Bail set at $25,000 for suspect in Shooters Showgirls arson
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COLTON WAYNE JANSEN
By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — Bail has been set at $25,000 cash for a 25-year-old Comstock man who is charged in connection with arson in the January 18 fire that destroyed Shooters Showgirls in the Town of Elk Mound.
Colton Wayne Jansen appeared in Dunn County Circuit Court by video from the Dunn County Jail for a bail hearing before Judge Christina Mayer on January 22.
Jansen is charged with three felony counts of arson of a building, burglary and possession of burglarious tools.
Dunn County District Attorney Andrea Nodolf asked the court to set bail at $25,000 cash, and Judge Mayer ordered a $25,000 cash bond.
Jansen is scheduled to make an initial appearance in Dunn County Circuit Court on January 28.
Burglary
At 4:55 a.m. Saturday, January 18, a deputy from the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department was dispatched to Shooters Showgirls in reference to a burglary, according to the criminal complaint.
Shooters was located at 850th Street in the Town of Elk Mound near the I-94 and U.S. Highway 12 interchange,
While the deputy was on his way to Shooters, dispatch told the deputy that a 911 call had been received from a semi-truck driver who had seen flames coming out of the roof of the building.
When the deputy arrived, he could see flames coming out of the Shooters Showgirls building. He ran to the front door but did not see or hear anyone, although he did see smoke and flames coming from the front door and out of the roof.
When the deputy went to the east side of the building, he could see tracks coming around the south side of the building that were leading to the door on the east side of the building. The tracks led to the door on the east side of the building where there were two glass windows that the deputy could see had been broken, the complaint states.
Shooters Showgirls was a brick building that had no windows, except by the doors on the east side. The lack of windows made the fire difficult to fight, according to Colfax Fire Chief Gary Hill.
The criminal complaint goes on to say that the deputy noticed the door by the windows was wide open and that the same footprints that led to the window also were exiting the door, so it appeared the suspect had broken the windows to gain entry to the building and then had used the door to exit the building.
The deputy was able to photograph all of the footprints, the window and the door, the complaint states.
Manager
At around 3:15 the afternoon of January 18, an off-duty investigator with the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department received a call from a sergeant about a burglary and arson at Shooters Showgirls, according to the criminal complaint.
The manager of Shooters Showgirls had been in telephone contact with the sergeant. The building had been equipped with “Blink” cameras, which store footage and data on a cloud-based system.
The manager accessed clips from the cameras while she was at home and had forwarded those clips to the sergeant.
In the videos, a lone, caucasian man was walking through the building and had attempted to break into the ATM, a pull tab machine and a stuffed animal machine in order to take money.
The suspect was also caught on video using a torch to start the fire.
The investigator reviewed the camera footage, which is not one video, but rather, a series of videos because the cameras activate on motion so that there is a separate video for each event caused by motion.
Employees indicated that they had left the building at 3:06 a.m. January 18, according to the criminal complaint.
3:27 a.m.
The suspect first appeared on the surveillance camera video at 3:27 a.m. in the main entrance/lobby area of the building, according to the criminal complaint.
He was wearing a black hooded jacket or sweatshirt, blue jeans, black rubber/neoprene boots and a black face mask.
In the videos, the suspect was carrying a long black metal bar or a pipe estimated to be about three and a half feet in length, a blue torch, and in some videos, appears to be carrying a small cup, the complaint states.
The suspect appeared to be taller than average.
The suspect was shown in the videos using the black metal bar, attempting to break into the ATM, pull tab machine, and it appeared he had pulled something, possibly coins or cash, from the stuffed animal claw machine and put it in his pocket.
One video shows the suspect using the torch to light a Kleenex box on fire. The Kleenex box is sitting on a ledge near the front entrance to the bar where a bouncer would typically sit, according to the criminal complaint.
Other videos show smoke filling the room as the fire progresses, the complaint states.
License plates
Another Dunn County deputy searched the license plate reader system on January 21 and found a black 2011 Buick Lucerne with Wisconsin license plates, according to the criminal complaint.
