MURDER IN MEQUON

MURDER IN MEQUON
Trattner's Drinking led to wife's divorce request, friends say.

By Michael Horne
Mequon, January 9th -- Police on Monday charged Stephen L. Trattner, 43 with first-degree reckless homicide in the death of his wife Sin Lam Trattner, 36 in the evening of Wednesday, January 4th at their home in Mequon. It was the first homicide in the city in nearly five years.

A neighbor who has a child in the same classroom as one of Trattner’s children says police called the child out of the classroom on more than one occasion Thursday to ask the child questions.
Of course, the child was unaware at the time of the child’s mother’s death, which, according to a report on www.jsonline.com , had happened the night before when Sin Lam Trattner asked her husband for a divorce.
He then banged her head on the floor 10 - 20 times, and pummeled her in the face, according to the website’s account of the criminal complaint filed today in Ozaukee County Circuit Court. He then choked her to death.
“She was my friend,” the mother said Sunday. “The Trattners were always busy with the school and involved in activities. This is a complete surprise.”
Earlier news reports and police statements only mentioned the strangulation as the cause of death, leading to widespread speculation in Mequon that the death might have been an erotic misadventure, so otherwise pacific did the Trattner background and relationship appear to be on the surface.
The brutal details, including the face-pummeling, certainly indicate a crime of passion by an upper-middle class person who said he “snapped.”
Trattner’s only other brush with the law was a 1999 speeding ticket in Thiensville.
Trattner, a project manager for Erin Hills golf resort, now under construction, was a graduate of Whitefish Bay High School.
Whitefish Bay alums of the era, who asked not to be identified, buzzed with the news. “I played baseball and track with him and he was the nicest guy,” said an individual prominent in east side business circles. This is unbelievable and out of character. He has a brother who works for [a local professional sports team]. It seems way out of character for the guy.
“But some people in the circle who kept up with him more than I have suspected he has had a drinking problem, and it was getting out of control, and that is probably why his wife asked for a divorce.”
Trattner’s father is Walter Trattner, an emeritus UWM history professor who specialized in the fields of Social Welfare, Social History, the Progressive Era and Feminism, according to the UWM website. "He was my professor at UWM," said another Whitefish Bay grad, the proprietor of a downtown tavern.
Although Mequon homicides are few, most, like this one, occur within a few hundred feet of the Milwaukee River.
Update -- January 10, 2006 -- The Trattner case now appears on the State of Wisconsin Circuit Court website, where we note that Ozaukee County District Attorney Sandy Williams now goes by the name of Sandy Ann Williams.
Ald. Michael D'Amato, a Whitefish Bay alumnus, also has memories of Trattner that sound like everybody else's. "Trattner was the valedictorian of my wife Becky's class. He was the most mild-mannered person you'd want to meet."

UPDATE:
Trattner Gets 35 Years
September 7th 2006
A sobbing Stephen Trattner was sentenced to 35 years in prison yesterday by Ozaukee County Judge Thomas R. Wolfgram, in what the judge admitted might likely be a life sentence for the Mequon man, now 44. The maximum sentence for First Degree Reckless Homicide is 40 years. In addition, the judge ordered 10 years of community supervision for Trattner, which would find him under the state's control until the age of 89.
The sentence was five to ten years greater than asked for by the District Attorney, and more than the 10 to 15 years asked by the defense attorney.
Trattner appeared contrite, and wished it were he, and not his late wife, who were dead. He apologized to the victim's family, his own family, neighbors, Mequon residents, and particularly, his children, with whom he has been ordered to have no contact. --Michael Horne