Killed in their pajamas: Listen to the story of Wade and Ellen Zick, murdered 45 years ago this weekend

Everybody in town knew Wade Zick, bank manager and choir director at Zion Lutheran church. They knew his wife Ellen, too.

The couple were a fixture in the community and very involved in church affairs. When the Zicks failed to show up to church on July 11, 1976, it became clear that something was not right in the the little town of Zeeland.

By the end of that fateful Sunday, McIntosh County Sheriff Milton Wiest made the sorrowful announcement: Wade and Ellen Zick were dead, murdered in a gravel pit outside of town.

As shocking as this news was to the community, so was word that law enforcement were searching for three local young men.

David Feist, his brother Sebastian Feist and Gregory Huber seemed to have fled the area and were suspected of first kidnapping the Zicks, then forcing them to the bank. before finally shotgunning the couple to death outside of town.

Video courtesy North Dakota State Archives

Dakota Spotlight Podcast covered this story in depth in 2019. Listen to all seven podcast episodes to get the full story of this tragic crime from rural N.D.

RELATED: Other true Crime podcasts BY JAMES WOLNER

• What happened to 15-year-old Barbara Louise Cotton, vanished from the streets of Williston 40 years ago?

• How did Victor Die? The Full audio podcast about a mysterious death in Glen Ullin, N.D.

• True crime podcast: The untold story of a Zeeland, N.D., couple and their tragic murders in 1976
• The house on Sweet & 7th: the Erickstad homicides.
  
• In "Chasing Billy: A Pursuit for Justice," Dakota Spotlight debuts episode 1 of a new season focused on unsolved 1978 murder
  

RELATED Podcast homepage | Newsletter | Season 3 videos | Season 2: 1976 Zick murders | jwolner@forumcomm.com

CLICK BELOW FOR MORE TRUE CRIME REPORTING FROM FORUM COMMUNICATIONS DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX