Richard Wendell Sotka (Mississippi County Sheriff’s Dept.)
A 48-year-old Wisconsin man has been arrested for allegedly fatally stabbing his girlfriend and her friend to death because he was “humiliated” after he walked in on them having sex with each other. Richard Wendell Sotka was taken into custody on Jan. 29 and charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the brutal slayings of Rhonda Cegelski, 58, and Paula O’Connor, 53, authorities announced.
Officers with the Green Bay Police Department responded to a call on Jan. 29 at a duplex located in the 1600 block of Elkay Lane, according to a press release. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders entered the residence where they found two adult females dead from apparent stab wounds.
Police initially sought Sotka, who was reportedly dating one of the women, as a person of interest in the case, though it was not immediately clear which victim he was dating.
Sotka was already out on bond from a case in Oconto County where he is charged with stalking and harassment/violating a restraining order and was required to wear a GPS ankle monitor. But Sotka allegedly cut the monitoring device from his leg and ditched it along Interstate 41, Green Bay Fox affiliate WLUK-TV reported.
Sotka was apprehended approximately 10 hours after the victims’ bodies were discovered, authorities in Mississippi County, Arkansas, said.
A criminal complaint obtained by WLUK reportedly states that after his arrest, Sotka confessed that he was responsible for killing the two women in Green Bay but adamantly denied the stalking charges.
Sotka reportedly told authorities that when he walked into the duplex and found his girlfriend engaged in sexual activity with her friend he felt “humiliated.”
“He said he asked [Cegelski] where he was supposed to go and at that point he said he lost it, he just lost it. He said he couldn’t tell [police] details or tell [police] exactly what happened but he knows he completely lost it,” the complaint reportedly states. “[Sotka] stated, ‘I’m guilty of killing these girls but I’m not guilty of what they said I did in Oconto County.”
The complaint also reportedly noted that despite cutting off his GPS ankle monitor, police were able to locate Sotka in Arkansas using the OnStar system in his truck.
Sotka last week waived extradition to Wisconsin and will be brought back to the state by deputies with the Brown County Sheriff’s Department, WLUK reported. A timeline for his return remains unclear and no court hearings in Brown County have been scheduled, according to the online court docket.
Two modifiers for use of a dangerous weapon were added to the homicide charges along with one domestic abuse modifier, court records show. Sotka was also charged with one count each of felony bail jumping damage to property.
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