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• Milwaukee campaigns against 'parent's nightmare'; more state briefs
• UPDATE: Elmwood woman died in Monday accident
• Woman sues, claiming sexual assault in jail

MILWAUKEE -- Wisconsin's largest city is starting a major campaign to get parents to stop sleeping with their babies after another infant was crushed to death by a sleeping mother.

Six-week-old Nevaeh Shaw died Christmas morning after she and her two-year-old brother slept in the same bed as their 27-year-old mother Africa. Two older kids were sleeping on the nearby floor.

Africa Shaw said she has slept with all her kids, and she does it by choice because it's what a mother does.

Milwaukee Health Commissioner Bevan Baker said that might be true, but it's a practice that must stop. He said 23 babies have died from sleep-related incidents in Milwaukee each year since 2001.

The city is about to start a series of newspaper, radio and billboard ads showing parents the right way to send their kids to bed at night - in the babies' own cribs, lying on their backs without pillows, blankets, pads or toys.

At a news conference Monday, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett called baby-crushing deaths a "parent's worst nightmare." He spoke in front of a poster with a photo of a bed that had a tombstone as a head-board. The tombstone read, "For too many babies last year, this was their final resting place."

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Man fined $25,000 for killing wolf

A Green Bay man has been fined over $25,000 for poaching a wolf in Upper Michigan.

Stephen Popp Jr., 37, was also put on probation for six months. He must perform 20 days of community service, and his hunting privileges were taken away for two years.

Popp pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of killing an endangered species and hunting without a license.

Authorities found the dead wolf at the edge of a field near Iron River Michigan Nov. 17. Wolves cannot be killed in Michigan except in self-defense.

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Police union head arrested for OWI

The head of the state police union says he's "ashamed" he was picked up for drunk driving this month in Columbia County.

James Palmer of Sun Prairie, director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, issued a statement Monday in which he apologized and promised not to challenge his first-time operating while intoxicated citation.

According to authorities, Palmer and Police Association finance director Jean Steinhauer had three drinks at a Madison tavern before they each drove away.

Steinhauer, 48, lost control on a curve north of Sun Prairie and drove through a large snow bank and into a shed.

Palmer then drove there to help her. His blood alcohol level was .146, and Steinhauer's level was .15 - both well above the state's legal limit of .08.

Steinhauer was also cited for first-offense drunk driving.

Palmer, 34, has been with the state's police association since 2003, and he hopes to stay with the group. He said he recognizes how his conduct reflects upon law enforcement.

Palmer's group endorsed the state's recent crackdown on drunk driving - and he says they'll continue supporting those efforts.

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Blaze destroys home of fraud suspect

Authorities hope to nail down a cause Tuesday for a fire that destroyed a mansion owned by a former Milwaukee child care provider who's suspected of fraud.

State Fire Marshal Tina Virgil said the blaze decimated Latasha Jackson's home in suburban Menomonee Falls. Virgil said more time is needed to determine if it was an accident or arson.

Insurance adjusters are doing their own probe into Sunday's blaze - which leveled the 7,600 sq. ft. home, destroyed two cars and did over $1 million in damage. No one was hurt.

Authorities said Jackson's husband owned a second house about six miles to the east in Menomonee Falls. Officials could not say if the couple was staying there.

Jackson, 32, remains under investigation for allegedly defrauding the Wisconsin Shares program, which provides tax-funded child care to poor women so they can work.

She reportedly received $3 million in total funding. Officials said Jackson might have hired a number of false care providers who claimed they were caring for children in the program so Jackson could collect their subsidies from the state.

Her child care license was revoked in August when the allegations were first being made public.

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GM workers find jobs - out of state

More than 500 people who worked at General Motors in Janesville when it shut down a year ago are now employed at other GM plants around the country.

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, the families of many workers stayed behind, putting hundreds of miles between spouses.

Al Hammer of Evansville drives home every weekend from his job at GM in Kansas City. He says the hardest part is saying goodbye each week to his 11-year-old daughter.

Hammer said he took a transfer offer from GM after hearing horror stories from others who could not find new jobs in southern Wisconsin, even after they get re-training.

