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A Wisconsin family is reeling after a judge vacated the conviction of a man previously found guilty in the once-cold case of a mother killed in an execution-style shooting.

Miguel Cruz was sentenced to life in prison in 2021 stemming from the killing of Juanita Zdroik, 39, in Racine County in 2000. 

The case began on Feb. 7, 2000, when the mother of three was hauled to a rural highway and shot execution-style after witnessing a double homicide in Milwaukee. 

Authorities launched a desperate search for her killer, but the case ultimately ran cold until a suspect – identified as Cruz – was arrested in 2017.

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“One day I got a call while at work, and they said they caught my mother’s murderer,” Zach Zdroik, Juanita’s son who was 13 years old at the time of her death, told Fox News Digital. 

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“I felt extreme relief that the man responsible for my mother’s murder, and ultimately for a lifetime of pain for my sister and I, is finally where he belongs,” Zdroik added. “It was very fulfilling for us.”

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However, after filing an appeal surrounding the credibility of DNA and a broader investigation into the members of the sheriff’s office’s conduct, Cruz was granted a new trial earlier this week. 

“It was obviously heartbreaking, knowing that we have to deal with this again,” Zdroik said. “We’ve been very understanding throughout this entire process that has been years with the county and the legal system, so the fact that we saw the system itself fail us as a family was pretty disheartening.”

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Despite Cruz ultimately winning his chance at appeal, the charges against him have not been dismissed – setting the stage for a second trial or, according to Zdroik, a potential plea deal. 

“Our voice doesn’t matter to the county or state at this point,” Zdroik told Fox News Digital. “Like, what are we doing here? A man that was proven to be there, multiple eyewitnesses saw him there and they testified against him, now that that is no good due to a corrupt history. But he’s gonna get off now and live a life that my mother wasn’t able to live. I mean, does that seem fair?”

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Zdroik added that officials have told him Cruz’s possible plea deal could result in a 10-year prison sentence, which holds the potential of Cruz being released after just six months behind bars. 

“Who knows what is possible, I mean, I know this murder took place years ago,” Zdroik said. “I don’t know if he’s done anything else in between now and then that he was arrested for, or even not arrested for, to get away with murder, so who knows.”

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However, no plea deal has been officially offered or agreed upon, according to Zdroik. 

The ordeal has been especially taxing on Zdroik and his family, including his two sisters and children.

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“[My mom] was the one person in this world that I knew always loved me,” Zdroik told Fox News Digital. “I’ve never had that love ever in my life, and I don’t think I’ll ever have it again. My mother was my world.” 

“We’ve all had to struggle,” Zdroik added. “And live our lives in darkness and sadness because of this.”

The Racine County Sheriff’s Office, Racine County District Attorney’s Office and Cruz’s attorney did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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Nine people were injured in a mass shooting near Indiana University early Sunday morning.

Police responded to reports of gunfire at a celebration after the “Little 500” college cycling race in the area just before 12:30 a.m., finding “multiple wounded individuals.” Nine people were taken to local hospitals, including six by ambulance, according to WHTR.

Authorities have not detailed the extent of the victims’ injuries.

Witnesses told the outlet that the gunfire resulted from an altercation between two women at the event.

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“Two women fighting … I didn’t think too much of it,” a witness told WHTR. “I figured the police would get to it. But then I saw a girl reach toward her pants leg and start firing. By then, I was already running the other way.”

The Bloomington Police Department has yet to make any arrests in the case.

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The incident comes just a week after police identified Shamar Elkins as the suspect in a domestic violence rampage that left eight children dead and two women shot in Louisiana last week.

Shreveport Police Department Corporal Christopher Bordelon released Elkins’ identity while speaking with reporters near the crime scene Sunday evening, calling the mass shooting a “heinous crime.”

Along with the children, Elkins is accused of shooting the mother of his children, who is expected to survive, as well as another woman who is suffering from life-threatening injuries. A teenage victim also sustained injuries considered non-life-threatening.

According to investigators, the suspect first shot a woman on Harrison Street before traveling to a residence on West 79th Street, where the murders happened.

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After fleeing, he allegedly carjacked a man at gunpoint near Linwood Avenue and West 79th Street before officers located the vehicle and initiated a pursuit.

The chase continued into Bossier Parish, where officers confronted the suspect and opened fire, killing him at the scene. Authorities said no officers were injured.

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Christine Dawood, the widow who lost her husband and son in the Titan Submersible disaster three years ago, said she remembers getting their remains back nine months after the implosion in two small boxes — like “shoeboxes.”

“We didn’t get the bodies for nine months,” Dawood told the Guardian in a story published on Saturday. “Well, when I say bodies, I mean the slush that was left. They came in two small boxes, like shoeboxes.”

