A drunken argument involving a beer bottle being thrown at a truck allegedly led to the murder of two brothers in Twin Lakes last week.
The suspect, 25-year-old Nathan Kivi from Trevor, Wisconsin, appeared in court for the first time Tuesday afternoon.
"It's one of those disputes that goes so far that there’s a homicide," said Kenosha County District Attorney Mike Graveley.
He says it's been several years since he's prosecuted a double homicide in the county. In this case, two brothers, Richard Samuel and Kenneth Samuel III were shot and killed outside the Beach Bar in Twin Lakes, following a night of drinking on Thanksgiving.
The shooting happened right at bar close at 2 a.m. Friday morning.
"There’s a witness who knows the defendant, he’s found with the firearm in the vehicle so we’re going to be able to do the ballistics testing that matches that, and he’s made some admissions about what happened," Graveley said.
According to a criminal complaint, a witness claims that following a verbal argument in the parking lot, one of the victims threw a beer bottle at the back of Kivi's truck.
The witness says Kivi then got out of his truck with a gun. One of the victims was shot four times, the other twice.
Kivi then allegedly fled the scene. Police tracked his cell phone and say he was found later that day nearly 200 miles away in Tomah, Wisconsin. When state troopers arrested him, the criminal complaint says Kivi told them they "had the right person" and that "he would cooperate."
In an interview later, the criminal complaint says he told a detective he was angry that someone threw something at his truck. He said, "I was blackout drunk. I didn't sober up until seven this morning."
He also allegedly told the detective that it isn't good when he gets drunk. "Get me drunk and it's ugly," he told the detective.
"This is another one of those cases where a small argument in a bar becomes homicide," said Graveley.
When the shooting happened, Kivi had recently been released from a year in jail in a Kenosha County case. While in jail, Walworth County charged him for an incident that happened last year.
"Walworth County had a bond on him for a violent felony strangulation," Graveley said. "Another domestic case and so that was a decision made in Walworth County."
Kivi was given a signature bond in the Walworth County case, which does not require any payment in advance before a person can leave jail.
Now he's back in the Kenosha County jail, after the court commissioner set a $2 million cash bond in the double homicide case.
Kivi has served prison time in the past. He's been convicted of six different felonies, the majority of them burglaries.
