On Tuesday, March 14, Vice-Deputy Swan detained David Turner and Raymond Ness, both of whom had missed work at the sewer plant and had experience working inside the sewers. He questioned and released Raymond Ness.

David Turner was at home, wet to the shoulders.

His son, Ryan, had cancer, and his family could not pay for the treatment. His wife, Amber, said that David won $22,000 in cash at a poker game, which matched the cover story Corey said that Laufenberg thought up. Tracking down the origin of the money lasted weeks. Dennis Laufenberg withdrew $22,000 from an offshore bank account, but there was no record of what he spent it on.

David said that, during wolf attacks, he was at home trying to prevent flood damage, while his wife and child were in Children’s Wisconsin.

None of his friends visited his house, and his neighbors occasionally saw him.

The Turners owned a sump pump, but when it broke, they paid medical bills instead of repairing it. David said he fixed it himself, just before the flood, but it broke again.

 

The Sheriff’s Department was issued a warrant to search the Turners’ house for the duffel bag he carried in the sewers, but nothing else. The deputy found a small, empty, freshly washed blue duffel bag that matched Corey’s description. Corey said that she placed one of her hairs inside a pocket as a clue. A deputy found a long hair with brown roots and blonde ends, like Corey’s hair.

Incidentally, the Sheriff’s Department noticed that the Turners’ basement flooded. Amber said that their basement had not flooded, and when asked, David said, “I didn’t want to stress her out. I spent all weekend fixing it. It’ll be dry before she gets home.”

The Sheriff’s Department compared the hair to Amber Turner’s and Corey’s. It matched Corey’s, which bothered Amber. David said he had no idea who Corey Brown was, and he could not identify her. But he seemed extremely nervous when Sheriff Jordan questioned him about her and Tyler Wilson.

 

From Tuesday through Thursday, Deputies and Wolftown’s sewer workers searched the sewers for anything unusual, particularly human belongings rarely found inside sewers.

They found a manhole cover lifter, but the water washed away the fingerprints.

The search found one wet green camo backpack clipped around a ladder, as if to keep it dry in most conditions. It contained hand sanitizer, shelf-stable food, and a change of men’s clothes inside two layers of Ziploc bags. Fingerprints on the inner layer of Ziplock bags matched Laufenberg, and the clothes fit Laufenberg. One pocket contained another of Corey’s hairs. She remembered into which type of pocket she had stuck it, but forgotten which side.

Corey said the rising water in the sewers carried her backpack away. After the attacks, Dennis Laufenberg would make them throw the contents into the river and wash the backpacks.

Sheriff Jordan asked law enforcement downstream of the river if anybody had found a soggy, pink backpack in the river or on the banks. The backpack would have come from a sewer outlet, but Sheriff Jordan had absolutely no idea which outlet to expand the search around.

He asked the public to report an abandoned pink backpack near a river.

 

During the search, sewer workers also measured the amount of debris in the sewers. The Wolftown Police Department’s directive to not clean out the sewers before a heavy rainfall, contrary to normal procedures, flooded the town. Laufenberg and Mayor Dwyer issued the order.

 

On Thursday, March 16, without a manhole cover lifter, Sheriff Jordan struggled to stealthily lift a manhole cover and climb out alone. If a deputy lifted the manhole cover, he climbed in and out of the sewers in seconds.

Sheriff Jordan repeated the experiment with a weighted sack roughly the same shape and weight as a wolf, and hurt his back and dropped the sack, and landed on it.

“Ow,” he said.

“Are you okay?” Swan asked from above.

“Don’t you dare call the fire department.”

Sheriff Jordan forced himself up the ladder.

Vice Deputy Swan repeated the experiment without success, regardless of the sack’s configuration. They managed it if Vice Deputy Swan carried the sack up the ladder and Deputy Zimmer lifted it out.

Deputy Zimmer and Dr. Richardson experimented with Zimmer’s K9 partner, Blitz, replacing the sack. Conscious, Blitz resisted with Zimmer’s plan, but the sedation affected Blitz too much to think the plan would work on a wolf.

 

           Deputies had typed up the photographed journal and inserted photocopies of the least intelligible sections. Sheriff Jordan read it through once, simply to learn what it generally said. Later, he read it again and took notes.

 

Corey had photographed every page of the plan to attack Wolftown, but some pictures were too blurry, shadowy, or off-center to fully decipher. Sheriff Jordan thought the cursive handwriting resembled Dennis Laufenberg’s.

On one page, the author wrote that the journal would be burned before the attacks began, to destroy evidence. Corey said that Laufenberg intended to burn it.

