Bloomer man faces multiple charges after murder of Florida couple

A Bloomer man faces a number of charges after the murder of a Florida couple.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Florida, 22-year-old Alex Zwiefelhofer, the son of the Chief of Bloomer Police, along with another man are accused of murdering a married couple near a church in 2018. The complaint goes on to detail several years of the man’s life that take place around the world.

DOD records indicate that Zwiefelhofer joined the Army in 2015 but went AWOL in 2016. The complaint states he traveled to the Ukraine to fight as a combatant for a foreign paramilitary group.

In 2017 Zwiefelhofer came to the attention of authorities at the US Embassy in Kenya while trying enter the South Sudan. He was deported to the United States.

After arriving at the airport, the complaint says investigators found pictures of child porn on Zwiefelhofer’s phone. That led to charges of sexual exploitation of a minor. Those charges are still pending.

In 2018, Authorities say Zwiefelhofer and another man traveled to Florida to meet the couple for a gun sale. The complaint alleges the couple was killed so the pair could take the money for travel costs. Zwiefelhofer later returned to Bloomer.

After a lengthy investigation FBI agents executed a search warrant at Zwiefelhofer’s home in May of 2019 and was subsequently arrested by ATF agents in Chippewa Falls.

He is currently in custody in Madison.