UPDATE: Janesville police release name of woman killed in apparent homicide
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Officials re-enter a home in the 300 block of west Racine St. in Janesville, after removing the body of a female found dead inside on Saturday morning. The death is being investigated as a homicide.
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Rock County Coroner Jenifer Keach and officials remove the body of a woman from a home in the 300 block of Racine St. in Janesville on Saturday morning. Police are calling it a murder investigation.
JANESVILLE — Michael Buggs said when the teenage daughters of Traci Moyer were knocking on neighbors’ doors at about 2 a.m. Saturday, he knew something wasn’t right.
He said the girls were telling neighbors in the Fourth Ward that their 46-year-old mother had been missing for hours Friday night, and they couldn’t get into the house next door, where Moyer’s estranged husband, Krystofer Carlisle, lives.
According to Buggs, Moyer’s car still was running in the driveway at Carlisle’s house at 315 W. Racine St., and her cellphone was in the car, ringing.
“I knew in my gut that something drastically wrong had happened,” Buggs told The Gazette on Saturday morning.
Janesville police reported that when they called on Carlisle’s blue, two-story house at 3 a.m. Saturday to check on Moyer, they forced open a door and found Moyer inside, dead. Carlisle was in the house, too, and was in “medical distress,” police reported.
Police believe Moyer was killed, and they are investigating her death as a homicide, although they have not made an arrest in the case, police said.
According to reports, Carlisle, 54, was rushed to Mercy Hospital and Trauma Center, Janesville, early Saturday, where he was listed in critical condition late Saturday, according to a hospital nurse supervisor. The extent of his medical issues was unknown.
Police have not said whether Carlisle is suspected to be involved in Moyer’s death.
“That’s one of the things we’re investigating, but we don’t know anything at this point,” Davis said.
Davis said the public should not be concerned about the safety threat of a suspect on the loose.
“We’re perfectly confident that the public is not in any danger,” he said.
As of late Saturday, police had not yet spoken with Carlisle about his wife’s death, Davis said. Police have not said whether they found any weapons at the house, and they have not given a cause or an estimated time of death for Moyer.
An autopsy for Moyer is planned for today, according to a news release from Janesville police. Police said no more information will be released until after the autopsy.
On Saturday morning, investigators and coroner’s officials were in and out of Carlisle’s house, and a Rock County coroner’s van was parked at the property with police lines cordoning off the yard.
A Gazette reporter and photographer on scene shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday witnessed officials wheeling out a gurney with a body covered by a sheet.
Buggs and other neighbors milled around the crime scene, telling a Gazette reporter what little details they knew about Moyer’s last hours and last days.
One neighbor, Terry McWilliam, said he had learned from people who work with Moyer at a Walworth factory that she never showed up for work on third shift Friday night.
Online court records show that in November, Moyer filed court papers in Rock County Court to divorce Carlisle.
It’s not clear why Moyer was at Carlisle’s house, but Davis confirmed she had not been living there. Her current address was unknown late Saturday.
He said no one else but Moyer and Carlisle were in the house when police arrived, and police were still trying to learn why Moyer was at the house.
Buggs said people in the neighborhood knew Moyer planned to divorce Carlisle, and she and her daughters had moved out of Carlisle’s house and into another residence in Janesville.
He said Moyer would show up occasionally to give Carlisle car rides, possibly because Carlisle didn’t have a driver’s license.
“She’d take him to the grocery store and stuff,” Buggs said.
Buggs said he remembers police coming to Carlisle’s house a few times in the past year but he couldn’t say why.
Davis said there was no history of past problems at Carlisle’s house, according to police records.
Online court records show that in 2010 Carlisle had his name legally changed from Thomas Moyer II.
A Facebook page matching Carlisle’s name shows he had at one time resided in Kansas City, Mo., and Amboy, Ill.