The author vaguely and cryptically referenced the murders, and some pages had been crossed out, as if he had changed his mind, or the sentences ended abruptly.

The orderly and detailed journal confirmed that Dennis Laufenberg carried out the attacks and that he intended for böxenwolves to mimic wolf attacks. He stated, “The böxenwolves will be wolves for all intents and purposes,” and then simply referred to the members by name: Peter, Lupa, and Buck.

Corey identified Dennis Laufenberg as Peter, Lupa as herself, and Buck as Tyler. Wayne identified the wolf Abel as Dennis Laufenberg and Barker as Corey, and he theorized that Charlie was Tyler.

The author wrote that, following the attacks, Peter, Lupa, and Buck would be “disposed of,” which Corey hoped meant hunting three new wolves. She suspected she and Tyler would burn their wolf straps and Laufenberg would feel nostalgic towards his and stash it somewhere. Sometimes, Corey wondered if Laufenberg intended to kill her and Tyler.

 

The journal explained why the böxenwolves moved via the sewers. The author thought Wolfberg, Germany, was built and then fortified irregularly and erratically, and dismantled its fortifications; in early history, he thought böxenwolves defended the town; in later history, it eradicated wolves, and warfare had changed drastically. Wolfberg gradually became vulnerable, which Wolftown’s founders considered a problem.

Wolftown’s founders expected violence from wolves and people (Laufenberg ignored the fact that no fort ever existed within Wilde County). Wolftown was designed for the chokepoints which the wolf-proof fences created, specifically to trap wolves in one sector or another and to spread out the Wolf Guard evenly.

The only way to bypass Wolftown’s defenses was in the sewers. The sewers gave Peter, Lupa, and Buck as much mobility as the streets offered. Because the Wolf Guard predicted wolves traveled on streets, and few people in world history attacked via the sewers, nobody would think of looking in them.

Dennis Laufenberg thought it was the correct explanation, but Schuster thought he misinterpreted historical geography on two continents. Years later, in twelve paragraphs and seven carefully traced and scanned maps, he vented his annoyance to John.

Schuster wrote, Wolftown has slots in the pavement to set up the fences, but the slots and fences were added in 1983 because of the Wolf Panic. Before that, the Wolf Guard would’ve made a protective ring around town, but they didn’t have fences or blockades. They just stood on the sidewalks and were ready to shoot. It didn’t work during the Wolf Panic because the wolfdogs came and went randomly, and the Wolf Guard had to go to work and stuff. Why didn’t Laufenberg know that? He was on duty during the damn Wolf Panic.

John emailed back, I got Ds and Cs in history.

 

           Wolfberg, Germany, told Sheriff Jordan they had no modern crimes potentially useful for Wolftown’s problems.

 

           The most internationally respected böxenwolf expert, Günter Paulsen, offered to assist the investigation, although he said only folklorists knew of him. Sheriff Jordan added him to the list of potentially knowledgeable people and asked if he had any papers written in English that might assist the investigation. Because Wolftown seemed like an excellent research opportunity, Dr. Paulsen offered to work for hardly any money if he had good access to the data for research purposes and interviewed the böxenwolves. Laufenberg denied an interview on the basis that he was not a böxenwolf, and Corey said she did not want to be experimented on.

Once he learned how serious the case was and that Corey said Laufenberg abused her while they were böxenwolves, he agreed to work without the interviews.

“I’m curious, why are you taking the böxenwolves seriously?” Dr. Paulsen asked.

“Even if we can’t use böxenwolf evidence in court, a böxenwolf might kill somebody again. I’d like to make that investigation a little easier if I can. Law enforcement shouldn’t dismiss a lead. Law enforcement shouldn’t ignore the explanation that the evidence provides.”

 

Sheriff Jordan visited David at work in the sewer plant again, and they walked outside to smoke a cigarette. After asking how Ryan felt and if the Turners’ basement dried out, Sheriff Jordan said, “If you saw something weird in the sewers, you can tell me.

“It’s just a sewer with normal stuff in it. Things look weird because they get clumped up or the light shines on them weird. But there’s nothing weird in our sewers. They’re fine sewers, just doing what they’re supposed to do, except this time. I guess. I wasn’t working last week.”

“Why weren’t they doing what they were supposed to do this time?”

“We weren’t allowed to clean them out. Debris blocked the outlets, and the water flooded the town. It happens, but it isn’t weird.”

“Do you know anybody named Peter, Lupa, or Buck?”

David shook his head by the time Sheriff Jordan reached pa. Instantly, he said, “Nope. I’d remember names like that, but I don’t know the names.”

“Have you ever heard anything about wolves in the sewers?”

“Don’t you mean alligators?”

