Wolftown

On Saturday afternoon, March 11, Sheriff Jordan convinced the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation to investigate Dennis Laufenberg, but they waited for the flood waters to recede and the phone lines to be repaired.

On Monday, March 12, from the Walmart breakroom’s ceiling, Deputy Castillo retrieved a Walmart bag full of Corey’s seven disposable Kodak cameras, with film of Laufenberg’s wolf attack plans, and receipts and addresses for Corey’s alibis during the murders, and a note.

The note explained that she refused to participate in or hear anything about the murder plans. Worried that security tapes could be recorded over before anybody found the bag, Corey always chose locations with plenty of people, introduced herself to at least two, and made a transaction with the date and time. If she found a public phone, she called somebody. She claimed she estimated the date and time of the murders, and many receipts came from the surrounding days.

She wrote that she knew Laufenberg would kill her if she told anybody about the murders, and she claimed total ignorance about the diversion murder victim’s identity.

           Kevin successfully advised Corey against allowing law enforcement to search her entire apartment for anything they considered useful to their investigations.

The Sheriff’s Department had a warrant for her telephone records.

Corey had called Shane Greenbough and asked him to take her to Minneapolis. She told Shane that to escape Dennis Laufenberg, she should cross state lines. She and Shane would meet in the park, then drive to her apartment, where she could pack a bag.

Then, Corey said that she walked to the park in human form, and Laufenberg encountered her in wolf form. He bit her clothes and shoes. In either wolf or human form depending on the part of the confrontation, he threatened her unless she participated in the wolf attacks. She cooperated with him, scared.

When Sheriff Jordan learned that Shane’s body was found with marijuana, he investigated Shane’s drug use. He had already been embalmed, which prevented a toxicology report. A search of his apartment showed no drugs or paraphernalia, only some residue that could be months old considering the state of the apartment. Corey, his friends, and family said he was sober.

Corey added, “And even if he’s stoned, he’s not stupid enough to go outside in bad weather around a killer animal. Why would he be outside in that weather anyway? I’ve never seen him desperate enough to go outside in that weather, either.”

From home, on Sunday, March 12, Wayne called Glenn Malone and told him to take Moqwaio to the vet. The wolf recovered well.

On Monday, March 13, Wayne slept in and had barely enough energy to dress in the morning.

John called Paula. He told her that people caused the wolf attacks, and he doubted he had reasons to stay longer.

           “And the police needed to use the satellite phone. I’ll pay the bill if it is too expensive,” John said.

           “It must be bad if you helped the police,” Paula said.

           “Yeah. I’ll drive back tomorrow. The police want to question me, too. Apparently, I’m a witness now.”

John considered himself a witness instead of a victim, even though Dennis Laufenberg or Wolf Abel charged towards him. Why he targeted John was a mystery forever.

By Monday evening, people no longer believed Mayor Dwyer and Deputy Police Chief Phelps’ reasons for Police Chief Dennis Laufenberg’s absence, and the authorities could not pretend he had been on duty all weekend.

The Wilde County Chief Executive, Cheryl Woods, warned Mayor Dwyer that the county would be investigating the wolf response and murders; Sheriff Jordan thought it gave Wolftown authorities time to hide evidence. Once the bridge into Wolftown drained, the Sheriff’s Department and members of the County Chief Executive’s office drove to Wolftown. Sheriff Jordan and Cheryl Woods publicly announced they had taken over the wolf response, and that the Sheriff’s Department had taken over the murder investigations and had arrested Dennis Laufenberg on charges unrelated to the murder and wolf hunt. The Wolftown Police Department would fulfill its normal, routine duties.

Because Sheriff Jordan thought the Wolf Guard could have assisted Dennis Laufenberg’s attacks, he disbanded them. He asked for the Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Division and animal control’s assistance. In the process, he discovered that Laufenberg had requested their help; they accepted it, and he interfered with their work. The Sheriff’s Department proceeded to cooperate with them.

