Cold Case Murder Suspect Returned From Florida to Wisconsin

A Florida man is in custody in connection with a 40-year-old cold murder case in Wisconsin.  Seventy-eight-year-old John Bayerl was arrested in Fort Myers, Florida on a first-degree murder charge in the death of his wife Dona Mae Bayerl in 1979.  Bayerl reported his wife missing and claimed she left home following an argument and never came back.  Dona was 38 at the time of her disappearance and family and friends said she would never leave her seven- and four-year-old daughters.  Dona Mae was declared dead in 1986. The case may have run cold but it was never closed. It began as a missing person case and eventually was re-classified as a homicide, with John Bayerl as a person of interest. Bayerl has been transferred back to Wisconsin and is being held in the Waukesha County Jail.