Wisconsin woman missing; husband bought large trash bags on day she disappeared

STEVENS POINT, Wis. -- (WITI) -- A Wisconsin man bought large plastic trash bags on the day his wife was last seen and left his fingerprints on a shopping bag containing her damaged cellphone, police said in a criminal complaint charging the man with her death. Jason Sypher, 44, of Plover appeared in court Monday on charges of first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse.

Sypher was arrested Friday near the Wisconsin-Illinois border. He reported his wife missing on March 20, 2017, a week after she was last seen at her home. Krista Sypher's body has not been found.

Sypher left to pick up a child at school that day, saying he stopped at a gas station on the way to “throw some garbage out.” Detectives found a smashed cellphone in a plastic shopping bag in a dumpster at the gas station, and surveillance video showed a silver car, similar to the one Jason Sypher was driving that day, stopping next to the dumpster and driving away. The phone had the same number as Krista Sypher's, and the shopping bag had nine separate fingerprints matching Jason Sypher's, the complaint said.

Video footage from around 6 p.m. that day showed him buying a package of black, plastic trash bags with cash. Police said the bags were never found at the couple's home. On March 16, 2017, GPS records show Sypher's car stopped at dumpsters near a street for about eight seconds, which “would allow the defendant enough time to exit the vehicle and look into the dumpster or discard evidence,” police said. When the dumpsters were emptied on March 20, police said video footage showed a long, black plastic bag “consistent with the size of a human body” falling to the floor.