She added that “There wasn’t much they could find” of Shahzada Dawood, 48, and their son, Suleman, 19, of London, after the implosion. 

“They have a big pile they can’t separate, all mixed DNA, and they asked if I wanted some of that, too. But I said no, just what you know is Suleman and Shahzada.”

Shahzada and Suleman were killed along with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, businessman Hamish Harding and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, when the submersible imploded as it descended toward the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic Ocean on June 18, 2023.

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Dawood told the Guardian she remembers the last time she saw her husband and son that morning they got in the submersible as she battled seasickness aboard the ship that took them out to where they descended.

“Suleman had his Rubik’s Cube, because he was planning to get the record for solving it at the deepest depth ever,” she remembered. “And we were giggling, because Shahzada is clumsy and when he was going down the stairs he was wobbling a bit. I waved. And that was it. They got into a dinghy and sped off. It went very fast, the goodbye.”

A few hours later in the ship’s dining room, Dawood heard someone say: “They’ve lost communications.”

When they realized she overheard, the person added: “’Don’t worry, it’s not unusual.’ In that moment, what am I supposed to do? I felt trapped on that ship and I had no choice but to trust what they told me.”

She said she tried to keep her anxiety at bay, telling herself, “they were stuck” in the submersible. 

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“But I was worried. Suleman is not … well, both my men, they’re not very good at being in the dark, and I knew it would be a very different darkness down there. Nothing. You literally can’t see a thing,” she said.

She said everyone on the ship was in complete denial.

“The crew were [acting] like nothing was happening,” she said, saying the crew suggested it would just take time for the crew to be found unharmed.

“It did cross my mind that OceanGate had ulterior motivations about what they told us,” she added. “They were just trying to avoid the truth. But I would have deteriorated a lot quicker without hope.”

As they waited, she said the crew scheduled jamming sessions and movies to pass the time.

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“Ultimately, I think they wanted to distract people, keep everyone occupied,” she said. “They wanted everyone onside, not to feed anything to the press. But jamming sessions? Am I really going to sit there and sing Kumbaya? I did try to give a movie a go, but when I got there it felt like an act of betrayal. Watching ‘Wayne’s World’ while they are trapped in the dark did not sit well with me.”

After an extensive search, the remains of the submersible were found on the ocean floor.

The U.S. Coast Guard called it a “catastrophic implosion.”

“My first thought was, thank God,” Dawood said. “When they said catastrophic, I knew Shahzada and Suleman didn’t even know about it. One moment they were there and the next they weren’t. Knowing they didn’t suffer has been so important. They’re gone, but the way they went does somehow make it easier.”

Once she knew they were gone, Dawood said she had to deal with the practical details.

“What was I going to do with their stuff?” she said. “Their bags? Shahzada’s clothes and things were in my cabin, so I packed his bags. But I didn’t pack Suleman’s. I couldn’t. Someone else did that.”

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Last year, the Coast Guard released a report, calling the implosion a “preventable tragedy,” blaming OceanGate’s culture of avoiding regulating and “negligence” on safety.

“From the beginning, I had a lot of reasons to hate Stockton, but does that really help me?” Dawood said. “He died with them. If I’m angry with him, I’m giving him power, and I refuse to do that. I’m sure people will say I’m naive, but if I start to analyse every single thing, where does that lead me? So, I choose my own … not happiness but … I choose me, every day. If I don’t, I wouldn’t be here. I would have killed myself, for sure.”

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She added that she tries to give her grief “attention.”

“So I go into Suleman’s room. Sometimes I find the cat sleeping on his pillow and I sit on the bed and let the grief come,” she admitted. “And after a while I can put the grief away until the next time it gets too much. I’ve worked a lot on my grief for Suleman, but I’m only now starting to grieve for my husband. Publicly they are always put together, but they are two different relationships. Two very different pains.”

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As about a dozen cases involving missing or deceased American nuclear scientists have come to light, a retired high-level FBI official says some of them fit a pattern that he considers suspicious.

“The missing [and] disappearance thing is suspicious inherently,” said Chris Swecker, who served as assistant director of the FBI. “What they were working on would certainly, without a doubt, be a target of a hostile foreign intelligence service like Russia or China. It could be Iran, could be Pakistan.”

Swecker believes the six deaths that have been widely reported don’t have much in common, and he doesn’t believe they’re connected.

While Swecker isn’t convinced that there’s a conspiracy afoot even among the missing scientists, he agrees that authorities should be looking for links in the disappearances, given the high-value, sensitive technology that they all worked with or near.

