Town note
The town was first called the Corners.
about 0:06:56Spoilers are covered until your reading preferences load.
FILE 389 / 18 May 2023 / 161 MIN / full
This is in southwestern Wisconsin, about a half hour outside Madison, in Dane County, area code 608. about 0:05:57
The town was first called the Corners.
about 0:06:56It was then renamed Horub's Corner.
about 0:07:02It was eventually called Mount Horub.
about 0:07:21It had a large Norwegian population, either from Norway or of Norwegian descent.
about 0:07:26The town was first called the Corners.
about 0:06:56It was then renamed Horub's Corner.
about 0:07:02It was eventually called Mount Horub.
about 0:07:21It had a large Norwegian population, either from Norway or of Norwegian descent.
about 0:07:26In 1856 Osten Olsen Haugan and his family, who had emigrated from Norway, established a 40-acre farmstead near Blue Mounds.
about 0:08:31The farmstead was called Nissedal, which in Norwegian translates to Valley of the Elves.
about 0:09:01In the 1980s, as part of an effort to celebrate Norwegian heritage and draw people off the new highway, the town declared itself the troll capital of the world.
about 0:09:09In Norwegian folklore trolls are said to be about the size of, if not smaller than, humans, with ugly faces, stout bodies and tails.
about 0:09:43Residents have incorporated painted, sculpted and chainsaw-carved trolls throughout the village.
about 0:10:19Main Street is called the Trollway.
about 0:10:35Each of the forty trolls in Mount Horeb has its own identity, such as the chicken thief, the accordion player and Sweet Swill, the drunk troll.
about 0:10:38The Trollway was the Chamber of Commerce's attempt to draw traffic from the nearby highway into the centre of town to promote businesses.
about 0:10:5146.7%
Biggest faith: Lutheran, 12.4%
about 0:15:23Property crime
▲ a little more than half, almost half
Violent crime
▼ about one-third
Two-bedroom, two-bath house, 1,424 square feet
about 0:17:40Two-bedroom, two-bath house, 1,202 square feet
about 0:18:40Three-bedroom, five-bath house, 3,824 square feet on 11.48 acres
about 0:19:26"7,727 people"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:14:24
"about 53% male"
Comparison: "more male than female, by a lot". No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:14:33
"about 38"
Comparison: "about average". Direction: about the same.
As told in 2023 about 0:14:47
"55%"
Comparison: "way more than the normal". Direction: above.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:00
"93.9% white"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:08
"1.3% black"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:08
"0.2% Asian"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:08
"2.1% Hispanic"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:08
"46.7%"
Comparison: "just below the national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:23
"dominant"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:29
"12.4%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:29
"0.6%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:34
"75.5% Democratic"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:40
"22.9% Republican"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:40
"1.7% independent"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:40
"about half"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:56
"$63,634"
Comparison: "a little bit higher than the national average". Direction: above.
As told in 2023 about 0:16:12
"104"
Comparison: "the average is 100". Direction: above.
As told in 2023 about 0:16:24
"$371,200"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:16:29
"about $1,270"
Comparison: "just about the national average, maybe a little above". Direction: about the same.
As told in 2023 about 0:17:05
"$335,000"
Comparison: "just under the average house price here". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:17:40
"$405,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:18:40
"$1,100,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:19:26
"a little more than half, almost half"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: above.
As told in 2023 about 0:23:38
"about one-third"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:23:47
4.5 / 5 · average of 4
“Couldn't imagine a better place to raise children: wide welcoming streets, a bike trail through town, endless parks, a school district with endless opportunities and a Culver's.”about 0:11:43
“A vibrant main street with thriving local shops and restaurants for every niche, and carved wooden trolls more welcoming than they look.”about 0:12:33
“We are the town of trolls; restaurants have great quality food in ideal locations, everyone is nice and welcoming to newcomers, and it is in a great location outside Madison.”about 0:12:45
“A bit of a drinking culture; a small town that seems sweet on the outside but where everyone gossips about everyone else's business, though there are still quite a few very good people, beautiful parks and the Military Ridge running through it.”about 0:13:19
Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, is a village of 7,727 people in Dane County, about half an hour from Madison. It began as the Corners, became Horub's Corner and then Mount Horeb, and it carries a large Norwegian heritage: in 1856 Osten Olsen Haugan and his family, emigrants from Norway, established a forty-acre farmstead called Nissedal, Norwegian for Valley of the Elves, near Blue Mounds. In the 1980s the village began calling itself the troll capital of the world and lined Main Street, the Trollway, with painted, sculpted and chainsaw-carved trolls to pull traffic off the highway.
Dorothy Weiss was born in 1936 and grew up in Orangeville, where she played golf. They had four children, Jackie, Terry, John and Jo-Reen.
The marriage was violent. Dorothy told a psychiatrist, Dr Maric J. Hahn, in sessions between January and June 1981 that she lived in fear of her husband, that he drank all day and became violent when drunk, and that she worried he might turn on the children, especially John. Neighbours across the street heard arguments that began around midnight and ran until three or four in the morning. On 19 March 1981 Dorothy ran to Jackie's apartment at one in the morning and said her father would kill her if she did not get out; she spent that night in a motel.
On 16 November 1981 the couple visited their friend David Flom. Dorothy met Ann Erickson at the Viking Bowl and they went round several bars. He said he got up at 2.20 a.m., cleaned the kitchen, noticed his favourite serrated steak knife was missing, read, and went back to bed before rising at 4.30 to go to the cheese factory. John, seventeen, said he was woken between two and three by a single dull scream from the basement. He did not get up, thinking it was none of his business, and said nothing about it until the police asked. Jo-Reen, thirteen, heard nothing. John and Jo-Reen left for school about eight; Dorothy failed to keep an 8.30 hair appointment she had made herself the previous afternoon, and the hairdresser and a clinic receptionist called the house through the day without an answer.
At six that evening John went down to the basement and found his mother. My wife is downstairs dead. She's stiff as a board." She had been dead for hours. The pathologist, Dr Billy Bauman, found her throat cut from ear to ear to the vertebrae, with thirty-three stab and cut wounds to the upper chest, a dozen to twenty slash wounds on the neck, defensive wounds on both hands, and a deep sawing groove in a vertebra that matched a dull, serrated, white-handled kitchen knife found partly under her right arm. He said it had been on the kitchen counter when he left for the game and was gone when he cleaned the kitchen at 2.20.
The defence built its case on an unknown intruder. A stranger had called at Jackie and Lester's apartment, two doors away, at seven in the evening on 12 and 16 November asking for a blond woman; Dorothy had dyed her hair blond in September 1980. Friends said she used marijuana, amphetamines and cocaine and had fallen out with someone in the drug trade.
The judge found probable cause. The state's case was wholly circumstantial.
The court cited the closeness of the case. In May 1986 the Pardon Advisory Board heard his application, backed by 64 letters and a petition with 391 signatures; it recommended against a pardon. He died on 20 April 2019, aged 87, at the VA Hospital in Madison; per his request there were no services.
November 17, 1981 / her home, Henry Street, Mount Horeb, Wisconsin
As told in the episode, on 18 May 2023.
Accused
1952 / Weiss's farm, Wisconsin
Public places are marked on the map.
crime scene
about 0:25:01home
about 1:20:25home
about 1:06:58business
about 1:04:27business
about 0:47:27business
about 0:43:56school
about 0:37:11landmark
about 0:10:35landmark
about 0:21:24landmark
about 0:14:06business
about 0:12:16business
about 1:45:59business
about 1:46:15business
about 1:36:56police
about 1:41:18hospital
about 2:25:20other
about 0:38:04business
about 0:39:31