MADISON – Former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes is dropping out of the Democratic primary race for governor and endorsing Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez.

Hughes, who was the most moderate candidate in the Democratic field for governor, suspended her campaign days after placing last in a straw poll of party delegates at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin state convention in Madison.

Her endorsement of Rodriguez comes as some Democrats are eyeing an alternative to state Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who leans further left than current Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. Hong and Barnes are considered frontrunners in the primary race.

In a statement, Hughes flicked at the approach of Hong and other candidates to her left who have proposed significant changes to state government.

“I believe there is great hope in these small efforts to find common ground. I wanted to make sure that Wisconsinites understand we have created something valuable and that investing in ourselves and our communities is well-deserved,” Hughes said. “We do not need to tear it all down, and there is real and important work to do to improve what we already have.”

Hughes suggested Rodriguez would make more reasonable decisions as governor than her primary opponents.

“This job is about running the state, and getting things done. As you consider what is important to you, I urge you to look beyond the talking points, social media posts, and gilded promises and consider what you think is essential to do the job,” she said. “Stop asking, ‘Who will win?’ and start asking who you trust to make big decisions that impact our families and the wellbeing of our loved ones, neighbors and communities.”

This developing story will be updated.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

MILWAUKEE – A Wisconsin man – who FOX6 Investigators once dubbed the “Moving Menace” – now faces a death investigation plus 10 criminal cases from nine police departments. 

‘She’s ice-cold, dude!’

What they’re saying:

A 2015 Toyota Corolla was going 80 mph down Forest Home – in a 35 mph zone – when a Greenfield police officer flipped on his emergency lights and siren, revved the engine and began a rapid pursuit. As the vehicle slowed, a hand emerged and waved from the driver’s window. He yelled something about an unresponsive woman in the back seat.

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Officers found 40-year-old Mina Abidi slumped over behind the passenger seat of the car, dragged her onto the pavement and started CPR. 

Seated on a curb nearby, Daniel Berczyk started talking.

“I noticed her lips,” he said. “I noticed her lips.”

Abidi was pronounced dead at the scene. The medical examiner’s office ruled the cause of death to be an overdose from a combination of fentanyl, cocaine, alcohol and xylazine.

Daniel Berczyk sits on a curb on August 13, 2024, as first responders tend to Mina Abidi’s overdose.

Berczyk told officers he was trying to get her to the nearest hospital, but he admitted he’d been driving her around in that state for more than an hour, including two trips to Walgreens.

Officer: “Why didn’t you call 911 immediately?” 
Berczyk: “When I went into Walgreens, she wasn’t acting like she was dead or anything.”

At times, Berczyk described Abidi as a friend.

“I can’t believe she’s ****ing gone man, what the ****? It’s crazy.”

But moments later, he couldn’t seem to remember her name.

Berczyk: “What the hell’s the girl name in the car?”
Detective: “You called her Bidi.”
Berczyk: “Yeah Bidi.”
Detective: “Oh, that’s pretty close to her last name.”

Abidi’s death became the subject of a Greenfield Police investigation that is still awaiting a charging decision from the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office nearly two years later.

She was my ‘sister’

Why you should care:

Abidi was married, had a daughter and lived in the picture-postcard suburb of Cedarburg. But her relationship was nothing to write home about. Her husband had been convicted of domestic abuse. Michailah Belle said when she met Abidi, she was contemplating suicide.

“There was just this look in her face,” Belle said. “She looked sad.”

The two became fast friends and Belle, who has 11 children of her own, said she eventually considered Abidi a member of her family.

“She was so optimistic,” Belle said. “She was just going through some things.”

Belle said she believes drugs are what led Abidi to a meet-up with one of the area’s most prolific criminals.

‘Get off my property!’

The backstory:

FOX6 Investigators first encountered Berczyk in 2008, ripping off customers of his moving business that operated under multiple names, including Best Way Movers and Affordable Moving and Storage.

A few months after that investigation, police said Berczyk went on a three-week crack cocaine binge, during which he broke into dozens of cars at area park-and-ride lots. He fled to Arizona. 

FOX6 Investigators noticed he was updating his MySpace page – yes, MySpace – and police used that to find him and bring him back to Wisconsin.

Between 2009 and 2016, Berczyk was in and out of prison, often finding his misdeeds the subject of FOX6 Investigators reports.

Daniel Berczyk orders FOX6 Investigator Bryan Polcyn to leave his parents’ property in Muskego in 2008.

“You told me you were going to turn your life around,” FOX6 Investigator Bryan Polcyn said in a courthouse hallway in 2015 before Berczyk bumped him with his left hip.

“Did you just hip-check me, Dan?” Polcyn replied.

For nearly 30 years, starting in the late 1990s, Berczyk racked up criminal cases faster than birthdays – mostly involving theft, drugs or both. But in 2016, something unexpected happened: The criminal charges largely stopped for 10 years, but for a single misdemeanor case in 2020.

That is, until Mina Abidi’s death.

A visit to Milwaukee

Timeline:

On Aug. 12, 2024, Abidi was in Cedarburg. Berczyk said she wanted to “hang out,” but needed gas money. So Berczyk paid a friend to send her $14 through Cash App. She arrived at the Travelodge near 20th and Layton, just off the interstate in Milwaukee, sometime after dark. He said they were “fooling around” in her car but never had sex.