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The disappearance of retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland earlier this year set off the cascade of theories about the missing and dead scientists. He was the former commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, and had connections to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where top-secret nuclear research is conducted.

He vanished in New Mexico after leaving his home with only a pair of boots and a handgun. He left his phone, keys and glasses behind.

“I’m just saying that … the FBI would have interest in anything that happened to them because of what they were working on,” he said. “And, in fact, [with] McCasland, the FBI showed up uninvited that very afternoon.“

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Anthony Chavez, 79, worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory until he retired in 2017. He reportedly disappeared on May 8, 2025. He was last seen leaving his house in Los Alamos on foot, with his car locked in his driveway. He did not bring his phone, wallet or keys on his walk.

Melissa Casias, 53, also worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. She went missing on June 26, 2025.

Steven Garcia, 48, went missing from Albuquerque on Aug. 28, 2025. He worked at the Kansas City National Security Campus, located in Albuquerque, which develops most of the nonnuclear components that go into building nuclear weapons. He reportedly left on foot carrying only a handgun.

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He reportedly had a top secret security clearance.

“So Garcia, Chavez and Casias, in my opinion, ought to be lumped in and that should be the focus, and any others that went missing, because that would fit more of a pattern than just killing somebody because of what they know,” said Swcker.

“Exact same pattern,” he continued. “They disappeared with all their personal belongings [left] behind. Some of them took their handguns with them, which means they’re either in fear or they’re going to go use it on themselves.”

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Swecker also had a warning for scientists working in top-secret fields.

“What people really need to be aware of — anybody involved in technology and anything that China or Russia or our competitors want to get their hands — ought to understand that there is a daily collection effort by China, Russia, Iran, to some extent, North Korea, but mainly China and Russia to steal technology because they’re not good at [research and development],” he said. “And their whole programs depend on stealing the technology and reverse engineering it.”

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“So, scientists, people involved in the defense contracting companies, research and development at universities, you know, all types of technologies in the U.S., even if it’s not military use, ought to be aware that this type of stuff goes on day in and day out.”

Last week, the White House directed the FBI to coordinate an investigation into the cases. The investigation is ongoing.

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The father of an Illinois woman who was killed by an illegal immigrant in a DUI crash issued a warning to Americans amid a push for stricter laws concerning driver’s licenses.

During Wednesday’s California gubernatorial debate, Democrat Katie Porter said she would “fight” the Trump administration after she was asked if English language proficiency should be strictly enforced for truck drivers.

Her comments come amid a string of fatal incidents involving illegal immigrant drivers, including Harjinder Singh, who allegedly made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike in August, triggering a crash that left three dead, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

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In a more recent case, Bekzhan Beishekeev, an illegal immigrant from Kyrgyzstan who entered the U.S. under the Biden administration, is accused of failing to stop for a slowing semi-truck, swerving into oncoming traffic and slamming into a van carrying up to 15 passengers, killing four, according to DHS.

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Joe Abraham, whose daughter was killed by an illegal immigrant drunken driver, warned Americans in an interview with Fox News Digital about the dangers of allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses — commercial or otherwise — without proper vetting.

“What happens is the outcomes are like what my family’s suffering through right now. So you take away these guardrails, you nullify federal law and then you implement no real process, an upfront process to understand who’s coming into our communities. Are they vetted, they were not. Were they health screened? No, the guy who killed Katie had HIV, no one even identified him until he was incarcerated,” he said.

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Abraham’s daughter, Katie, was killed in a drunken driving hit-and-run crash that involved an illegal immigrant in 2025 in Urbana, Illinois. Julio Cucul-Bol, an illegal immigrant, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he crashed into her car and fled the scene.

“Let’s figure out where those cracks are and tighten them up. But if you have a process, and I’ve been talking about this since Katie’s death, you cannot just say, everyone is my neighbor,” he said.

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Abraham said at the very least, knowledge of the English language should be a requirement.

“It seems really common sense-wise, and I know that our politicians today struggle with common sense. I don’t know if they try to outsmart their common sense or if it’s just straight up ideology and power. But it seems to me that if you’re on the roads, not only should you know the language and be able to read the signs and understand the flow, but you should be assimilated in some way,” Abraham said.

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The Illinois resident said his daughter was a “beautiful person” with a “sharp wit.”

“She was so personable. Her personality was so engaging, made everyone feel seen, heard, cared for, compassionate, fair-minded. She loved the water. She was a water polo player. She was a competitive swimmer. Did that all through high school. She had her whole life ahead of her. And see, you know, like a sponge, she soaked in life, every piece of it, and she was only 20. We still had so many plans ahead of us that were, you know, that are just gone because of reckless policies,” he added.

Fox News Digital reached out to Porter’s campaign for comment.