Craig Stingley had no legal training, no big-name lawyer or civil rights advocate by his side. Yet for 13 years, he refused to accept that the judicial system would hold no one responsible for the killing of his 16-year-old son, Corey.
The quest for justice dominated his life.
He gathered police reports, witness statements and other evidence in the Dec. 14, 2012, fatal incident inside a Milwaukee-area convenience store. The youth had tried to shoplift $12 worth of flavored malt beverages at the shop before abandoning the items and turning to leave. That’s when three men wrestled him to the ground to hold him for the police.
The medical examiner determined that he died of a brain injury from asphyxiation after a “violent struggle with multiple individuals.” The manner of death: homicide.
When prosecutors chose not to charge anyone, Stingley waged a legal campaign of his own that forced the case to be reexamined. A 2023 ProPublica investigation pieced together a detailed timeline of what happened inside the store, recounted what witnesses saw and examined the backgrounds of the three customers involved in the altercation.
Finally, this week, in an extraordinary turn of events, Stingley will see a measure of accountability. On Monday, a criminal complaint filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court charged the surviving patrons — Robert W. Beringer and Jesse R. Cole — with felony murder. The defendants are set to appear in court on Thursday.
Beringer’s attorney, Tony Cotton, described the broad outlines of a deferred prosecution agreement that can lead to the charges being dismissed after the two men plead guilty or no contest. The men may be required by the court to make a contribution to a charity in honor of Corey Stingley and to perform community service, avoiding prison time, according to Cotton and Craig Stingley.
In Wisconsin, felony murder is a special category for incidents in which the commission of a serious crime — in this case, false imprisonment — causes the death of another person. The prosecutor’s office in Dane County, which is handling the matter, declined to comment. Cole’s attorney said his client had no comment. Previously, the three men have argued that their actions were justified, citing self-defense and their need to respond to an emergency.
For Stingley, a key part of the accountability process already has taken place. Last year, as part of a restorative justice program and under the supervision of a retired judge, Stingley and the two men interacted face to face in separate meetings.
There, inside an office on a Milwaukee college campus, they confronted the traumatic events that led to Corey Stingley’s death and the still-roiling feelings of resentment, sorrow and pain.
Craig Stingley said he felt that, after years of downplaying their role, the men showed regret and a deeper understanding of what had happened. For instance, Stingley said, he and Cole aired out their different perspectives on what occurred and even reviewed store surveillance video together.
“I have never been able to breathe as clearly and as deeply and feel as free as I have after that meeting was over,” Stingley said.
Restorative justice programs bring together survivors and offenders — via meetings or letters or through community panels — to try to deepen understanding, promote healing and discuss how best to make amends for a wide range of harms. The approach has been used by schools and juvenile and criminal justice systems, as well as nations grappling with large-scale atrocities.
Situations where restorative justice and deferred prosecution are employed for such serious charges are rare, Cotton said. But, he said, the whole case is rare — from the prosecution declining to issue charges initially to holding it open for multiple reviews over a decade.
“Our hearts go out to the Stingley family, and we believe that the restorative justice process has allowed all sides to express their feelings openly,” Cotton said. “We are glad that a fair and just outcome has been achieved.”
The Legal Quest
Milwaukee’s district attorney at the time of Corey Stingley’s death, John Chisholm, announced there would be no charges 13 months later, in January 2014. Cole, Beringer and a third man, Maurio Laumann, now deceased, were not culpable because they did not intend to injure or kill the teen and weren’t trained in proper restraint techniques, Chisholm determined.
Craig Stingley, who is Black, and others in the community protested the decision, claiming the three men — all white — were not good Samaritans but had acted violently to kill a Black youth with impunity. “When a person loses his life at the hands of others, it would seem that a ‘chargeable’ offense has occurred,” the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP said in a statement at the time.
Looking for a way to reopen the case, Stingley reexamined the evidence, including security video. In a painful exercise, he watched the takedown of his son, by his estimation hundreds of times, analyzing who did what, frame by frame. What he saw only reinforced his view that his son’s death was unnecessary and his right to due process denied.
Corey Stingley and his father lived only blocks from VJ’s Food Mart, in West Allis, Wisconsin. That December day, Stingley made his way to the back of the store and stuck six bottles of Smirnoff Ice into his backpack. At the front counter, the teenager provided his debit card to pay for an energy drink, but the clerk demanded the stolen items. Stingley surrendered the backpack, reached toward the cash register to recover his debit card, then turned to exit.
Cole told police he extended his hand to stop Stingley and claimed that the teen punched him in the face, though it is not evident on the video. The three men grabbed the youth. During a struggle, the men pinned Stingley to the floor.
Laumann kept Stingley in a chokehold, several witnesses told investigators. ProPublica later discovered that Laumann had been a Marine. His brother told ProPublica he likely learned how to apply chokeholds as part of his military service decades ago.
Beringer had Stingley by the hair and was pressing on the teen’s head, a witness told authorities. Cole helped to hold Stingley down. Eventually, Stingley stopped resisting. The police report states that Cole thought the teen was “playing limp” to trick them into loosening their grip.
“Get up, you punk!” Laumann told the motionless teen when an officer finally arrived, according to a police report. Stingley was foaming at the mouth and had urinated through his clothes. The officer couldn’t find a pulse. Stingley never regained consciousness, dying at a hospital two weeks later.
