Cold Case Series: Deidre Harm

As part of a special series of reports on cold cases, NewsChannel 7 is investigating several unsolved homicides throughout Northcentral Wisconsin.

Twenty-one-year-old Deidre Harm was a vibrant, loving woman, who had her whole life ahead of her - a job and a new apartment, even a new baby, a 4 month old baby girl named Vegas.

But during the early morning hours of June 11, 2006, after a night out with friends, she disappeared.Never to be seen from, or heard from again.It was the night of June 10th, 2006.

Investigators say Harm hired a babysitter to watch her daughter while she went out for the night. She stopped with friends at several downtown bars in Wisconsin Rapids, including The Body Shop and The Finish Line. But authorities say she wasn't alone, she was seen leaving with someone no one seemed to know.

The next day, she was gone.

"Not to be heard from or call to check-in to see whose got her daughter, no friends, no relatives have been contacted by her and it's just not Deidre, just not her" Deidre's father, Scott Harm, told NewsChannel 7 in 2006.

Five years later he decline to speak to us because it's still too painful.

Police were baffled from the beginning, with no initial signs of foul play. "We're dealing with a missing person case of a 21 year old and everything leading up to that we found no evidence of any criminal activity, it's simply been a missing person," says Wisconsin Rapids Police Chief Kurt Heuer.

Police would release a sketch of the last person they know was with Deidre that night.

It wasn't until five months later, Deidre's skeletal remains were found by hunters in the Town of Seneca, near Port Edwards. Wood County Coroner Garry Kronstedt was called the scene, and to this day he still remembers arriving to identify her remains.

"We had suspicions of who it was, but we had sent in the dental to Dr. Smiley, who is also a forensic doctor, forensic dentist, identification was made through dental records," he says.

An autopsy would rule her cause of death as undetermined, with few clues to help police. "There was trauma on the bones, but we can't definitely say it was from that incident," says Kronstedt.

Even with an inconclusive autopsy, police believed the location of her remains proved someone had left her body there.

The missing persons case would now be investigated as a homicide. They shifted their focus from finding Deidre, to finding the person who murdered her.

"It's a very difficult day for her family and friends and the sheriff's department's condolences go out to them, we will do everything we can to reach a conclusion in this case," says Wood County Sheriff Thomas Reichert.

Police set out to talk to the man last seen with Deidre, they never called him a suspect, but they knew they needed to talk with him. But for the next three years, the case went cold.

Then in 2009, there was a potential break.

Wisconsin Rapids Police Chief, Kurt Heuer, says they received a tip from a local resident to check out 36-year-old Christopher Revak. A Wisconsin Rapids native, who moved to Missouri.

His description was strikingly similar to the sketch released by police. "Christopher Revak, at that time, was also a suspect in a missing case that ended up where a female bartender went missing in which he was found to be connected to, that we were given a tip that that might be something the agency wanted to look at," says Heuer. And they did.

Wisconsin Rapids Police would learn Revak had been involved in a missing persons case before.

He was the suspect in the 2007 disappearance of 36-year-old Rene Williams from Missouri. A mother of three, and bartender who worked at the Eagle's Lodge in Ava, Missouri.

Police say Revak was a regular at the lodge and was there, along with Williams, the night of the crime.

In July of 2009, authorities arrested Revak in connection to Rene's disappearance. Her body has never been found.

But a conclusion in this case still hasn't come, five years later.

"When we look at the pattern of behavior, through the sheriff's investigation in Missouri, that the investigation involving Deidre, there were a lot of similarities," says Heuer.

Wisconsin Rapids Police found out Revak was in Wisconsin Rapids at the time Deidre disappeared, but investigators would never get the chance to speak with him.

"Mr. Revak had taken his life, he hung himself in the Douglas County Jail," says Douglas County Sheriff, Chris Degase.

"That does make it more complex and more complicated, we no longer have an individual of interest because they unfortunately have been deceased since 2009," says Heuer.

Deidre's family declined to comment on whether or not they believe Revak murdered Deidre. Police say Revak is the last, credible lead they've received. But without evidence or a confession linking Revak to the murder, the case remains unsolved.

"We all need to work together to bring finality to this, bring solution, answers to this, whether or not it's our person of interest or otherwise, we need to bring this to conclusion for Deidre's family," says Heuer.

Investigators aren't giving up in the search for answers, they believe even after Revak's death, someone has the piece of the puzzle, they'll need to close this case.

"If I was that individual with that information out there, I'd have to look in the mirror and say what if I was part of Deidre's family, how would I be feeling right now if I was her mother, father, sister, brother, whatever the connection may be," says Heuer.

If you have any information on this case you are asked to call Wood County CrimeStoppers at

. You can remain anonymous.