Donna Mae Kisselman:1969, Greeley, Colorado

   

   Donna Mae Kisselman was born on May 20th, 1950 to Mary Jane (Ehle) and Henry Kisselman Jr. she was the younger sister of three brothers and a sister. It was a bustling household. Her family lovingly called her “Baby”.

 I stumbled upon Donna Mae Kisselman’s story accidentally. I had typed in the beginning of someone else’s name on Find-a-Grave but Donna popped up instead. I decided that I simply must present her story. 

  She grew up in Windsor, Colorado. That’s roughly an hour’s drive north of Denver and it is west of Greeley. 

  When she was 18 she was eager to get out into the world. She found a little apartment in Greeley and a job waiting tables there too. This was the start of her grown up life and a grand adventure. I’m sure she was full of optimism and ambition. Her apartment building was right across from a lovely little city park with mature trees. Today a hotel and a civic center stand where her apartment building and other surrounding buildings once were located.

  On March 11th, 1969 Donna Mae Kisselman was assaulted and strangled with a belt in her small basement apartment at 1019 7th Street in downtown Greeley, Colorado. 

  

  Earl B. Cramer Jr. also lived at 1019 7th Street in a different apartment there in Greeley. He was questioned and arrested. What was he like? He grew up in Pueblo, Colorado after being adopted by the Cramers. (He had sisters who were adopted by other families as well.) 

  He liked to hide from his adoptive parents but they usually found him pretty quickly. 

  But once when he was nine years old in 1955 he hid from his parents in the cold and snow of January for 28 hours. He had been home for lunch that day and simply did not want to go back to school. He stood still behind a bush in someone’s yard. Civilian aircraft patrolled the town and the outskirts. 50 workers from an ordnance depot also searched along with members of many sheriff’s departments. A neighbor spotted him when he stepped out from a bush. 

  As he grew up and began driving; he had a few traffic tickets and traffic accidents. But, I didn’t find any record of violent crimes like rape, assault, or kidnapping.  

 He entered the military and served in the U.S. Navy from 1963 to 1965 during the Vietnam War. 

  Earl Blair Cramer Jr. was tried for the murder of Donna Mae Kisselman. I wasn’t able to find many details of the trial or the evidence against him. I wonder if he actually did this or if he was just an odd person who was easy to blame. It’s hard to say. 

 He was found to be innocent by reason of insanity in Donna Kisselman’s murder trial but he was committed to the State Hospital until he could be “restored to reason”. 

  In 1984 he walked away from State Hospital custody. I didn’t find an article about his being recaptured. But he must have been because I did find that he lived at several different apartment addresses in Pueblo throughout the 1990’s and 2000’s. He died in 2014 and had lived as a free man for quite a long time. 

  Were there any other similar crimes while he was free in the late 1980’s until his death? 

  Donna Mae Kisselman is buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Windsor, Colorado. She was 18 when she was murdered. She didn’t get to experience all the things that a long life brings. She only had a few months to experience grown up life living in her own place. 

  Rest in peace, Donna