Craig Stingley unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Chisholm in 2015 to discuss the lack of charges. “Feel free to seek legal advice in the private sector regarding your Constitutional Rights,” an assistant to Chisholm replied to Stingley in an email. “I extend my deepest sympathy to you and your family!”
Stingley’s review of the video, however, did bring about another legal opportunity in 2017, after he notified West Allis police that there was footage showing Laumann with his arm around the teen’s throat. (Laumann had denied putting him in a headlock.) A Racine County district attorney was appointed to review the evidence again. She issued no report for three years, until pressed by the court, then concluded that no charges were warranted.
Finally, Stingley discovered an obscure Wisconsin “John Doe” statute. It allows private citizens to petition a judge to consider whether a crime had been committed if a district attorney refuses to issue a criminal complaint.
A former process engineer for an electrical transformer manufacturer, Stingley had no legal training. Still, in November 2020, he filed a 14-page petition with the then-chief judge of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, Mary Triggiano. It cited legal authority and “material facts,” including excerpts from police reports, witness statements and stills from the surveillance video. Stingley quoted former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in the petition and the British statesman William Gladstone: “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
That led to the appointment in July 2022 of Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to review the case. But that process was slowed by procedural hurdles. Stingley took the delays in stride, saying he trusted that Ozanne and his staff were treating the matter seriously and acting appropriately.
In 2024, Stingley said, Ozanne’s office advised him that they had found sufficient evidence to issue charges against Cole and Beringer but could not guarantee that a jury would deliver a guilty verdict. Stingley, researching the family’s options, said he inquired about the restorative justice process. The DA’s office supported the idea, arranging for him and the two men to meet under the supervision of the Andrew Center for Restorative Justice, part of the law school at Milwaukee’s Marquette University. The program is run by Triggiano, who’d retired from the court.
The concept of restorative justice can be traced back to indigenous cultures, where people sat together to talk through conflict and solve problems. It emerged in the United States in criminal justice systems in the 1970s as a way to provide alternatives to prison and restitution to victims. Elsewhere, it has notably been used to address the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, where beginning in 2002 truth-telling forums led to forgiveness and reconciliation.
Stingley, who has three remaining grown children and four grandchildren, desperately wanted “balance restored” for his family. He decided the best path forward was to meet with the men he considered responsible for his son’s death.
The Quest for Closure
Stingley brought photos of Corey to the restorative justice meeting with Berringer in April.
The goal: to respectfully share their perspectives on the tragedy and how it impacted each of them personally. What was said was not recorded or transcribed. It was not for use in any court proceeding.
The sessions began with the Stingley family sharing heartfelt stories about Corey as a son, brother, student and friend. They spoke of their great bond, Corey’s love of sports and their struggle to cope with his absence.
When discussion turned to what happened in the store, Stingley said, Berringer described having only faint memories of the fatal encounter. He recalled a brief struggle and grabbing the teen by his jacket, not his hair.
Before departing the meeting, a tearful Beringer told Stingley he was looking for peace, Stingley recalled.
Cotton, Beringer’s attorney, told ProPublica that the incident and the legal steps affected his client in profound ways. “He’s had anxiety really from this from day one,” Cotton said.
The result, he said: “Sleeplessness. Horrible anxiety. Fearful because he has to go to court.”
Does the resolution ease Beringer’s mind? “I don’t know,” Cotton said, adding that the hope is that the Stingley family finds solace in the resolution process.
Cole, in a meeting in May with Stingley and some of his family, brought a gift: a pair of angel wings on a gold chain with a small “C” charm and several clear reflective orbs. With it came a handwritten note, saying: “I hope this sun catcher brings a gentle reflection of the love & light of Corey’s memory and that you feel his presence shining on you each day.”
“I told him I appreciate the gesture,” Stingley said.
Cole, according to Stingley, told him that he felt something other than the altercation — perhaps some health ailment — led to Corey’s demise.
Stingley invited Cole to watch the surveillance video together at a second session. As that day neared, in July, Stingley considered backing out. “It was almost as if I had to drag myself up out of the car,” he said. But he said he realized that he’d been preparing for such an event for 13 years: to come to some honest reckoning with the men involved.
After watching the video, he and Cole reviewed the death certificate, showing the medical examiner’s conclusions. Stingley said Cole stressed that he did not choke Corey but came to realize that what happened in the store caused the teen to lose his life, not any preexisting condition. The acknowledgment eased Stingley’s burden.
“I felt like I was reaching a place where I was finally going to get the justice that I’ve been pursuing,” Stingley said, “and this is one of the steps I had to go through to get that completed.”
Triggiano commended each of the participants for their courage in meeting and the Stingley family for “seeking the humanity of their son as opposed to vengeance.” She said Beringer and Cole “keenly listened, reflected and really acknowledged their connection to the events that led to Corey’s death.”
“The conversations were emotional and difficult but deeply human,” she said.
After the loss of his son, Stingley wanted to see the three men imprisoned. But so many years later, justice now looks different. Now Laumann is dead. Beringer is changed by the experience. And Cole is a father eager to protect his own children.
Now, in Stingley’s eyes, prison is beside the point. Criminal charges will stand instead as a strong signal of accountability, of justice — and of a father’s unyielding love.