By Tuesday, March 14, news throughout Wisconsin reported chaos in Wolftown. Paula wondered into what situation she sent John. She called his motel and Happy Howlers, and at Rebecca Austin’s suggestion, Wayne’s house.
“Oh, he’s probably at the sheriff’s,” Nancy said. “Wait, that sounded worse than it is. Don’t worry. He’s fine.”
Wayne called in sick, saying he felt all right, except for being creaky, sore, exhausted, and 69-years-old.
John checked out of his motel room and drove to the Wilde County Sheriff’s Office, where he gave a statement with a public defender. He requested information for the Nature Protection Society’s report, but the deputy told him they could not release information about an ongoing investigation.
John drove to the Nature Protection Society office and attempted to answer some of Paula’s questions.
“Was it mass hysteria?” she asked.
“Probably not,” John said. “The situation wouldn’t make sense unless you were there.”
He told neither Paula nor his coworkers that he had transfigured into a böxenwolf as proof that the wolf straps worked. Later, he told Paula that he absolutely believed they existed. But Paula thought he held more opinions than he shared. John dodged questions and, if pressed, claimed the involved wolves required close, physical examination under sedation; in his head, he added, So the examiner will find the strings.
Beginning on Wednesday, Happy Howlers canvassed Wilde County for liver lobe donors. Adopted in a closed adoption, and with an incompatible daughter, Suzanne needed somebody else’s lobe. John volunteered for testing.
Suzanne Giese received an anonymous liver lobe and survived, but with a permanent, complete disability. She actively avoided wolves.
Wayne and Suzanne intended her to inherit Happy Howlers when he retired, but he found another employee.
Schuster’s parents’ savings, a scholarship, and his part-time jobs barely sent him through the University of Madison. Still, from 1991-1993, he studied political science and earned a certificate in criminal science. Schuster attended the police academy in 1993. The Wolftown Police Department hired him. In the summers, Schuster worked full-time. During the school years from 1993-1997, he worked part-time in Wolftown and full-time in the summer, and finished his bachelor’s degree in political science, driving back and forth to stay a few days in either location.
People said that the Wolftown police behaved wrongly, but Schuster attributed much of it to anomalies and the fact that people complained about the police. Schuster wanted to serve his hometown.
Foster completed the police academy in 1993, aged 18. He began a degree in forensic science at the University of Madison and worked part-time as a campus police officer.
In 1994, Schuster and Foster met during other college students’ drunken brawl outside a fraternity. Schuster, as a passerby, reported it to campus police, and Foster responded as part of his job. Waiting, Schuster saw one drunk person break a beer bottle and slash at another drunk person. The first drunk person wildly missed, but in the mayhem, almost cut an onlooker. Schuster involved himself.
Quickly, Foster and Schuster became close friends, and they enjoyed watching people’s reactions when they said how they met.
Foster visited Wolftown and liked it, although Schuster warned him of difficulties in the police department. In the school year of 1996-1997, because Wolftown had a job opening, Foster worked and studied under the same system as Schuster. In 1997, Foster worked full-time in Wolftown because Megan also thought Wolftown would be a lovely place to live. The potential stress and gruesomeness of forensic science worried Foster, but he found forensics interesting. Probably, he would find another job elsewhere.
In 1996, Schuster asked about his suspicions and mild evidence, but by 1997, he and Foster were reporting it to the Wolftown police.
Foster and Schuster worried they had overreacted, but as they learned more about Laufenberg, they thought higher authorities needed to know about his activities. Nobody except them showed serious interest. They often wondered if they had enough experience to be alarmed, but Laufenberg’s corruption stretched into the early 1990s or possibly before.
In late 1998, Schuster and Foster contacted every law enforcement agency they thought might act on the information. Foster suggested investigating Laufenberg and collecting evidence independently because nobody took their claims seriously. Simultaneously, in 1999, they contacted members of local, county, and state government to no avail.
Sheriff Jordan was elected in 1998 and, in 1999, reminded Schuster and Foster that every person was equal under the law and that law enforcement officers swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, federal, and local laws. He believed their concerns.
In 1999, for some reason nobody explained, Schuster and Foster became partners. Schuster wondered if it might slow them down—it halved the opportunities to witness a problem with Wolftown’s criminal justice system. But it also meant extra corroborating statements.
