Milwaukee police and city workers have resumed digging up the yard of a home formerly owned by notorious Milwaukee drug dealer Michael Lock to assist detectives in the search for the remains of homicide victims.
At about 10 a.m. April 21, state crime lab technicians also arrived at the home, 4343 N. 15th St., with cameras, tripods and other equipment to document and process any evidence that is recovered at the scene.
City tax records show the property is owned by Shalanda Roberts, formerly Shalanda Lock, who was once married to Michael Lock.
A Milwaukee Police Department spokesman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on April 20 the department is executing a search warrant for an investigation, adding, “there is nothing further at this time as this remains ongoing.”
A jury convicted Lock in July 2008 in the homicides of two drug dealers in 1999 and 2000. Their remains were found in 2005 under concrete slabs in the backyard of a home once owned by Lock at 4900 W. Fiebrantz Ave.
Law enforcement has long suspected that additional bodies are buried under the yard.
In a warrant issued 15 years ago, investigators said at least four victims are buried somewhere in Milwaukee. Before that, police had dug a half-dozen other yards. Police have found no remains in the other digs.
Lock, the purported head of a murderous criminal organization known as the “Body Snatchers,” is serving multiple terms of life in prison at Waupun Correctional Institution without the chance of parole.
Over a decade, Lock’s organization sold drugs, kidnapped, tortured and killed other dealers, prostituted women across the Midwest and ran a mortgage fraud scheme. As Lock expanded his illicit operations, he outsmarted law enforcement and twisted the criminal justice system to his advantage, a Journal Sentinel investigation found.
Lock’s enterprise was dismantled by an unorthodox, secretive investigation that teamed Milwaukee police with county, state and federal investigators. Lock was convicted in three trials.
A Journal Sentinel investigation documented the case against Lock in a series, “The Preacher’s Mob.” Following the investigation, the case was documented on “American Greed.”
Contacted on April 20 by phone, Roberts said she owns the property on North 15th Street where police are digging but it is a rental and she lives out of state now. Roberts was part of Michael Lock’s criminal operation, according to prosecutors, helping him to run a multi-state prostitution ring.
She received 18 months behind bars on prostitution counts after the prosecutor argued that she committed perjury during her husband’s trial.
This story will be updated.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Digging resumes, state crime lab arrives at Michael Lock’s former home
Reporting by John Diedrich, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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