Dad and 2 Daughters Found Dead Hours After Divorce Hearing

A Wisconsin mother says she desperately tried to protect her two daughters before the girls were found dead alongside their father — just hours after a bitter divorce hearing.

Police discovered the bodies of Jeffrey Manke, 57, and his daughters, 16-year-old Jaelyn and 11-year-old Lenora, inside the family’s Winneconne home on Friday, July 31.

Officers had been sent to the Division Street residence for a reported medical incident and welfare check when they made the horrifying discovery, according to local authorities.

The deaths came only hours after Manke and the girls’ mother, Lindsey Lewandowski, 38, appeared in court for a divorce hearing, court records show.

The couple’s marriage had been described in legal documents as “irretrievably broken with no chance for reconciliation,” triggering a contentious custody fight that reportedly dragged on for nearly a year.

Authorities have not publicly revealed how the father and daughters died.

The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office also declined to say whether investigators were treating the case as a possible double murder-suicide.

However, court records raise troubling questions about the family’s history.

A restraining order filed against Manke earlier this year reportedly stated that he had access to firearms. Other court documents prohibited him from using drugs or alcohol while the children were in his care.

Lewandowski had sought sole custody of Jaelyn and Lenora, but the court ultimately awarded the parents joint legal custody.

Both parents were officially deemed “fit and proper persons” to share custody of the children, according to the court filings.

But in a heartbreaking Facebook post published Monday, Lewandowski claimed her daughters had repeatedly said they felt unsafe with their father.

“I’m so sad. Everyone they talked to knew they were not safe in his care. And I fought so hard to try to keep them safe,” wrote Lewandowski, who uses the name Lindsey Dash on Facebook.

She claimed a family counselor stopped working with the girls despite knowing they did not want to stay with their father.

Lewandowski also said reports had been made to Child Protective Services and that authorities had been contacted before she was forced to continue sending the girls to their father’s home.

“The family counselor dismissed them and refused to continue working with them,” she wrote. “The GAL knew they didn’t want to be there.”

The grieving mother said she now believes the warning signs were ignored.

“Nobody wanted to listen,” Lewandowski wrote. “If someone listened to their cries for help for the last 2 years, they would still be here.”

“The system failed my babies.”

The Winnebago Circuit Court and the Winnebago County Department of Human Services had not publicly responded to the allegations.

As investigators work to determine exactly what happened inside the home, the devastated family is left mourning two young sisters whose mother says she spent years trying to save them.