Tony Haase, center, appears in court March 20, 2024, for the 1992 murders of Tanna Togstad and Timothy Mumbrue. (Image courtesy Waupaca County courts/Zoom)
WAUPACA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The jurors returned to the courtroom Friday for the Tony Haase double murder trial, but left without reaching a verdict.
Haase faces two counts of first-degree murder for the 1992 deaths of Tanna Togstad and Timothy Mumbrue at a Royalton home.
The jury deliberated Wednesday afternoon and much of the day Thursday without reaching a verdict.
On Friday, the panel rewatched video of Haase’s 2022 interview with police, where he confessed to the murders. The defense has argued they were ‘false confessions.’
The video is more than three hours long, and the jury did not resume deliberating until the afternoon. It decided to end the day around 4 p.m.
Deliberations are expected to resume at 8 a.m. Monday.
Although the murders were in 1992, Haase wasn’t charged until 2022, when DNA evidence and a confession tied him to the scene.
Eventually, Haase disclosed to investigators that his father had been killed in a snowmobile accident when he was 5 or 8 years old. Investigators had discovered Haase’s father died on Dec. 31, 1977, when Haase was 7 years old.
Haase continued and described that his father was operating a snowmobile in a group of three that was racing. The second snowmobile hit his father’s, and his father was killed. The third snowmobile then ran over the driver of the second. He described it as a horrible accident. One of those drivers was Togstad’s father.
During the trial, the defense argued Haase’s uncle Jeff Tiel — who died in 1995 — should have been a stronger focus of the investigation.
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