If you have found this blog and read some of it from the beginning, you are familiar with the murder of Ada Senenfelder and the wrongful conviction of Jack Nissalke. After combing through dozens of old files I never posted on here, I have discovered some new facts from the police files they omitted to tell the jury and highlight several key points that give even more weight that Jack was framed for this cold case murder and the authorities knew it. In order to present this let us go back to when this started.
In the state of Minnesota, like many others, District Attorneys are elected. To keep these jobs, they covet arrests and convictions to prove to their constituents they are doing a good job by keeping the bad guys off the street. In 2006, Charles “Chuck” MacLean decided to conquer the unconquerable by solving the only unsolved murder in Winona, Minnesota’s modern history- the murder of one Ada Senenfelder. He got Spotlight On Crime to pony up $50,000 for information leading to solving this crime.
He got no takers.
MacLean doubled and tripled his efforts and sent teams of investigators door to door threatening anyone who knew the woman to give up their DNA to eliminate themselves as suspects. MacLean claimed publicly they had ground breaking new forensics and her murder would be solved any day now. The public was constantly reminded of the $50 grand. Sadly, memories did not age like fine wine and many connected to the case had died since 1985.
One of the numerous mistakes made was to ignore the decades of previous investigation of the crime. The FBI and the BCA both agreed that most leads led back to Bobby Fort along with the hands of Ed Bolstad. Since these men were dead, they wanted to pin this on the living, at any cost. Another mistake was to ignore the murders of similar cases in nearby counties. Minnesota is famous for unsolved murders. In 2012, Minneapolis, over a five year period, had 63 unsolved murders. In report blames the sheer number of murders with no help from the public due to mistrust of the police. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s there were several murders similar to Ada’s and all were unsolved. I will post more about these in a later post.
MacLean and his assistant, Tom Gort, became frustrated at the lack of interest to claim the reward. They became more aggressive and formed a new plan. They picked a name- Jack Willis Nissalke, and started suggesting to the interviewees that maybe he had something to do with it, as they kept up their crusade of DNA collecting. They also found a few weak links that were willing to reverse all their testimony of twenty years with what they would later tell the jury were “NEW MEMORIES”.
On the morning Jack was arrested, the police that came to his house would claim they were there to collect his DNA, nothing more. That was a lie. THEY ALREADY HAD JACK’S DNA.
In the plot to frame Jack, they had gathered his DNA without him knowing about it. The police had been watching his house for some time looking for a way to arrest him. I am still searching for page 2 of this report by Mike Swanson, but this page gives away enough of what was going on behind the scenes.
This is evidence of a plan to frame Jack. They secretly got his DNA and compared it to what was found at the crime scene. The test was disappointing, It only proved Jack smoked a cigarette at Ada’s house, along with several others. That’s all.
When they came to his house in the early morning hours, under the guise of getting his DNA, their plan was to attack his household, in hopes he would resist. It worked. When they first knocked down his wife on the floor, Jack was awakened from sleep and thought he was the victim of a home invasion. When he fought back, he was arrested and has been jailed ever since.
On Wednesday, I will post more of this wrongful arrest, conviction, and incarceration.
jacknissalkeisinnocent.wordpress.com 