Ninety minutes after joyful news anchor Neena Pacholke purchased a firearm from a Wisconsin gun store, she pulled the trigger and ended her own life. Before she killed herself with a handgun, she sent a text message to a trusted friend that would later serve as her suicide note. The message described how Pacholke’s fiancé was cheating on her and how he “hated” her and would be glad to know that she had ended her own life with a blast from the recently purchased firearm.
Fiancé Kyle Haase, who was apparently cheating on the bubbly news anchor, broke off the engagement just seven weeks before the scheduled wedding day. The relationship ended after a tumultuous two-year courtship that was filled with frequent fights and Haase’s relentless cheating ways that tore up Pacholke’s psyche.
In one instance, Pacholke told a trusted friend that she returned to the home that she shared with her fiancé Haase only to find a pair of strange panties. Pacholke was found dead of a gunshot wound in the $390,000 house she shared with her fiancé, which they recently purchased in the Wisconsin suburb of Wausau.
In the minutes before Pacholke’s suicide, she notified a friend, who immediately called 911. Although the trusted friend acted swiftly and asked the 911 dispatcher to send police to perform a welfare check on the Wisconsin news anchor, authorities arrived too late. When they made it out to her home, they found her already dead because she had committed suicide.
Police officers went searching for Pacholke on the morning of August 27, 2022. However, they arrived too late. The day prior to her suicide, Haase had removed all firearms from the shared home for fear that she would use them to hurt either him or herself. However, the Wisconsin news anchor was easily able to purchase a new firearm from a gun shop nearby her home and used it within minutes of purchasing it to kill herself in a blood bath.
Meanwhile, Haase was on his way to Minnesota to visit family. He spoke to Pacholke, who reported that she was “going to do something” but remained vague about the details of her suicide attempt to her former fiancé.
Haase called the police to perform a welfare check on Pacholke because he was worried about her after hearing that she had plans to do something that she did not want to go into detail about.
Officers arrived at the Wausau home around 11:20 am. When they knocked at the front door, no one answered, so they went around the perimeter of the home to see if anyone was inside. While outside, the police heard a loud noise and clattering as if someone had just fired a gun and fallen into a collection of things.
Police waited half an hour after the gunshot to enter the home. When officers finally entered the property, they smelled gunpowder in the air when entering the bedroom. They found Pacholke in a closet with a firearm a short distance away from her. She was covered in blood, and there was a bullet hole in the wall from where the gunshot had exited her body and struck the drywall.
Pacholke and Haase met at a funeral in November 2020.