Matthew Beyer, Outagamie County Jail photo

APPLETON — In a surprise motion Thursday in Outagamie County Circuit Court, the attorney for a father accused of killing his two children in 2020 in Kaukauna says another man committed the crime.

Matthew Beyer is charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the deaths of his two children, 5-year-old William Beyer and 3-year-old Danielle Beyer, who were found dead by police on Feb. 17, 2020, in the upper level of a Crooks Avenue duplex in Kaukauna.

According to a criminal complaint, investigators have surveillance video of Beyer driving back and forth from Manitowoc to the Kaukauna duplex in his minivan, several hours before the children were found dead.

Beyer was arrested June 5, 2020, after a nearly four-month investigation.

In a pre-trial hearing Thursday, WLUK-TV in Green Bay reports that Beyer’s attorney, Amanda Skorr, submitted a motion that another man “recently professed his love for the victims’ mother, and she did not reciprocate his feelings.”

Skorr said the man’s car was seen near the home, and a neighbor saw a man meeting his description at the scene that day.

Additionally, WLUK reports that Skorr told the judge that, “police found buckets with clothes soaking in them in the basement” of his home shortly after the homicides, and his whereabouts cannot be definitively accounted for between 2 and 7 a.m. the day of the murders.

Skorr also asked for a delay in Beyer’s trial that was scheduled to get under way Sept. 6.

Beyer, who has pleaded not guilty, is being held on a $2.5 million cash bond.

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By Dan Plutchak

Dan Plutchak, born and raised in Kaukauna, is cofounder of Kaukauna Community News.