Sheriff Jordan asked law enforcement in Wolfberg, Germany, if they had experience with similar crimes committed by böxenwolves. He also asked them and the Wolftown Museum if anybody knew of böxenwolf experts willing to consult a criminal investigation.

Nancy McDowell (Wayne’s wife) and John hiked to the river to retrieve Luke’s canoe. They dropped it off, then Nancy drove John to the Motorer’s Motel. Later, he sent the McDowells one of his homemade scented candles and a thank-you note for unexpectedly hosting him.

Watching the news, John finally relaxed in solitude and ate cold food. His food had expired, and the local restaurants were flooded, but Nancy, a vegetarian, reprovisioned him.

The reporter said, “The Wilde County Executive’s office will also be looking into reports that the sewers were not cleaned before the high rainfall. There are concerns that clogged sewers and the wolf-proof fences caused extensive flooding in Wolftown.”

The week before, many Wolftown citizens either risked a wolf attack while sandbagging their houses or risked flooding their houses in one to three feet of water. On Monday, those with flooded houses either began cleaning up the flood damage, which often required leaving the house, or they waited for the wolf hunt to end, and the water damage increased.

           Sheriff Jordan and deputies carried out a search warrant of Dennis Laufenberg’s house, car, computer, and storage unit, looking for written evidence of police corruption. They found nothing in the house, car, or storage unit, and no computer hard drive or floppy disks, but warrants for phone and banking records provided some information.

           Corey said that Laufenberg burned the journal in which he planned the wolf attacks, and so Sheriff Jordan asked her if he had burned evidence of police corruption. She said that she saw a book “or something” and “computer stuff” in their campfire the days before the wolf attacks began.

Corey had photographed every page of the plan to attack Wolftown, but some pictures were too blurry, shadowy, or off-center to fully decipher.

In the Sheriff’s Department, through the afternoon of Monday and the night of Monday and Tuesday, two deputies typed another copy and pasted in photographs of the unintelligible sections.

Sheriff Jordan had taken a photographed copy home Monday afternoon. He read it, simply to see its general contents, by Friday evening, then began re-reading it and taking notes. Eventually, he, Schuster, and other investigators could quote sections from memory.

Mr. Marshal had waited through the weekend for police to examine his and the Parkers’ backyards and his kitchen. He and his family stayed with friends due to rabies concerns. Wayne swabbed the blood in his kitchen and collected other evidence, but the police did not. Also, police did not question the Marshalls and Parkers—Wayne did. Sergeant Dustin Groves (Schuster and Foster’s supervisor) said he would request information from Happy Howlers, but by Monday, he had not.

On Friday evening, Mr. Marshal called the non-emergency police number to ask for instructions, and the police said he would be contacted again.

On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Marshal called the Sheriff’s Department because he could not go home to a police investigation, especially if his children might be exposed to rabies or if his family could be accused of tampering with the scene. The Wolftown Police Department unsettled black people.

On Sunday, the phone lines were out, or he would have called again.

On Monday, he called. The Sheriff’s Department and Wolftown Police Department responded, both rather prickly with each other. Captain Deputy Bloom referred the attack on Foster and Schuster to the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation.

The weather destroyed or contaminated all evidence except Mr. Marshall’s kitchen. Rain washed blood from Foster’s red Swiss army knife, or the blood and mud mingled.

On Saturday, Schuster had brought his bloody, muddy uniform to the police station for evidence, but it had been processed and stored improperly.

Schuster requested back-up five times and an ambulance twice, each time telling EMTs to shelter in their ambulance because Schuster would bring Foster to them. The radio tapes recorded Foster gurgling, as if saying the same thing as Schuster. The dispatcher sent police units to Mr. Marshall’s house, but they failed to arrive.

Against orders, Lang and Wayne ran a few blocks away from the wolf hunt, thinking that the wolf would kill Schuster and Foster.

