Emerson and Gina Weingart shot dead at Elkhorn, Wisconsin bar just after close up after customer walks in after close. Jordan Barr of Sports Page Barr says the couple were widely loved and like family at the venue. No arrests.
A husband and his bartender wife were fatally shot at a downtown Wisconsin sports bar in Elkhorn just after midnight Thursday morning as the husband kept his wife company during her shift. The couple’s deaths are now being investigated as a homicide, with authorities yet to make an arrest.
Emerson Weingart, 33 was sitting by the bar at the Sports Page Barr, where, Gina Weingart, 37, worked when gunshots from inside the establishment went off, ten minutes after the establishment closing at midnight.
When deputies arrived, they found the Weingarts dead, Elkhorn police wrote in a February 1 news release.
‘Their lives were just beginning’
Emerson Weingart’s father, Jeff Weingart, told WISN that his son called him at 12:09 but there was no one on the line when he answered the phone.
Family members said the Weingarts were married last June, and Jordan Barr, owner of The Sports Page Barr, said they were regulars at the club before he offered Gina a job.
According to Barr, the couple were shot after, ‘some coward came into the bar and opened fire.’
‘Their lives were just beginning, and I believe I speak for our entire Sports Page family by saying we are absolutely devastated by what happened,’ he wrote on Facebook. ‘It is a despicable act of violence that has shaken all of us to our core.’
Dozens of people expressed their shock and grief in the comments of Barr’s post. Commenters called the Weingarts some of the nicest people they’ve ever known and praised Gina’s pure and kind soul.
Mystery shooting
According to friends and family, Gina Weingart worked part time at the venue, and her newlywed husband would come in and hang out with her until close.
The Elkhorn Police Department and the sheriff’s office are investigating the incident and have not announced if they have identified a suspect or said if there were surveillance cameras inside or outside The Sports Page. It’s also not known who called 911.
A bullet struck the hair salon next door, its owner said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
‘It was alarming,’ Elizabeth Krause said. ‘This is really quite a quiet community and really a small town America and to hear that there was a shooting and two fatalities.’
Not immediately clear is how the couple came to be shot? Whether random gunfire rang out or whether they were specifically targeted and if so, why?
