Two murder cases competed for attention, 23 years ago

In June of 1994, O.J. Simpson was arrested for a double murder after the infamous “white Bronco” chase in California.  The Simpson case broke the same week that a triple-murder trial began in La Crosse for James Frydenlund, a Twin Cities man accused of killing his estranged wife, Suzzette, and her parents, Leroy and Celia Weibel, at the Weibel’s trailer home east of La Crosse.  The slayings happened in the fall of 1992.  Prosecutors theorized that Frydenlund drove from Minneapolis to La Crosse late at night, committed the murders, and drove back home so neighbors would see him at his house the next morning.  One La Crosse TV station interrupted news coverage of Simpson in court to air the live jury verdict in the Frydenlund trial…not guilty.  Twin Cities defense attorney Earl Gray lists the Frydenlund trial as one of his courtroom victories.  Gray was on the defense team that recently won an acquittal for Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez in a fatal shooting. 
 
The New Orleans Saints were practicing at UW-L for the seventh straight year in 1994.  Later that year, the football team announced that it would keep the summer training camp in La Crosse for another five years…but as it turned out, that extension would be the last one.  The Saints went back south for their training after the 1999 season. 
 
And Jack and Janet Miller were named Commodore and First Mate for the 1994 Riverfest…23 years ago, Yesterday in La Crosse.