Foster and Schuster were completely ignorant about Dennis Laufenberg, Corey, and Tyler transfiguring into böxenwolves in the woods.
Transfiguring into a böxenwolf was not illegal, but Sheriff Jordan thought that if a person broke a law while in wolf form, he broke the law as much as he would in human form. Writing a police report about the activities or reporting the activities to the authorities required quite a bit of confidence. An insistent, argumentative streak helped.
Even though Laufenberg’s possessions showed little evidence of his crimes, Schuster and Foster found enough elsewhere to charge him with unremarkable drug offenses, bribery, sexual misconduct, tax evasion, and other crimes. Sheriff Jordan did not mention böxenwolves to the judge yet, worried he might be released.
Physically unable to leave his bed, let alone appear in court, Laufenberg hired a lawyer, Greg Martin.
On Tuesday, March 14, Greg Martin petitioned the court to delay his legal proceedings for health reasons, and the court and Sheriff Jordan considered it a reasonable request. Over time, Laufenberg delayed the case, however possible.
Laufenberg was bailed out because he required extensive medical care. One of the bail conditions forbade travel outside Wisconsin. When a member of law enforcement was not questioning him, Sheriff Jordan arranged for surveillance. His communications were monitored.
Schuster knew that if Dennis Laufenberg did not have a wolf strap, Schuster could kill him. But Laufenberg’s release on bail scared him. He wanted Megan and Stephanie to hide somewhere outside Wolftown, and preferably hide with them. He warned Megan, but Stephanie insisted on going to work. She volunteered for the sewer search. Schuster locked the windows and doors, turned off the lights, and stayed below the windows, but decided with Laufenberg’s injuries, he would remain in the hospital.
Instead, Schuster drove to Megan and Foster’s house to return her wedding ring, which she thought Foster had lost forever in the Marshal’s backyard, and give her his account of the attack on him and Foster, particularly Foster’s role. Megan asked about his arms; he asked about her and the baby. Schuster apologized for Foster’s death.
“You didn’t attack him,” Megan said.
“No!”
“Then it isn’t your fault. I knew you hadn’t.”
“Did someone say that?”
“No, of course not. But it’s the only reason why I would blame you. I don’t. The medical examiner said some of the bites were a few millimeters from arteries or veins. The wolf bit some veins and made a lot of deep bites. So, I’m surprised he lived as long as he did. I talked to Mr. Marshal, and he says you wouldn’t leave Foster. Was he right?”
“Yeah. Foster kept fighting the wolf when he was biting me.”
“He would. Our family members are arriving, but you can come inside.”
“They wouldn’t want to see me.”
“Why?”
“I told him Wolftown was a good place to live.”
“It is. When you and he volunteered to patrol during the wolf attacks, he called you first. You went with him.”
Schuster shook his head.
“Come by if you change your mind.”
On Wednesday night, Laufenberg was arrested again for violating a bail condition—he called Acting Chief of Police Phelps for an update on the wolf response. On Wednesday morning, he was denied bail.
Greg Martin also defended Laufenberg against the corruption charges, but Laufenberg would not answer difficult-to-explain questions around his lawyer, such as ones that led to böxenwolves and murders.
Kevin switched from defending Schuster and Foster to defending Corey. Megan objected to changing lawyers and for Kevin, who opposed Dennis Laufenberg, to defend his accomplice. Schuster could not explain böxenwolves.
Stephanie knew that Schuster omitted some information about the weekend, and regarding Dennis Laufenberg, he normally told her most things. She thought his status changed from “vigilante” to “active investigation.”
Nancy convinced Wayne to drop the charges against Corey for trespass and breaking and entering Happy Howlers. She seemed desperate for assistance. However, for injuring Moqwaio, she was charged with endangering an animal and harming a protected species.
Corey voluntarily underwent days of questioning about the wolf attacks and Dennis Laufenberg, and she wrote down things she had forgotten to tell. Everything seemed consistent, ranging from tiny details to “I don’t know.”
Confessing improved Corey’s mood; she felt like eating again, she slept better, and she felt healthier. She said for months, she had longed to tell the authorities, but believed nobody would consider her credible. If Laufenberg found out, he would kill her and hide the evidence, and Corey still worried he could hire a criminal to attack her.
