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The Case of Robert Bintz
📻 Episode #552
🎙️ Hosted by Lauren Bright Pacheco
📅 Nov 27, 2025
About This Episode
In August 1987, the body of 44-year-old single mother of two, Sandra Lison, was found in the Machickanee Forest in Green Bay, WI. She went missing from her bar the night prior. An autopsy showed that she was strangled and evidence suggested she was raped. Investigators interviewed the bar’s patrons, including brothers, 32-year-old David Bintz…
Case status as carried in this site's original 2026 profiles. Independent record verification is rolling out episode by episode — statuses are being re-checked against court and registry sources and date-stamped as verified.
The Case
In August 1987, the body of 44-year-old single mother of two, Sandra Lison, was found in the Machickanee Forest in Green Bay, WI. She went missing from her bar the night prior. An autopsy showed that she was strangled and evidence suggested she was raped. Investigators interviewed the bar’s patrons, including brothers, 32-year-old David Bintz and 31-year-old Robert Bintz. No evidence suggested their, or anyone else’s involvement, and the case went cold for four years. In 1991, Lison’s purse was found 40 miles south of where her body was found. Yet, the case went cold again for the next seven years. Meanwhile, David was incarcerated for an unrelated crime, and a fellow inmate reported hearing David, who is intellectually disabled, sleep-talking about Lison’s death, apparently talking about killing her with his brother. This so-called confession gave investigators the lead they needed to arrest David and Robert. Once in custody, David confessed to the crime while simultaneously stating that he was at home at the time and not involved. What’s more – DNA evidence exonerated David and Robert from the rape before trial. The prosecution just changed their theory though, and David and Robert were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
https://www.greatnorthinnocenceproject.org/
https://law.wisc.edu/fjr/clinicals/ip/
To get involved in helping exonerees like Robert Bintz rebuild their lives after release:
www.after-innocence.org
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:03:47“Speaker 2: one years old and despite suffering from intellectual disabilities, both Speaker 2: Bobby and David were doing well. Speaker 3: I was an East Side of Green Bay, and I Speaker 3: worked at a grocery store. I'm a driver, legad my Speaker 3: own car. I always went to work. I was a”
00:14:01“Speaker 4: was left there within twenty four hours of the death, Speaker 4: which makes it very implausible that this was a consensual Speaker 4: sexual encounter because she was working a twelve to fourteen Speaker 4: hour bartending shift right before this event. You know, she Speaker 4: got up in the morning, she went to a bartending shift,”
00:23:33“Speaker 2: doesn't buy back time. I think of twenty five years Speaker 2: for each of you for something that you were innocent Speaker 2: of the entire time. But it also seems in this Speaker 2: case that that was known even before they set foot Speaker 2: and trial. When you look at a case like this, Jim,”
Listen to the Episode
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← #551 Marvin Grimm Jr. #553 Jeff Smith →
Also on the podcast: #28 Robert Jones · #116 False Confessions - Robert Davis · #263 Robert Foxworth