Berczyk claimed he never saw Abidi use drugs, but noticed she was “acting weird,” like she was “fighting off a Xanax buzz.” In a video recorded interview hours later, Berczyk reflected on that moment.

Berczyk: “Man, she’s kind of ****ed up (he remembered thinking) I should get some Narcan.”
Detective: “You thought that then?”
Berczyk: “I don’t know why. It just popped into my head.”

Berczyk tells a Greenfield detective he sought life-saving Narcan at Walgreens, but left when told it would cost money.

At one point, Berczyk said, Abidi got out of the car and laid down on the pavement. So he loaded her into the backseat of her own car and drove to Walgreens hoping to get Narcan. Surveillance video shows him entering the store alone, approaching the pharmacy counter, then leaving without any medication.

“Thirty-four dollars for Narcan? I’m like, ‘What the ****? ****’s free?” he said.

It’s not clear what Berczyk actually said to the pharmacist, but Belle believes he should have told them a woman in the car outside might be dying.

“They could’ve called 911,” she said. “They could’ve called the ambulance. The ambulance could’ve came there, and they could’ve saved her.”

Instead, Berczyk got back in the car at 12:50 a.m. and sat there for 12 minutes. 

At 1:02 a.m., the car pulled away. Berczyk said he spent the next hour dumpster-diving at a nearby apartment complex.

“Have you ever seen those dumpsters?” he told a detective. “Dude, I have pulled some ****ing amazing **** out of there, dude.”

The whole time, Abidi was in the car, unwilling or unable to talk.

“I’m like, ‘Bidi, what’s up?’ She’s like, (Berczyk makes a growling noise). She made like a weird noise or something. I’m like, ‘What the ****?’”

It wasn’t until 2:11 a.m. that police spotted Berczyk speeding down Forest Home and pulled him over. By then, it was too late.

Abidi’s death was officially ruled an accident, and while the case is still under review by prosecutors, Berczyk has never been charged.

But four months later, the criminal charges started piling up again.

Ten criminal cases in 18 months

Downward spiral:

In December 2024, Big Bend Police said Berczyk stole $3,500 worth of aluminum rims from a commercial trucking company. Wauwatosa police said he stole rims at a business there, too.

In May 2025, Berczyk was caught on surveillance video stealing a bicycle from a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee residence hall garage. 

In July 2025, he’s accused of stealing a gun, tools and sporting goods from a Glendale apartment complex.

In late 2025 and early 2026, four different police departments found him in possession of cocaine, meth and narcotic drugs.

Click here to read the criminal complaints:

But while the criminal charges kept coming, Berczyk stopped showing up for court. So FOX6 Investigators went looking for him where we found him 18 years ago – at his parents’ house in Muskego.

“I’m looking for your son, Dan,” said Polcyn to a gray-haired man who answered the knock, but refused to open the storm door.

Berczyk has been charged with more than 100 crimes in his adult life. He is 50 years old.

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“No idea where he is,” mouthed Daniel Berczyk Sr.

After four months on the lam, Milwaukee police arrested Berczyk at a house near 12th and Ring in Milwaukee’s Borchert Field neighborhood. They said they found him after he listed a stolen generator on Facebook Marketplace. 

He’s back in custody, facing a flurry of new charges. In all, he now has 10 open criminal cases in Milwaukee and Waukesha counties, with a total of 35 criminal charges among them. 

“That is how you get an absolute Level 5 highest risk category,” said prosecuting attorney Karine O’Byrne.

Belle is still focused on the one case for which charges remain elusive.

Polcyn: “Was Mina Abidi’s life worth saving?”
Belle: “It was. It definitely was.”

It is the only case that is truly a matter of life and death.

$77,500 cash bail

What’s next:

Berczyk is being held in the Milwaukee County Jail on a combined total of $77,500 cash bail in seven Milwaukee County cases. He also faces three additional criminal cases in Waukesha County.

He’s due in court again July 10.

America’s richest self-made woman lives in Wisconsin. She’s also, unsurprisingly, the richest person in the state.

So who is Diane Hendricks? Hendricks is the co-founder of Beloit-based ABC Supply Co., which sells roofing and building supplies. In June, she was named the richest self-made woman in the nation for the ninth year in a row by Forbes. She was also ranked the wealthiest Wisconsinite in 2025, with a 2026 net worth of $22.3 billion.

In 2022, Forbes dubbed Hendricks “the most successful female entrepreneur in American history.”

Raised on a dairy farm in Osseo, Wisconsin, the 79 year-old Hendricks had her first child at 17. She left school and worked as a Playboy Bunny before co-founding the ABC empire with her second husband in 1982. When he passed away in 2007, she took over the company.

Since then, Hendricks has more than tripled her net worth, acquired large competitors, and expanded into other sectors. According to Forbes, ABC Supply had 900 locations and $20.2 billion in revenue in 2025. She is also the chair and founder of Hendricks Commercial Properties, a real estate development company, and Hendricks Holding Company, Inc., a private investment firm.

A 2016 Journal Sentinel investigation found that Hendricks had paid zero state income tax for three years. Another investigation found that her 8,500 square foot mansion in the Town of Rock had been taxed as a 1,663 square foot ranch house for years.