Prosecutors say Gregory Juedes fled in a white BMW before officers stopped him and later charged him with his father’s killing.
APPLETON, Wis. — Minutes after a neighbor reported gunfire at an Appleton home on a Sunday morning in 2024, police were already looking for a white BMW. The search soon became a highway pursuit that ended with officers taking the victim’s son into custody miles from the house where his father lay dead.
That rapid sequence now forms one of the central threads in the prosecution of Gregory Juedes, 47, who is accused of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Daniel Juedes Sr., 74. Police say the younger Juedes fled from officers, ran after his vehicle was stopped and resisted arrest. Prosecutors later added charges of fleeing or eluding an officer and resisting or obstructing an officer. Nearly two years after the shooting, he has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. A two-week trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 8, 2027.
The first call came at about 7:35 a.m. Nov. 24, 2024. A neighbor reported a disturbance involving a weapon in the 1800 block of South Sanders Street. According to the criminal complaint summarized in news reports, the neighbor had watched a man arrive in a white BMW with a handgun. The witness said the man approached the residence and forced his way through the front door. Soon afterward, yelling could be heard from inside. The witness then heard a burst of approximately 10 to 12 gunshots over a period measured in seconds.
What the neighbor saw next gave dispatchers information that police could use almost immediately. The man left the house and returned to the BMW, according to the complaint. He drove away but came back to the residence a short time later. The witness said the man went inside again and then emerged in a hurry before leaving once more. The neighbor did not initially identify the person as Gregory Juedes. Police first had to connect the vehicle and the witness description to a member of Daniel Juedes’ family who was not the son the neighbor knew lived at the residence.
Officers entering the home encountered a second scene developing at the same time as the search for the BMW. Daniel Juedes was found inside a bedroom with fatal gunshot injuries. Police attempted lifesaving measures, according to the department’s initial public account, but he was pronounced dead. An autopsy was conducted the following day. The later criminal complaint described 15 gunshot wound tracks and said investigators recovered 14 spent casings in the home. Officers also reported multiple bullet strikes inside the bedroom. Those findings became part of the evidence behind the homicide charge.
Elsewhere, officers were beginning to close in on the vehicle described by the witness. Police spotted a white BMW whose driver matched the description of the person seen at the house. An officer activated emergency lights to initiate a traffic stop. The complaint says the driver switched on the BMW’s hazard lights, behavior that could have suggested he was preparing to pull over. Instead, authorities allege, he continued driving and entered the highway. What began as an effort to question a possible suspect then turned into a vehicle pursuit.
The chase traveled from the Appleton area onto State Highway 441 and toward Interstate 41, according to early police reporting. Officers ultimately used a pursuit intervention maneuver to stop the BMW. The maneuver ended the vehicle phase but not the attempt to get away, police said. Juedes allegedly left the car and ran. Officers pursued him on foot, caught him and struggled with him before he was taken into custody shortly before 8 a.m. Local reporting on the complaint says officers used a Taser during the arrest after Juedes continued resisting.
Authorities allege the struggle presented another danger. The complaint says Juedes reached toward a lieutenant’s weapon while officers were attempting to restrain him. Police eventually secured him and arranged medical treatment for injuries associated with the pursuit and arrest. The allegations surrounding the chase became the basis for charges separate from his father’s death. They also gave prosecutors a post-shooting sequence that they may ask jurors to consider alongside the direct evidence from the house, though a jury will decide what weight any flight evidence deserves.
The trip to the hospital produced another significant development. According to the complaint, Juedes began making comments about the shooting while in an ambulance. Authorities described the statements as unsolicited rather than answers elicited through questioning. Prosecutors allege that Juedes said he believed he had struck his father with every round and referred to an additional shot. The complaint also attributes to him a statement that he had returned to the house to check his father and make sure he was “down for the count.” Juedes has not been convicted of the killing, and those statements remain evidence to be litigated in court.
Police also reported recovering a Canik TP9SFx handgun from the BMW. The complaint described 9 mm cartridge casings inside the residence and noted the forensic findings from Daniel Juedes’ autopsy. Public reports have not detailed every laboratory result or established in advance how prosecutors will connect each physical exhibit to the elements of the charged crime. At trial, the defense will have the right to challenge the handling, interpretation and admissibility of evidence and to cross-examine witnesses who describe the home scene, pursuit and arrest.
The pursuit narrative is striking because it compressed a homicide investigation and a suspect search into less than an hour. By the time police publicly identified Daniel Juedes the next day, his son was already being held in the Outagamie County Jail on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide and the flight-related offenses. Formal charges followed in December. At Juedes’ initial court appearance on those charges, a judge set bond at $2 million. The bond ruling addressed whether he would remain jailed while the prosecution proceeded and was not a finding of guilt.
The case later shifted from the immediate events of Nov. 24 to the more complex work of preparing a homicide trial. Juedes pursued a mental health evaluation as part of a not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect plea. A psychiatric report was completed in 2025, but its findings were not publicly described in detail. Attorneys also discussed a possible plea resolution. When those efforts did not end the case, courts began setting jury trial dates, first for March 2026 and later for August before the schedule changed again.
The current February 2027 setting contemplates up to two weeks of testimony. Wisconsin’s procedure means jurors would first decide the ordinary guilt question. They would hear the state’s case that Juedes intentionally killed his father as well as whatever evidence and arguments the defense presents on that charge. If the jury acquits, there would be no need to reach the second phase. If it finds Juedes guilty, the same jury would then consider the defense assertion that a mental disease or defect affected his legal responsibility at the time.
Much of the publicly described evidence relates to what happened just before and after the shooting, but one basic issue remains unexplained in the complaint: motive. Reports reviewing the charging document say prosecutors did not identify a reason for the alleged killing. The absence of a public motive does not necessarily prevent the state from proving intent, and prosecutors may have evidence beyond the material summarized in the complaint. Still, it separates what the available records describe in detail — the arrival, gunfire, return to the house, pursuit and arrest — from the unanswered question of why the confrontation allegedly occurred.
Daniel Juedes’ death also left a family tragedy at the center of what quickly became a major police response. When Appleton police first discussed the incident publicly, Lt. Meghan Cash acknowledged the difficulty of an event involving two members of the same family. Authorities at that stage focused on the shooting and the suspect’s capture rather than publicly assigning a motive. The case has since moved away from the emergency response and into a lengthy court process in which the prosecution’s reconstruction of that morning will be tested under evidentiary and constitutional rules.
As of Oct. 21, Gregory Juedes remains charged with first-degree intentional homicide as well as fleeing or eluding and resisting or obstructing an officer. He is presumed innocent of those charges unless proved guilty. His planned Feb. 8 trial will give jurors the first opportunity to evaluate the full prosecution case rather than the abbreviated allegations contained in a criminal complaint and the accounts released after the 2024 pursuit.
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.