Peter Zimmer

Case record: Peter Zimmer

STATUS / disposition

Peter Zimmer pleaded no contest to the killings in 1983 and was found delinquent. He later pleaded guilty to aggravated stalking and was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in a Florida state prison on May 16, 2010.

Background

Peter Zimmer was 14 years old when he murdered his adoptive parents and younger brother at their farmhouse in Mineral Point.

Peter Zimmer later used the name Jovan Collier. He avoided adult prison because of his age and served just over a year for each murder in Ethan Allen School for Boys. After his release he left Wisconsin for Florida with a trust fund and a new name.

Peter Zimmer did not express remorse or explain his crimes, and he never accepted clinical counseling and therapy during his four years at Ethan Allen School. He carried on correspondence with teens he knew in Illinois and Wisconsin.

The offence

In May 1983, sheriff deputies went to the Zimmer home on an isolated country road and found three family members murdered.

Hans Zimmer was found dead on the back porch after being shot five times. Sally Zimmer was stabbed to death and carried into a shed behind the house, with a rosary placed on her body. Perry, who had also been adopted by the Zimmers, was found murdered in the house and had been stabbed more than 25 times and was covered in defensive wounds.

Peter Zimmer was the suspect immediately after the killings, and he was quickly found.

Investigation

A Mineral Point High School counselor received a call from someone at Zimmer’s former school in Illinois. The caller said that a boy there had told him that Zimmer had said he was going to kill his family.

Arrest

Peter Zimmer fled with his father’s car and picked up another youth hitchhiking. He went to Kansas City and was arrested after he used his father’s credit card. There were six handguns in the car.

Juvenile proceedings (1983)

Peter Zimmer pleaded no contest to the murders and was adjudged delinquent. He could be held only until he turned 19. Because he was found delinquent and not guilty, he was able to make a claim against the family’s estate as the sole surviving heir.

Peter Zimmer was kept at Ethan Allen School until shortly before his 19th birthday, the limit of the law at the time.

Financial gain and estate

Peter Zimmer declared a plan to claim his family’s estate as the sole surviving heir. The law fell in his favor, and in 1987 he walked out of Ethan Allen School as a free man with a clean record, a trust fund, and a new name.

His uncles fought the payout but reached a settlement. He got to keep a couple of custodial accounts his parents started for him, and a new trust was set up for his education and support.

He would receive rent, tuition, and a $100 a month for four years unless he violated the agreement by returning to Wisconsin, Illinois, or Arizona, where his victims’ relatives lived.

Name change and re-established life

In July 1987, now named Jovan Collier, Peter Zimmer got on a plane to Fort Lauderdale to start a new life.

He spent his first few weeks of freedom on the beach in Fort Lauderdale meeting girls and said he had to re-socialize.

He had a daughter with a woman from Wisconsin and later told people he had gotten a minister’s daughter pregnant while at Ethan Allen.

He attended a college in St. Louis, and he served in the Air National Guard for eight months in 1990 at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. He told other people he was in the Navy until 2005, but national archives had no such record.

Missouri court records showed his wife won a default divorce judgment in 1993.

He met his next wife at a company picnic while both worked in a newspaper printing plant. They moved to her home state of Indiana and married in March 1994. They had a son, now a teenager.

His second wife did not know about his past at first, but she found out later and agreed to stay with him anyway. She told police in Florida that she learned of the Zimmer murders only during her divorce from Jovan Collier, which started in 2004 and was finalized in December 2005. She declined to discuss him with a reporter.

In 2008, records showed that his birth mother hired a private investigator to get records of his Wisconsin case.

The stalking offence and Florida proceedings (2010)

Peter Zimmer pleaded guilty to aggravated stalking.

He was charged with misdemeanor stalking in Pinellas County, Florida, related to ongoing phone calls, e-mails, and Facebook messages directed at a former girlfriend who ended their relationship in May 2009. After the misdemeanor charge, he posted bail and left the area.

The former girlfriend later learned about his past, and the stalking intensified. Peter Zimmer was then charged with felony stalking and arrested in Georgia in October. He was sentenced in Florida on May 16, 2010, to 3 1/2 years in a Florida state prison. He would get credit for time spent in jail since his arrest.

At the plea hearing, Judge Joseph A. Bulone asked standard questions before accepting his plea, including whether he had a history of mental illness. Peter Zimmer paused, appeared to grin, looked at his attorney, and said: "No, no history."

Neither Peter Zimmer nor his victim made statements to the court.

Other details (ties to the stalking)

Peter Zimmer created profiles at online sex sites using the former girlfriend’s name and address and posed as her in online chats with men. Some of the men then turned up at her house.

She received packages in the mail at home and at work including flowers, sex toys, and a dead piglet.

She took out a restraining order after Peter Zimmer threatened her with a knife in public.

He approached her at the beach in violation of the injunction, and she had her car checked for a GPS tracking bug and bought a gun.

Local police followed tips about Peter Zimmer in Atlanta, Indiana, and around the Tampa Bay area but could not find him.

Prosecutors contended Peter Zimmer’s motive for the stalking changed from expressions of "I love you/ I hate you" to blaming the former girlfriend for exposing his long-hidden secret past.

A written message attributed to him stated: "What comes around goes around, so just remember that". Another written message attributed to him stated: "You took my life from me and I am very lost and angry at you for that... I am here in St. Pete and hope to hell I run into you. You messed me over and I will pay you back, your rep, your job, all of it."

Arrest details (Georgia, October; motel in Savannah)

Peter Zimmer was arrested in Georgia on October 21 at a motel in Savannah, Georgia. He was on a trip with a new girlfriend from Indiana, who said she had no idea he was wanted for stalking or that he had killed his family.

Trial / plea outcome

Peter Zimmer did not go to trial for the 1983 killings. He pleaded no contest and was found delinquent.

In Florida in 2010, he pleaded guilty to aggravated stalking and was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in a Florida state prison.

Legacy and legal impact

Outrage about the case led to changes in Wisconsin law. The changes allowed juveniles as young as 14 to be charged as adults in some homicides and prevented anyone guilty of homicide from collecting inheritance or other benefits from the victims.

People mentioned in the case

• Peter Zimmer: offender
• Hans Zimmer: victim (father)
• Sally Zimmer: victim (mother)
• Perry: victim (younger brother)
• Jovan Collier: name used by Peter Zimmer after 1987
• Candy Williams: former girlfriend in the Florida stalking case
• Joseph A. Bulone: judge at the Florida plea hearing
• Robin Martinelli: private investigator hired for background checking
• Bob Hille: one of the first sheriffs on the scene
• Belinda: counseling volunteer and dating partner while at Ethan Allen
• Nicole: daughter of Jovan Collier and Belinda (mentioned as growing up oblivious to his dark past)
• Leah: second wife; Peter Zimmer met her at a company picnic while both worked in a newspaper print plant
• Nick Chochos: friend who worked with him as a subcontractor in Indiana and later said he felt betrayed