The husband of a White Bear Township woman who disappeared in 1997 was arrested Tuesday in connection with her murder.
Norman Allen Bachman was jailed Tuesday and is expected to appear in Ramsey County District Court on Wednesday, when he will be charged with murder in the second degree, according to Ramsey County officials.
Bachman previously denied any involvement in his wife's disappearance. When the case was reopened in 2012, county officials said Bachman refused to meet with investigators who had reinterviewed others in the case.
Toni Bachman was 38 years old when she was last heard from in April 1997. Her mother reported her missing on May 12, 1997.
Her husband told investigators that he saw his wife on Sunday, April 27, but their sons said they didn't remember seeing her all weekend.
Authorities said they believed she was the victim of foul play, based in part on blood and tissue found on a cardboard box in a freezer in the basement of the couple's home that match her DNA. Investigators say the pattern indicated that someone tried to wipe up the spatters.
Investigators and friends say that, just before her disappearance, Toni Bachman was preparing to leave her husband of 10 years. The two had a stormy relationship that included a 1987 allegation that Norman Bachman choked her.
Norman Bachman was convicted in 1998 of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with an attack on a Prior Lake woman after his wife's disappearance.
The Ramsey County Sheriff's Office, acting on tips that came in after a TV news segment in March 2012, obtained a search warrant and excavated evidence from the back yard and basement of the White Bear Township home where the couple lived.
At the time, county officials said they could not confirm or deny whether human remains were found.
Mary Lynn Smith • 612-673-4788
