Posted on 10/07/2007 10:23:40 AM PDT by janetjanet998
Edited on 10/07/2007 10:34:41 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary Saturday night when Tyler Peterson met up with a bunch of friends in a parking lot behind a Crandon bank.
They talked about hunting, what to do later that night. Typical stuff. That was it. It was 8:30 p.m.
But before the sun would rise, Peterson, a 20-year-old, off-duty Forest County sheriff's deputy and part-time City of Crandon police officer, would be suspected of storming into his ex-girlfriend's house and killing her and five other young people at a party, including two of his best childhood buddies.
Another teen was critically wounded.
Peterson would later end up dead, shot by the Crandon SWAT team.
"He must have just snapped," said a close friend who had known Peterson since they were in kindergarten and talked to him in the parking lot Saturday night. "He seemed fine (at 8:30 p.m.)."
Authorities in Crandon, about 180 miles north of Milwaukee, did not release details of the killings or the names of the victims Sunday, but the Journal Sentinel learned from interviews with families and friends that the following were killed:
• Jordanne Murray, 18, Peterson's former longtime sweetheart, who graduated from Crandon High School in 2006.
• Katrina McCorkle, an 18-year-old senior at Crandon High.
• Leanna Thomas, also an 18-year-old senior at Crandon.
• Bradley Schultz, 20, a 2005 graduate of Crandon and a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee majoring in criminal justice.
• Aaron Smith, called "Chunk" by his friends, also a 2005 graduate of Crandon. His age was not available.
• Lindsey Stahl, 14, a freshman at Crandon.
Charlie Nietzel, 19, of the neighboring town of Pickerel was wounded. He was in critical condition late Sunday at St. Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield.
Because a local law enforcement officer was involved, the investigation is being handled by the state Department of Criminal Investigation. Officials would not disclose any information Sunday other than to say authorities responded to a report of shots fired at 2:47 a.m., and that six people and the killer were dead.
Three-term Crandon Mayor Gary Bradley expressed anger and frustration at the state's handling of the case, complaining about a lack of information for officials and families and the length of time being taken in removing the bodies from the home.
"Man, they paralyzed this town," he said.
Bradley confirmed that Peterson was shot and killed by the Crandon SWAT team Sunday afternoon, hours after the early morning shootings.
Although few in Crandon knew exactly what happened in Murray's home, in a town where the population barely pushes 2,000, seemingly everyone knew the victims or the shooter.
Fay Statezny has known the Petersons and the families of several of the other victims for 20 years or more. Statezny said Tyler Peterson was "a normal kid" who liked to hunt and fish and loved the outdoors.
He had grown up with Smith and Schultz, and they were all very close friends.
"We would all go mud-running and ice fishing," said Peterson's longtime friend from kindergarten, who didn't want his name published because of the sensitivity of the situation.
He said Peterson and Murray had been together for a long time and broke up earlier this year. He debunked rumors that Murray was dating someone else, sparking a jealous rage in Peterson.
Paul Pitts, a 17-year-old senior, said Peterson was the type of guy who was picked on by students when he was in high school.
Other friends and neighbors said Peterson, who was officially deputized in February, had recently completed special-forces-type training.
It made sense to Jenny Stahl that her 14-year-old daughter, Lindsey, should stay the night at Murray's house. After all, it was homecoming weekend; lots of kids were sleeping at friends' homes. It cut down on the late-night driving. It would be safer that way, they thought.
Lindsey Stahl and Murray both worked at an ice cream and hamburger stand called Eats and Treats in Crandon. They stopped at Stahl's home around 9 p.m. to pick up a change of clothes.
At 8 a.m. Sunday, Jenny Stahl got a knock on her door. Her neighbor told her of the slayings and took her to Praise Chapel Community Church, where she waited with the families of the other victims for word about their loved ones. Stahl hoped for the best.
"I thought maybe she wasn't there, maybe she got out," Stahl said in an interview in her driveway, where she stood with friends and neighbors hugging and drinking Pepsi.
She waited eight hours. At 4 p.m., authorities announced the names of the dead. Lindsey was on the list.
The 14-year-old's half brother, Ryan Coulter, 12, said his sister was smart and interested in issues ranging from global warming to animal rights.
"She probably would have changed the world, you know," he said.
Jenny Stahl grew up in Kenosha and moved her family to Crandon because she thought the small community would be a safer place for her children to grow up.
Elsie Murray, Jordanne's grandmother, said the family was not able Sunday to talk about what happened.
Friends said Jordanne lived in the lower level of the house and her father, Paul Murray, lived in the upper level.
Kelly Flanery, 15, a sophomore at Crandon High, knew all of the victims and said that in addition to working at the ice cream shop, Jordanne Murray worked at Subway in Crandon.