Schuster’s second cousin, Todd, an EMT responding to the wolf hunt, did not know Schuster was being attacked by a wolf until Schuster radioed directly to the wolf hunt. Todd happened to stand immediately next to a police officer. He argued with his partner about driving to the Marshals’ house, regardless of the officers’ identities, then Officer Matthews fell into an open manhole, spraining, bruising, and breaking half of his lower body. The EMTs could not hoist Officer Matthews out and requested fire rescue, which arrived promptly. So, Todd left his partner with the wolf hunt and commandeered their ambulance.

The chaos of street parking, a police vehicle, the Wolf Guard, and police officers blocked the ambulance’s available routes. His cousin drove the long way and, due to the rain and dim light, relatively slowly for an ambulance that had activated lights and sirens. By the time Todd reached Mr. Marshal’s house, Schuster was driving Foster to Dr. Groves.

Todd felt extremely guilty about the incident for the rest of his life. Megan gradually learned everything that happened and did not blame him. Schuster thought Todd responded as quickly as he could, and he appreciated the effort.

Then, as Lang predicted, Lang was placed on desk duty and tolerated it.

Phelps lectured Wayne about abandoning the official wolf hunt for a routine safety check on the Parkers’ house. In the ensuing argument, Phelps almost arrested Wayne for disorderly conduct.

Over the weeks, Schuster tried not to speculate that officers could have responded to the attack on him and Foster.

The other officers were attempting to catch Barker and Charlie, or Corey and Tyler, and the officers and other members of the wolf hunt vastly outnumbered the wolves and believed the wolves might attack them. Before and after his attack, Schuster would never have hoped a wolf would maul anybody to death. Schuster noticed Corey behaved threateningly when provoked, and she claimed Tyler tended towards violence. Law enforcement had a duty to protect civilians, who technically included Wayne and the Wolf Guard.

Throughout the mauling, Schuster considered Foster and himself in greater danger than the officers and the rest of the wolf hunt. Lang agreed with him as a witness, and Karl Henry agreed as someone experienced with blood loss. Todd called him an idiot for justifying the police.

Nobody on the scene identified Corey as a human, but Corey’s wolf ears heard the radio transmissions clearly. The wolf hunt and dispatch used two separate frequencies. She repeated Schuster’s two urgent transmissions to the wolf hunt word for word, minus the static. In his other three transmissions, Schuster spoke with the dispatcher.

She had been three to six blocks away, but also heard Foster. Corey believed Dennis Laufenberg intended to kill him and Schuster.

The DIC determined that during the wolf attack on Schuster and Foster, Dennis Laufenberg definitely did not order other officers not to respond to Foster and Schuster. Nobody could verify Laufenberg’s location, even Deputy Chief of Police Phelps. The investigation could not determine if Laufenberg prearranged the other officers’ responses.

Schuster’s radio messages explicitly described his and Foster’s situation, and Mr. Marshal’s observations should have dispatched at least one police unit. Many members of the wolf hunt indicated that most of them milled around the blocks, aimlessly panicked.

During the wolf attacks, he and Foster had been on unpaid leave, which the investigation thought Dennis Laufenberg assigned as a punishment for uncovering his corruption. Schuster and Foster did not argue about it, saving their energy for later. Schuster and Foster volunteered for patrol without pay. The DIC strongly suggested that Schuster be placed on paid medical leave, paid administrative leave, or regular duty, depending on his arms. He was, which surprised him.

Megan and Stephanie listened to the radio transmissions over their police scanners and thought that the police abandoned Schuster and Foster, although Megan said they were biased.

The last member of law enforcement to be killed in the line of duty in Wilde County died in 1923. Based on national statistics, Megan considered Foster’s death possible and his serious injury likely, but she accepted it when they married. As well as her husband’s death upsetting her, the situation around his death disturbed her, and she worried about Schuster.

Stephanie worried that Schuster’s back-up would fail again, intentionally. Schuster tried to convince her that he probably would not have another major problem during his career—Laufenberg spiked Wilde County’s crime rate as a statistical anomaly. She and Schuster argued about whether he should transfer to a different police force or stay in Wolftown, but Schuster thought his concerns were paranoia, stress, or psychological shock.

