(Image courtesy of Salena Zito)

WAUPACA, Wisconsin — In another lifetime, the Park Motel and Supper Club sat along U.S. 10 and enjoyed both local patrons and famished travelers looking for a good homemade meal and a place to rest on this highway connecting Bay City, Michigan, to Fargo, North Dakota (including a 62-mile ferry ride across Lake Michigan along the way).

Over the years, the motel housed the sequestered jurists for the trial of Jennifer Patri, the woman who claimed horrendous abuse at the hands of her husband that led her to shoot him with a rifle, bury his body in the basement of the farmhouse, and then set it all on fire.