She "was like the nicest person. She was friends with everyone," said Flanery. "I didn't believe it at first. It didn't like sink in, it really hasn't."
Schultz grew up in Crandon but moved to Cudahy two years ago to attend UW-Milwaukee, where he was a junior, said his uncle Steve Bocek, who lives in Oak Creek. Schultz worked part-time at a Racine electrical supply company to pay for school.
The middle of three boys, Schultz often drove to Crandon on weekends to visit his mother, who is blind with retinitis pigmentosa, and younger brother.
"He was just always a nice kid, always polite. He just wanted to come down here to go to school so he could further his education," said Bocek, who last saw his nephew three weeks ago when Schultz visited to swim in Bocek's backyard pool.
Schultz, who had a girlfriend in the Milwaukee area, had played basketball and baseball at Crandon High School.
"He was such a good kid; who would ever expect this?" his uncle said.
McCorkle and Jordanne Murray had been "friends forever," said a former boyfriend of McCorkle's. McCorkle loved to play softball and was thinking about where to attend college, he said. And she was very tight with her family.
"Her family meant everything to her," he said.
Friends said Smith, or "Chunk," as friends called him, was into football and loved to fish.
"He was one of them guys that everybody gets along with," said a childhood friend who also grew up with Peterson and Schultz.
Smith's sister said her family was grieving and couldn't talk.
Thomas' grandfather, Roy Thomas, said his granddaughter has a twin sister, Lindsay. "She was a sweet little girl," he said tearfully before hanging up the phone.
As streets were barricaded near the shooting scene, the soul of Crandon seemed to shake with grief.
"This is affecting everybody in this small community," said Tom Vollmar, a Forest County supervisor who has lived in Crandon for 57 years. "There's no family that hasn't been touched in one way or another."
Schools Superintendent Richard Peters said the victims and Peterson were all "people who we have known or patted on the back or encouraged at one point in time."
Crandon High School's crisis team gathered twice Sunday. Counselors fanned out to area churches to help families and friends of the victims who had gathered there.
School is canceled today.
Praise Chapel Community Church Pastor Bill Farr was called by the Forest County Sheriff's Department at 6:30 a.m. Sunday and asked to open the church for victims' families and other members of the community. About 200 people showed up during the day. He said it took so long for authorities to release the names because state investigators were handling the case.
More than a dozen hours later, Farr was still at the church.
"This is going to take a long time for a community like this to get over," said Farr, who has lived in Crandon for many years.
Standing next to his pickup truck in the church parking lot Sunday night, Farr began to cry as he held hands and prayed with three other church members.
"We just really need everyone's prayers right now," he said.
FOr what it’s worth, I did see some coverage on the local news, and that’s in New Mexico.
And there's the underlying fear of defending yourself against someone who has "official capacity."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071007/ap_on_re_us/wisconsin_shooting
CRANDON, Wis. - An off-duty sheriff’s deputy went on a shooting rampage at a home early Sunday in northern Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring a seventh before authorities fatally shot him, officials said.
The suspect was 20 years old and worked full-time as a Forest County deputy sheriff and part-time as a Crandon police officer, Sheriff Keith Van Cleve said. He would not release the suspect’s name but said he was not working at the time of the shooting.
A seventh shooting victim was in critical condition at a hospital in nearby Marshfield, said Police Chief John Dennee. A Crandon police officer who fired back was treated for minor injuries and released.
Gary Bradley, mayor of the city of about 2,000, said earlier Sunday that the suspect had been brought down by a sniper, but Van Cleve would not confirm that officers shot the suspect.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the suspect’s motive was. The shooting occurred in a white, two-story duplex about a block from downtown Crandon.
One of the dead was 14-year-old Lindsey Stahl, said her mother, Jenny Stahl, 39.
She said her daughter called her Saturday night and asked whether she could sleep over at a friend’s house. Jenny Stahl agreed.
“I’m waiting for somebody to wake me up right now. This is a bad, bad dream,” the weeping mother said. “All I heard it was a jealous boyfriend and he went berserk. He took them all out.”
The State Patrol and the Crandon Fire Department detoured a steady stream of traffic from two blocks of U.S. Highway 8 in the downtown area. Some residents stood in nearby front yards.
Marci Franz, 35, who lives two houses south of the duplex, said gunshots awoke her.
“I heard probably five or six shots, a short pause and then five or six more,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if it was gunfire initially. I thought some kids were messing around and hitting a nearby metal building.”
Then she heard eight louder shots and tires squealing, she said.
