Two unsolved murders near campus with startling similarities? Blame the homeless. And why?

Because Google Maps — in the hands of the inquisitive — is a damning device.

The unsolved murders of both Brittany Zimmermann and Joel Marino are being called “stranger murders” in which, as you may have guessed, a stranger seems the most likely culprit. Such crimes are harder to solve, and leads are far more difficult to come by than in your average crime in which a person who knows the victim emerges as a suspect.

However, any individual Internet-savvy enough to wield Google Maps effectively can produce a lead in the investigation of those unsolved murders. Search for “Joel Marino” and “2008 murder” in Madison, WI. Upon the digital map of the isthmus, a small, red-hued balloon will indicate a location. A search for both victims and the eerie proximity of their deaths cannot escape notice. Look more carefully, and one will notice that the locations flank — Marino to the southwest and Zimmermann to the northeast — a modestly sized, green expanse titled “Brittingham Park.” Upon discovering such, one has effectively found the thread that may link the one to the other.

And what is so special about Brittingham Park? How can its location, positioned neatly between the two murders, offer investigators insight into the possible identity of a murderer or murderers? The park, located just a few miles southeast from the Kohl Center and practically across the street from Meriter Hospital, is a veritable ground zero for Madison’s homeless endemic: a place of respite for the worst of Madison’s ill-behaved “transients.”

In appraising two cases that bear striking similarities — both were bereft of any obvious motive, at similar times of day, in the victims’ own homes — one cannot help but wonder if the stranger in these “stranger murders” was some transient who ventured out from Brittingham Park with too little reason in his head and too much violence in his heart.

The proximity of a recognized transient hangout and the two murders was far too obvious to be noted first by a curious op-ed writer at The Badger Herald. The Madison Police Department has been earnestly pursuing information within the so-called “transient population” of Madison since shortly after the Zimmermann murder was discovered. City officials from Mayor Dave Cieslewicz to City Council President Mike Verveer have been hearing dubious aspersions heaped upon Madison’s population of transients.

You know it. I know it. Messrs. Cieslewicz and Verveer know it. Madison has a homeless problem, and it just turned deadly.

Madison has faced this issue of homeless transients for years, but with a handful of unsolved murders over the past few months and years, Madison’s frustratingly annoying homeless population is being recast as a very serious threat to the safety of Madison’s residents.

It’s why the city of Madison is spending tens of thousands of dollars on extra lighting and cameras for Brittingham Park; it’s why the MPD has engaged in the winnowing and sifting of area transients. It’s why, in a matter of a week, as The Associated Press reports, a “couple dozen” transients have been arrested on outstanding warrants. It’s why the bad-smelling, ill-dressed guy in Five Guys trying to sell you that watch out of his coat isn’t just amusing, frustrating, scary or some combination thereof. He is, until the monster that killed Brittany is brought to justice, a very serious threat.

As Mr. Cieslewicz noted to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the homeless population of Madison “ebbs and flows, and right now, it seems to be flowing.” Spring has ushered in with it the seasonal influx of the Madison homeless. This spring, however, they are recast as panhandling, bad-smelling threats to our security.

The problem will persist. With the area around the Capitol serving as a veritable homeless hostel, and a friendly and generous student population to provide it sustenance, the transient issue is an issue of our own making. And it is one that is here to stay, to fester and frighten.

What is the solution? Is it lighter in Brittingham Park? Is it a crackdown on Madison transients? Do we take a page from Atlanta and Salt Lake’s books, and simply bus the homeless away, as the two cities did before their respective hosting of the Olympic Games? Do we fear them, hate them, ignore them or feed them? Do we blame them, as we seem to be doing even now?

Whatever it is we do, we must realize that, in the end, it was one man or one woman who killed Brittany Zimmermann. It was one man, or one woman, who killed Joel Marino. It was a person, not a population. So blame the homeless, if you so please. But know, that in doing so, you implicate an entire population that cannot be collectively guilty of the crime you charge them of.  

Gerald Cox ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in economics.