guilty of Berlin homicides
GREEN LAKE - A jury has found a 34-year-old Berlin man guilty of killing his estranged wife and her boyfriend.
It took jurors a little more than two hours to convict Nicholas D. Tuinstra shortly before 10 p.m. Monday in Green Lake County Circuit Court of two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of stalking resulting in bodily harm with a dangerous weapon, all as a domestic abuse incident, according to online court records.
Judge Mark Slate accepted the jury's verdict and convicted Tuinstra on all three counts and ordered a pre-sentence investigation.
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Prosecutors, led by Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Gary Freyberg, rested their case about noon Monday, with the jury breaking for lunch, according to online court records. Defense attorneys Linda Meier and Barb Privat then presented their case, calling only four witnesses to the stand before resting at 3:10 p.m. Both sides made closing statements about 5:45 p.m. before sending the case to the jury at 7:35 p.m.
The jury came back only once, about 9:30 p.m., to ask a question, before continuing to deliberate, according to online court records. The jury returned at 9:50 p.m. with a verdict.
Tuinstra was charged in the Sept. 27, 2014, shooting death of his estranged wife, Melissa Tuinstra, and her boyfriend, Justin Daniels, outside Melissa Tuinstra's second-floor apartment in downtown Berlin.
Prosecutors say Tuinstra meticulously stalked his wife for weeks before the shooting, bought a 9-millimeter semiautomatic Beretta pistol that matched the one used in the shooting, and previously threatened to kill Daniels.
Defense attorneys argued Tuinstra was distraught about his wife cheating on him and about the couple's subsequent divorce proceedings. He said something out of anger that he didn't mean, and there was no physical evidence to prove he committed the crimes, they said.
Reach Nathaniel Shuda at 920-426-6632 or nshuda@thenorthwestern.com; on Twitter: @onwnshuda.