The license plates were registered to Colton Jansen, and Jansen’s vehicle was recorded on the Flock camera at around 2:56 a.m. January 18 entering the City of Menomonie near Fleet Farm.
The vehicle was recorded on the Flock camera again at around 3:08 a.m. January 18 near Highway 12/29 and 850th Street.
A witness had contacted the sheriff’s department on January 19 to report she had seen a dark colored sedan, either dark blue or black, facing southbound in the northbound lane of travel near Shooters Showgirls.
The witness said the vehicle was not occupied when she had passed it around 3:50 a.m. January 18, according to the criminal complaint.
Comstock
Based on the evidence obtained, two deputies visited Jansen at his residence in Comstock on January 21.
The deputies saw a black Buick parked outside of a large shed at Jansen’s address, and it was the same vehicle captured on the Flock cameras, according to the criminal complaint.
One of the deputies looked in the vehicle and saw a blue propane torch that looked like the torch the suspect had been seen carrying in the camera footage from Shooters Showgirls.
As the deputies were walking toward the house to attempt to make contact, a man stuck his head out of the door of the shed and was immediately recognized as the same man in the Wisconsin driver’s license photograph for Colton Jansen that deputies had recently reviewed, the complaint states.
When the deputies entered the shed, after telling Jansen he was not under arrest, and noting that he was able to leave freely if he wanted to leave, one of the deputies saw a pair of large black boots that looked like the boots in the surveillance footage that had been worn by the suspect at Shooters Showgirls, according to the criminal complaint.
When asked if anyone else was there with Jansen, he told the deputies that his mother was in the house.
Jansen gave the deputies permission to come inside and talk, and when asked about the vehicle, Jansen told the deputies the black Buick was his vehicle, according to the criminal complaint.
Jansen told the deputies he would be the one to be driving the vehicle but denied being in Dunn County the morning of January 18 and said that he was sleeping.
Jansen told the deputies there were a lot of “druggies’ in the area and that someone could have taken his vehicle because he does not lock it.
Jansen maintained that someone had stolen his vehicle, or had taken it, and had brought it back. He also told the deputies he had never noticed the vehicle missing from the property, the complaint states.
Shooters
According to the criminal complaint, it was apparent to the deputies that Jansen was not being truthful, and Jansen eventually admitted that he had been in the area by Shooters Showgirls January 18.
“Colton told me he was mentally not his head the night of the incident. Colton told me, ‘I don’t know if you know but that is a strip club,’” according to the criminal complaint
Jansen told the deputies there was no one at Shooters Showgirls while he was there and that he “was not a fan of those clubs,” the complaint states.
“Colton explained he believed strip clubs were disgusting and were against his beliefs. Colton admitted those were the reasons he started the building on fire,” according to the criminal complaint.
Jansen told the deputies that it had not been his intention to hurt anyone.
Torch
When asked how he had started the building on fire, Jansen told deputies he had used the torch that was in his vehicle, according to the criminal complaint.
Jansen told the deputies he had parked on the road near the Shooters Showgirls sign, which was consistent with the witness who said she had seen a dark sedan parked by that location around 3:50 a.m. Saturday, January 18.
Jansen confirmed that after he had gotten out of his vehicle, he had walked through the snow to the building.
Jansen also confirmed he had broken the window on the bottom level of the building in the back.
When asked what he had started on fire to set the building on fire, Jansen told the deputies he had started a Kleenex box on fire, although it did not seem as if the Kleenex box was burning very well, according to the criminal complaint.
Jansen told deputies he had then found a bag with “stuff that looked like it would light up,” and that he lit the bag on fire with the propane torch, according to the criminal complaint.
Jansen denied breaking any machines or taking any money and said his only goal was to burn down Shooters Showgirls.
Jansen knew that he had arrived at “a little after 3,” but was not sure what time it was when he left, the complaint states.
Search
Jansen gave consent for the deputies to search his vehicle but would not give consent for his cellular telephone, according to the criminal complaint.
In addition to the blue propane torch, the deputies found a black metal bar that Jansen said he had used to break the lower level window and the black ski mask.
The deputies also collected Jansen’s boots.
“The footwear matched the shoe impression located at the incident location,” the complaint states.