Janesville psychotherapist Bill Hollingsworth is working with seven families with long-distance relationships. He says it's caused loneliness and fears that one spouse or the other is being unfaithful. Sometimes, Hollingsworth said, the insecurity has led to depression and drug abuse.

About 5,000 people lost their jobs when GM and its related suppliers shut down in the Janesville area. Unemployment in the area is still above 10%.

Margaret Arens-Sagstetter, 56, Elmwood, died following a two-vehicle crash south of Ellsworth Monday morning.

The driver of the other vehicle, Kayla Winger, 20, Ellsworth, was treated in the River Falls Area Hospital emergency room and released Monday, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

The Pierce County Sheriff's Department was notified of the accident, which occurred west of the intersection of County Road C and County Road V, at about 9:10 a.m. Monday.

Arens-Sagstetter was taken by Lifelink helicopter to Regions Hospital in St. Paul and was pronounced dead there.

Winger was taken to the River Falls hospital by Ellsworth ambulance.

Trooper Bill Traynor, one of two Wisconsin State Patrol officers who spent several hours at the scene Monday attempting to reconstruct the accident, said one of the vehicles crossed the centerline to cause the crash. The pavement was dry so the accident wasn't weather-related, he said.

The vehicles involved were a 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix driven by Winger and a 1992 Dodge Colt driven by Arens-Sagstetter. Both cars were likely travelling at or near the speed limit, which is 55 mph in that area, Traynor said.

There were no passengers in either vehicle.

The crash occurred on County Road C just over a small knoll, between the two intersections of county roads V and C.

The roads remained closed to local traffic until mid-afternoon Monday.

Ellsworth ambulance and fire personnel were called shortly after 9 a.m. Monday. All available sheriff's deputies and investigators responded to assist with traffic control, as did Ellsworth Police Chief Greg Place.

A portable sign from the Pierce County Highway Department was deployed to help detour traffic as the investigation continued late Monday morning.

The accident is still under investigation, said Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Neil Gulbranson Tuesday.

Monday's accident occurred about three-quarters of a mile west of one about six years ago that took the lives of three Ellsworth residents: Todd Zimmer, 30, and his wife Michelle, 29, and daughter Haley, age 4. All died after their eastbound car collided with a westbound pickup truck on an icy, snow-covered County Road V on the evening of March 11, 2003.

HUDSON -- A former inmate in the St. Croix County jail has filed a lawsuit against the county and its sheriff, alleging she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a jailer, who later killed himself.

Jackie L. Peterson, 32, currently an inmate in the Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center, Union Grove, claims that on Nov. 4, 2008 Deputy Darren Hyland, who supervised cleaning activities, took her to an unoccupied dormitory to clean and while there used cleaning equipment to touch her breasts and drenched her jail uniform with water.

Then, says the civil complaint, Hyland confined Peterson in a maintenance closet where he touched her breasts and genitals and forced her to touch his genitals.

Then, continues the complaint, the deputy locked her in an unoccupied male dorm where he again touched her "intimate body parts" before releasing her from that dormitory and escorting her back to the female dormitory.

Peterson claims that before, during and after the sexual contacts, Hyland made repeated sexually graphic comments that "harassed, intimidated and offended" her.

The complaint also says that before the sexual contacts on Nov. 4, Hyland "engaged in a pattern of providing extra favors, food and privileges to female prisoners including Peterson and requesting/ intimating sexual favors were desire(d)."

Peterson says that six days later she cooperated with Sheriff's Department investigators and told them in detail about Hyland's conduct.

She said that on Nov. 14 jail administrators told her that Hyland had killed himself.

The suit alleges that jail administrators violated Peterson's constitutional rights and were negligent by failing to follow safety policies and procedures that would have protected her and by failing to provide appropriate personnel to prevent male jailers, such as Hyland, from "secreting (Peterson) away, holding her, detaining her and sexually assaulting her while in custody."

Hyland, 28, who joined the St. Croix County jail staff in May 2007, was on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation into alleged acts of misconduct at the time of his death, said Sheriff Dennis Hillstead in a news report at the time.