“I heard it was wolves.”

“I think the urban legend goes alligators. Alligators are much more sewer-like animals than wolves…But it’s too cold to happen up here. Beavers, maybe, but not wolves.”

“You saw a beaver in the sewer?”

“No, but it’s more realistic than a wolf. Like it’s an environmental habitat thing. But I haven’t ever seen living things in the sewers. Nobod—nothing. It’s all microscopic, rats, or dead. Nothing weird or unrealistic. It’s everything you’d expect in a sewer. Maybe we’ve got sewer gas, though.”

“What does sewer gas do?”

“I guess it could cause hallucinations. It makes your thinking whoozy sometimes.”

 

Sheriff Jordan researched whether sewer gas caused hallucinations, but it did not. He pretended it did and hoped David Turner would reveal what he saw.

 

           Corey identified David Turner in a police line-up. Laufenberg said David played poker with him and his friends, but none of Laufenberg’s friends identified David.

 

           The investigation determined that Dennis Laufenberg influenced Ryan Turner’s transfer to Children’s Wisconsin and loaned the Turners money for his treatment. Sheriff Jordan asked David Turner if Laufenberg denied further assistance unless David participated in the wolf attacks; David might have needed to earn the $22,000.

           David said, “I fixed his connection to the sewer lines, but it wasn’t very expensive. I don’t have a plumbing license, but if a friend asks me to fix something, I do it. I like helping people out. So, he paid me $22,000, but said if anybody asked, I won it in a poker game. So, I wouldn’t get into trouble for plumbing without a license. And while I was plumbing, I was in the sewers. If Chief Laufenberg said I was in the sewers, that’s why.”

           “I didn’t know that to fix home plumbing, you had to go into the sewers,” Sheriff Jordan said.

           “He had a weird problem. I had to show it to him in the sewer. I figured it was all right to be in them without authorization if he’s the chief of police.”

           “I replaced the plumbing in my house and redid the bathrooms, and it didn’t cost $22,000.”

           “He felt sorry for Ryan.”

“We have evidence that Laufenberg bribed a lot of people. You are a public worker and can be bribed. He needed to be in the sewers, and he needed somebody familiar with the sewers.”

David’s story unraveled slightly. He added that, possibly, he and Dennis Laufenberg saw some rubbish in the sewers and moved it, as a public service.

Between Dennis Laufenberg’s personality and the nasty gunk and rubbish Sheriff Jordan saw in the sewer search, he thought Laufenberg would rather raise ducks inside his closet than voluntarily clean out the sewer.

 

           Dr. Paulsen said that once the wolf strap’s healing powers were interrupted by removing the strap, once wearing the strap again, it would not continue to heal the person. He worried the transfiguration might damage Corey’s injuries.

So, they waited two more weeks for Corey to recover from her gunshot wound. Sheriff Jordan filmed Corey grudgingly transfiguring and took stills from it.

           The Sheriff’s Department blocked off a road, surrounded the manhole cover with screens, and opened the sewers. Corey demonstrated climbing in and out, just as she had during the wolf attacks. The screens protected her from gawkers, but the Sheriff’s Department filmed her.

           Sheriff Jordan hated watching her transfigure; it gave him the creeps. He wondered if he should have asked her to complete the experiment and noticed how uncomfortable it made her.

           The Sheriff’s Department took stills from the footage.

 

Sheriff Jordan showed the stills to David Turner, who seemed alarmed. He attempted to reassure David that the böxenwolves would not hurt him, and Sheriff Jordan legitimately sympathized with David’s motive for assisting them.

“Maybe I hallucinated three things with four arms or legs or something and a lot of fur,” David said. “From the sewer gas. It builds up, and we don’t always know where it is.”

“It is hard to believe things like that might happen in real life,” Sheriff Jordan said. “But I have evidence that you were not hallucinating. The lady in the pictures, Corey Brown, says you were in the sewers. You lifted up manholes so that she could climb out and menace people. You would’ve seen her transfigurations multiple times.”

 

Through a plea deal, David Turner confessed to accepting a bribe and, since he lifted the manhole covers and therefore let the wolves out of the sewers, he confessed to being an accomplice to a public disturbance. David denied seeing böxenwolves or Dennis Laufenberg, but Sheriff Jordan thought he lied. He was required to testify in court, had the opportunity to enter a work-release program, and did not pay a fine. Charges of trespass in the sewers were dropped. Sheriff Jordan found no evidence that he performed illegal plumbing work in Dennis Laufenberg’s house; he overlooked the other instances.

David Turner lost his job with the city sewer, but he was sentenced to prison, with a work-release program for six years.