Lang told Schuster to let Stephanie win, partly because issues inside the police department could lead to burn-out or family trouble, and law enforcement careers naturally provoked family trouble. Further, the investigation verified Schuster and Foster’s observations, and some officers had definite reasons to think Schuster betrayed them or would spy again.

Over several weeks, five members of the Wolftown Police Department quit, resigned, or were fired, and the hierarchy reshuffled.

Schuster thought that he should stay, working overtime until the department hired enough new officers, then continue working his regular hours until he found another law enforcement job nearby. He and Stephenie preferred two steady incomes before beginning adoption proceedings.

For decades, Lang and Karl Henry received similar but much less dangerous treatment than Schuster and Foster through much of their careers. The four of them stayed to provide some uncorrupt law enforcement to the citizens of Wolftown. Until he found another law enforcement job nearby, Schuster thought he could continue working.

           On Friday, March 10, Schuster cynically thought Dennis Laufenberg’s lack of a condoling statement about Foster’s death seemed reasonable, and that if he had issued one, Megan would have publicly called him a liar.

Now Schuster thought that Laufenberg knew Foster died and that Schuster potentially fatally injured Laufenberg. The wolf strap healed him, but with such serious injuries, nobody would risk transfiguring into human form for hours or days. It was ridiculous to expect an apparent wolf to trot into the chief of police’s office and write a statement that police etiquette demanded.

           However, the media received a typewritten statement signed in type, “Police Chief Dennis Laufenberg.” He normally signed by hand.

Laufenberg hunted-and-pecked the typewriters and word processor, and so handwrote copies, and told somebody to type them up. More often, he told somebody to compose for him, then demanded edits. Ross Wilcox wrote for him better and faster than anybody else.

           The statement said nothing suspicious about Foster, but it could indicate Laufenberg was in the police station on Friday or Saturday. The lack of a handwritten signature seemed odd. None of the investigators found an early draft or a police officer who spoke to Laufenberg about the statement. Deputy Chief Phelps acted as if Laufenberg told him to delegate it and sign his name.

Corey said that Dennis Laufenberg intended to kill Schuster and Foster if he had opportunity. She said he used Corey and Tyler as diversions, almost letting the wolf response catch or kill them, while he menaced the Parkers. He knew Mr. Marshall would be awake and that, according to Corey, “If Schuster and Foster think people are going to get hurt, they try to fix it.”

           Several pages in the photographed planning journal seemed to be vague ideas, false starts on plans, and lists of potential targets. One difficult-to-decipher page listed people who Laufenberg had motive to murder and contained a fragments: “S. F. hope them, maybe too risky…Protect…other…Investigate me if aliv…”

Sheriff Jordan quickly told Schuster and Megan he believed Laufenberg premeditatedly attacked him and Foster but he did not believe Megan and Stephanie were in danger, unless they attempted to defend Schuster.

“They won’t defend me,” Schuster said.

“I will,” Stephanie said. “And Megan would.”

“No, you aren’t. You’re going to escape and call the Sheriff’s Department.”

“We will respond,” Sheriff Jordan said. “We’re monitoring his phone calls, and we’re asking prison informants for information. If he is released and stays in Wilde County, he will be under surveillance. He doesn’t have a wolf strap anymore, and we’re keeping an eye on where they are in Wilde County and a couple other places in Wisconsin.”

“We appreciate it.”

Sheriff Jordan asked them if Laufenberg could influence anybody to attack Schuster again. Schuster considered it possible because he manipulated, threatened, or bribed other people.

“But I don’t understand why he thought murdering people and faking wolf attacks would protect him from the corruption charges,” Stephanie said.

“People are totally depraved, but this is pretty extreme behavior. It made sense to him. I think he was trying to act like a hero and redeem himself, but he was also getting rid of evidence and trying to make it look unrelated to him. I’m trying to get a criminal psychiatrist to analyze him.”

The psychiatrist thought Dennis Laufenberg could hide his most violent tendencies for years.

Laufenberg called the böxenwolf theory crazy and said that they did not exist.