Convicted double murderer in court for threatening victim’s mother

Reporter: Claire Galt Writer: Carolina Guzman
Published: Updated:

On top of his many appeals, Joseph Zieler now faces another charge. This time for harassing the mother of his child victim.

Last Monday, the judge put Joseph Zieler on death row for the murders of 11-year-old Robin Cornell and 32-year-old Lisa Story.

He will not have the same attorney he had at trial. Instead, a public defender will represent him.

During the trial, Zieler admitted he wrote Jan Cornell threatening letters. He threatened to drag her all the way to the Supreme Court with vengeance. 

When Zieler took the stand, he claimed Cornell slept with him months before the murders. Zieler called Cornell a pig because she didn’t wash her sheets.

Crime technicians had found his DNA in her home. 

“What? She’s calling me a rapist and murderer, so what I can’t, I can’t write that? I mean, she called me a rapist and a murderer, and I’m calling her a pig for not washing her sheets,” Zieler said during the previous trial.

Because he didn’t come to court, the judge set a new case-management hearing for September.

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