Former Wisconsin deputy charged in double homicide

Prosecutors on Friday charged a former Wisconsin sheriff's deputy suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease with shooting his wife and sister-in-law to death earlier this month.

Former Dane County Sheriff's Deputy Andrew Steele, 39, faces two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of his wife, Ashlee Steele, and his sister-in-law, Kacee Tollefsbol, of Lake Elmo, Minnesota. He would get two mandatory life sentences if he's convicted.

Prosecutors have not offered any motive for the slayings. Steele's attorney, Jessa Nicholson, said during a court hearing Friday that she plans to investigate Steele's mental stability. She appeared with Steele via video from the Rock County jail, where Steele is being held because of his close relationship with Dane County jailers. He sat silently in an orange jail jumpsuit and looked directly at the camera as Nicholson spoke.

"He wants to work within (the criminal justice) system to see this to its conclusion," she said.

According to a criminal complaint filed Friday, Tollefsbol, 38, called police on Aug. 22 from the Steele home in Fitchburg, a Madison suburb. She said Steele had shot her and she was dying.

Police arrived and found Tollefsbol in the basement, shot in the back and covered with blood, the complaint said. She again said her brother-in-law had shot her. She died at a hospital about an hour after making her call for help.

A Dane County sheriff's SWAT team discovered Ashlee Steele, 39, dead in the master bedroom. She had been shot in the head and had a zip-tie wrapped around her throat, cutting off circulation, the complaint said.