Corey’s Aunt Karen loved her and supported her decision to turn herself in. Considering herself a bad influence on Cassidy, Corey thought she should make Aunt Karen Cassidy’s sole legal guardian and have no contact with Cassidy.
For instance, when Corey asked Shane to rescue her, she told him to leave Cassidy alone in his apartment and pick her up. He did because, first, Corey thought Dennis Laufenberg would harm anybody who knew about her escape, and second, Cassidy was asleep, and it would only be forty-five minutes or an hour before Aunt Karen reached his apartment.
Aunt Karen and Kevin disagreed about no contact, but thought Cassidy would grow up better with Aunt Karen than in foster care. Cassidy became Aunt Karen’s ward, and Corey self-imposed minimal direct contact with her. She thought Cassidy would understand when she grew up.
Late on Monday night, a warrant was issued to autopsy Tyler Wilson because Corey Brown identified him as a böxenwolf in the sewer. A deputy waited outside the Sweet Rest Funeral Home and served the warrant just as employees unlocked the door on Tuesday morning.
Tyler Wilson had already been embalmed.
Dr. Groves identified his official cause of death as “accidental death by drowning” on Sunday and merely examined his lungs because he was found face-down in the river. Deputy Chief of Police Phelps asked, “Did you see signs of self-harm or needle marks?”
“There are some bruises and abrasions, but I didn’t see cuts or needle marks,” Dr. Groves said.
Dr. Groves offered to examine him further or refer him to the medical examiner, both of which Phelps declined. Deputy Chief of Police Phelps did not investigate his death.
But Sheriff Jordan and Dr. Groves doubted that a person would find a shallow, rocky sewer outlet, accidentally undress, but bring a wolf strap with him, and lie twisted on his side, with nothing nearby from which to jump. Dr. Groves thought the temperature was too high for a hypothermic person’s paradoxical undressing, and nobody found Tyler’s clothes. However, the water level definitely lowered by the time anybody discovered him, and people drowned in two inches of water.
The autopsy showed that hard objects struck him, or he struck them randomly just before and after death. Dr. Groves and the embalmer, Brenda Pfaff, said that Tyler had strong body odor and that she washed his hair twice to remove the grime, mud, and decomposing leaves.
Corey said that the sewers filled faster than expected, and the current swept her and Tyler away from Dennis Laufenberg. She intended to save Tyler, but the rising water in the sewers almost drowned her, too.
In 1998, Dennis Laufenberg and Sheriff Jordan knew that Tyler Wilson’s father, Greg Wilson, was guilty of abusing him and his siblings. Sheriff Jordan did not know that Dennis Laufenberg planted evidence to raise the abuse from misdemeanor to felony; he thought Greg Wilson would reasonably commit the crimes.
Corey said that the evidence was planted with Tyler Wilson’s cooperation, which explained why the evidence against Greg Wilson did not magically change, disappear, or appear. When Sheriff Jordan heard about the case, he thought Mr. Wilson could reasonably commit the crimes.
Sheriff Jordan added Mr. Wilson’s case to the list of ones to review, and when the department had enough resources, it investigated the charges. To Sheriff Jordan’s extreme annoyance, Mr. Wilson was released from prison, the charges were expunged, and two months later, he committed another misdemeanor.
Jessica Smith, Tyler’s sporadic girlfriend, wondered why Laufenberg showed interest in Tyler. Because Mr. Wilson controlled the family’s finances, and Mrs. Wilson prioritized drugs and alcohol, Laufenberg helped Tyler set up a secret bank account. Jessica said he occasionally paid Tyler for unspecified work, enough for reliably clean clothes, minimum toiletries, meals he missed otherwise, and enough gas to drive between work and home. Laufenberg taught him life skills, such as how to tie a tie and roast a chicken. Tyler told Jessica Laufenberg gave him his old, broken car under the condition that Tyler learned to repair it or paid for its repairs, but Sheriff Jordan thought Laufenberg would never drive one like it, and he would not keep a broken car to tinker with.
Jessica reported Tyler missing on Friday. They often had days without contact, but none of his friends had seen or spoken to him. The Sheriff’s Department determined that Tyler had few alibis during the wolf attacks, and none when people reported Wolf Charlie. He may have been home, but his mother tended to pass out from drugs and alcohol.
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