Witnesses who found woman’s body on freeway ramp: ‘I hope they catch the person’
By Erica Finke
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MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (WISN) — A drive to work took a horrifying turn the morning of Feb. 23. Kevin Siskoy and Ty Peters were driving on Interstate 43 at the Lapham Avenue off-ramp around 8:30 a.m. when they stopped their vehicle to call 911.
“I look out my side of the window and I go, ‘Kevin, I think I see a dead body lying on the side of the road.’ At first, Kevin didn’t believe me,” Peters said.
The men got out of their work van and started recording the scene. They noticed vehicle debris near the woman’s body. Siskoy thought it was a hit-and-run and went over to check on the person.
“We knew there was something seriously wrong because we walked around her and we tried to start screaming at her couple times and she didn’t even respond at all,” Siskoy said.
First responders tried to save the woman with CPR but she was pronounced dead at 8:48 a.m. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner identified her as 32-year-old Jennifer Dimatteo.
A search warrant obtained by 12 News is shedding light on her mysterious death as detectives are seeking charges of hit and run involving death.
According to the warrant, investigators found a broken passenger sideview mirror and pieces of dark blue, black and silver vehicle debris. They noted “a Volkswagen stamp as well as serial numbers on stickers.”
The medical examiner’s report mentioned pieces of blue plastic and a shard of metal found on Dimatteo’s sweatshirt.
Detectives located Department of Transportation video showing a woman walking down the freeway around 1:50 that morning from West National Avenue. Twelve minutes later, a Milwaukee County Transit System bus camera captures her lying on the off-ramp’s concrete slab and a blue Volkswagen SUV at the red light.
The search warrant says investigators obtained security video from a nearby BP Gas Station showing the front passenger headlight “dimmed out” at 2:03 a.m.
At 2:50 a.m., a man called 911 to report a driver had hit his car as he was getting off at Lapham Avenue, reportedly telling the call taker, “the vehicle was going 80 and continued driving after ‘t-boning’ them or hitting them on the passenger side of the vehicle.”
Deputies noted the caller was in a 2022 Volkswagen Atlas with passenger-side damage and a missing front mirror.
The Volkswagen was later towed to a Milwaukee Police Department building for temporary storage when a detective “observed gray cloth material stuck in the Front bumper on the passenger side similar to the pants that were on Dimatteo.”
Siskoy still thinks about Dimatteo and wonders how it could’ve ended differently if someone called 9-1-1 sooner: “I hope they catch the person who did this to her. That’s horrible. You know, you just we as a people are looking out for each other more than this.”
As of Tuesday, there are no official charges in the case.
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