News

Detectives probing 2017 death of poison-murder defendant's husband

Elroy A. Lund Jr. and Linda Casper-Leinenkugel married in March 2017. Photo of Casper-Leinenkugel is from 2016.

By Bill Moss, Published: March 30, 2026

Elroy Albert Lund Jr. had had his troubles. When he became ill and lost his home more than 10 years ago, his friend Gene Caturia took him in.

“Elroy went through some hard times here,” Caturia said in an interview with the Hendersonville Lightning on Friday. “He got sick and then he turned everything over to his daughter, and that’s when they sold his place out from underneath him, and we let him live with us. The day that he got kicked out, he didn’t have no place to go.”

Elroy got back on his feet, began dating a woman named Linda Casper — 28 years younger than his age — and married her in March 2017. Two months later, Lund died at his home at the age of 72. Not so unusual a death, given that Lund had experienced some health problems. But now, sheriff’s detectives in Sawyer County are investigating whether Lund may have died of other than natural causes. Casper is charged with two poisoning murders in Henderson County — one in 2007 and the other this past Dec. 1.

A Henderson County grand jury indicted Casper, who changed her name to Gudrun Linda Jean Casper-Leinenkugel in October 2004, on one charge of murder in the death of her daughter, Leela Jean Livis, and two counts of attempted murder of another daughter, Maija Lacey, and Maija’s boyfriend, Evan Pegg. Investigators say all three drank wine laced with acetonitrile, an industrial solvent that slowly converts to cyanide in the body, during a Thanksgiving weekend dinner on Nov. 30 at Casper-Leinenkugel’s home in the Big Willow community of Henderson County.

Casper-Leinenkugel is also charged with murder in the death of Michael Schmidt in October 2007, who investigators say died of “acute acetonitrile toxicity,” the same poison that killed Leela Livis.

Casper-Leinenkugel, 53, remains in jail without bond in Henderson County awaiting trial. Her next court appearance is scheduled for next month.

The folks in Exeland, Wisconsin, will be watching for news from the trial of the woman they know as Linda Casper.

‘Definitely somebody that I didn’t know’

Caturia, owner of a cozy bar called the Rock Castle in the small town of Exeland, said in a telephone interview that he and his wife, Laura, had known Elroy Lund and Linda Casper for 20 years. Elroy was a regular at the Rock Castle, always drank Old Milwaukee in a can, loved to talk about cars.

“Me and my wife stood up for him at their wedding,” he said of Elroy and Linda’s marriage. “I was very good friends with him. They’re still investigating Elroy’s death. I don’t know if they can pin that on her or not. I really don’t know what they know for sure. I just talked to a detective last night from Sawyer County. She can only tell me so much.” 

Amanda Dantzman, the Sawyer County sheriff’s detective who interviewed Caturia on March 26, confirmed the investigation in a brief phone conversation on Monday.

“I can’t comment because it’s an open investigation,” she said. “That’s all I can say.”

Sawyer County Sheriff Doug Mrotek did not return the Lightning’s voicemail messages seeking comment on the case.

Henderson County Sheriff Lowell Griffin said last week that he knew detectives assigned to the Casper-Leinenkugel case were aware of the Wisconsin investigation.

Casper-Leinenkugel’s defense attorney, Paul Bidwell of Asheville, said he had seen nothing that implicated his client in the Lightning’s account of Lund’s death.

“Unfortunately, it just kind of adds a whole lot of speculation about this poor woman,” he said. “There’s no allegation against her regarding anything associated with the death of that man. There’s no reason to believe that she has anything to do with anything untoward there.”

Caturia, 65, said that since news of Linda Casper’s arrest circulated, townspeople have expressed shock. They don’t know why she changed her name and they knew little of her North Carolina background — she had lived in Henderson County before marrying Elroy Lund and moved back sometime after he died.

“Somebody from up here knows the Leinenkugels (the family that owns the Wisconsin-based brewery that distributes its beer nationally). They have no idea who she is,” Caturia said. “It’s just mind boggling is what it is. As for Linda — she’s definitely somebody that I didn’t know. She never showed no sign of hate towards anybody up here. She always thought very highly of me and my wife. Every time she was around us, she acted like she loved him very much. That’s the part that I don’t get. I’d sure like to find out if she really did poison him.”

‘Don’t bother Elroy’

A volunteer firefighter, Caturia responded to the emergency call on his scanner on the afternoon of the day Lund died.

“I guess I was one of the first ones there, because I’m not too far from where he lived — only a couple miles — and he was laying on the couch just like he was sleeping,” he said.

Was there any sign that Lund died of anything other than natural causes?

“No, not to me,” Caturia said. “But I never give it a thought. Where he was living, he was drinking beer with the guy that he rents from the day before he died. He must not have been feeling too bad.”

There was one thing about that day that seemed unusual, in hindsight.

That morning, Casper went next door to the home of her neighbor, a man named Dave.

“She come over and told Dave, ‘Don’t bother Elroy this morning, because he’s not feeling good.’ And she was going to go to town to get him some chicken, because he wanted chicken. And when I got there, she was standing there crying and whatnot,” Caturia said.

Asked whether it seemed suspicious that Casper made a point of telling the next door neighbor to stay away, Caturia responded, “That’s the first thing we thought of — because Dave said that she’d never done that any other time.”

The obituary, too, seemed a little unusual in how directly it described Lund’s death, in the first sentence: “Elroy Albert Lund Jr., 72, of Exeland, died in his sleep from natural causes on Wednesday, May 10, 2017, at his home.”

Loved antique cars, played accordion

Born on March 12, 1945 in Chicago Heights, Illinois, Lund “was well known for his many interests and talents in the northern Wisconsin area,” his obituary said.

He was survived by “his beloved wife, Linda,” a daughter and four grandchildren and his step-daughters, Maija Lacey and Leela Livis, Linda’s daughters. He was also survived by four younger brothers.

After graduating from high school, Lund served in the U.S. Army National Guard, from 1963 to 1966, and then the Army Reserves, from 1966 to 1971. “He was active in the National Guard Band where he had the honor of playing for the funeral of President John Kennedy, and was a mechanic for the motor pool,” the obituary said.

Around 1973, Lund started a dairy farm in Exeland. When the economy caused the farm to falter, he went to work selling chemicals for two large corporations, then formed his own company, Northwoods Chemicals. He was entrepreneurial, starting and operating a car and truck show on his farm while selling tires, parts, cars and trucks on the side. He played in bands. “Even in his 70s, Elroy still played music and was well known for his skill on the button accordion, which he loved,” the obit said.

“He had a lot of stuff,” Caturia said. “He was into cars. He had a lot of model cars — hundreds of them — these little metal diecast cars. He had three big pole sheds that were full of cars.”

‘She has his ashes’

Linda Casper stayed in touch with Caturia and his wife even after Lund died and she returned to her house in Henderson County. She texted the couple in December when Leela died. Caturia said he and his wife were curious about the cause of Leela’s death but didn’t want to intrude at the time.

“We figured we’d wait and ask her. We just figured, well, that’s devastating enough. But we were going to ask her in the future, after things calmed down,” he said. “We tried texting her after she was arrested, because we didn’t know that she was arrested, and we never heard from her.”

Caturia said he hopes detectives can find out what really happened to his friend. He said the detective was guarded in how much she shared about the case.

“They did take evidence out of the trailer house, but they didn’t get nothing out of them, from my understanding,” he said.

And, although Lund told friends he wanted to be buried at a veterans cemetery in the Stone Lake area of northern Wisconsin, Casper had him cremated.

“She has his ashes somewhere,” Caturia said. “They’re not here because I know they looked for ‘em.”