An arrest on a murder charge, nearly 50 years in the making, was conducted in Michigan by 11 agents from the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation, and the Sturgeon Bay Police Department Thursday. Richard Gale Pierce was taken into custody in connection with the death of Carol Jean Pierce who was reported missing in Sturgeon Bay in September of 1975. The criminal complaint alleges that Carol Jean Pierce, then 35, was murdered by Richard Pierce, her then husband. Pierce, a member of the US Coast Guard at the time, told law enforcement that he last saw his wife on the morning of September 8th, of 1975. He said, when he returned home that afternoon, she was gone. However, the complaint points to the fact that he was the last person to see her alive, had motive and opportunity to take her life, and, benefited from her death in numerous ways, including a pension unencumbered by a wife, most of the important belongings of their marriage, land and a home in Michigan, a new girlfriend just weeks after his wife’s disappearance, as well as the benefit of her silence. Richard Gale Pierce is currently being held in the Cheboygan County Jail in Michigan until he is returned to Wisconsin.