~snip~
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071007/ap_on_re_us/wisconsin_shooting
CRANDON, Wis. - An off-duty sheriff’s deputy went on a shooting rampage at a home early Sunday in northern Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring a seventh before authorities fatally shot him, officials said.
The suspect was 20 years old and worked full-time as a Forest County deputy sheriff and part-time as a Crandon police officer, Sheriff Keith Van Cleve said. He would not release the suspect’s name but said he was not working at the time of the shooting.
A seventh shooting victim was in critical condition at a hospital in nearby Marshfield, said Police Chief John Dennee. A Crandon police officer who fired back was treated for minor injuries and released.
Gary Bradley, mayor of the city of about 2,000, said earlier Sunday that the suspect had been brought down by a sniper, but Van Cleve would not confirm that officers shot the suspect.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the suspect’s motive was. The shooting occurred in a white, two-story duplex about a block from downtown Crandon.
One of the dead was 14-year-old Lindsey Stahl, said her mother, Jenny Stahl, 39.
She said her daughter called her Saturday night and asked whether she could sleep over at a friend’s house. Jenny Stahl agreed.
“I’m waiting for somebody to wake me up right now. This is a bad, bad dream,” the weeping mother said. “All I heard it was a jealous boyfriend and he went berserk. He took them all out.”
The State Patrol and the Crandon Fire Department detoured a steady stream of traffic from two blocks of U.S. Highway 8 in the downtown area. Some residents stood in nearby front yards.
Marci Franz, 35, who lives two houses south of the duplex, said gunshots awoke her.
“I heard probably five or six shots, a short pause and then five or six more,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if it was gunfire initially. I thought some kids were messing around and hitting a nearby metal building.”
Then she heard eight louder shots and tires squealing, she said.
~snip~
“””Who is the perp?”””
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299946,00.html
An off-duty sheriff’s deputy went on a killing spree early Sunday morning, gunning down six youths in a Crandon home. The suspect, 20-year-old Tyler Peterson, was shot and killed by authorities after a manhunt.
_____________________________________________________
The victims included his estranged girlfriend - a recent HS graduate.
Zoykes, Shaggy. This isn’t looking good at all.
Start at the end of the thread. Not good (very bad), but it’s no longer ongoing.
Sounds delusional.
What triggered it? “One of the victims had recently ended a relationship with the shooter” — didn’t it say something like that?
Your comment was ok, there are a few here that make that comment all the time, but then they are always the ones to start trying to cover up.
You guys have it wrong. The libs will blame the GUNS.
You bore me.
Most cops start out the same. They want to protect and serve citizens. Along the way, some of them do become bad, and it's those few who give the rest of them a bad name. I just think it's unfair to paint them all with the same brush. Every time there's a LEO shooting doesn't mean that it's a bad cop.
and it was not immediately confirmed what sparked this shooting."
So, I was wondering and waiting for more information.
How about home invasions, rapes, murders, auto accidents, robberies, etc? To name a few reasons why any of us need cops! Suffice to say that we all do at times.
Sorry that you are having trouble following this, but it is not my affliction.
My question “Why post this” referred to Vring’s post 38, who almost instantaneously with the initial reports, posted an attack on the “the “cops can do no evil” crowd”. You said I was bearing false witness. I was responding that it was not false witness, his post implied that Freepers are unreasoning cop lovers. If you can explain a statement like ....
Then after he’s convicted we’ll have months of “write Bush now!!” demanding his release because any damn fool knows that cops can do no evil. Sound close
in some other way then please do. So you can better interpret this... Please explain why would Vring post that at Free Republic unless he thought that there were lots of “cops can do no evil” types here.
Of course, time has moved on. Vring has moderated his postings in post 85.
“I’m not quite ready to send him to the electric chair.”
Vring -— Of course not. Due process and all that.
Which makes my original point.
Keep coming to Free Republic, you will get used to the pace that we communicate with here.
With such strict gun laws I’m surprised a 20 year could carry a weapon there. We have a lot of young LE too. I wonder if they get a waiver.
The shooter was 20 year old Tyler Peterson, he shot and killed his ex girlfriend, her new boyfriend and four other kids, the youngest being a 14 year old girl.
The lone survivor of this tragedy is my daughters step-nephew, we don’t know his condition because my daughters dad and step-mom have their cell phones shut off. My heartfelt condolences to those killed and to the shooters family.
I expect they do get waivers for being LEO’s. But I don’t know what the age is for getting a gun is in Wisconsin..
From what I'm reading here, six shots were fired and at least five, possibly six persons were killed. How close do you think the killer had to be to the victims to insure that kind of a percentage?
I'd guess he was within a foot. I'd also guess the shooter wanted them dead, not injured. This will probably be factored in at his trial.
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