At Least 7 Dead in Rural Wisconsin Shooting Rampage

Oct 07, 07:10 PM

Current Headlines: MILWAUKEE _ A law enforcement officer and jilted ex-boyfriend went on a shooting rampage early Sunday morning in his former sweetheart's Crandon, Wis., home, killing her and five others and wounding another person who had gathered for a house party, authorities said.

The young victims and the alleged shooter were part of a close-knit group of friends who all went to the same high school. Within hours of the killing spree, the suspect was also dead, though authorities declined to say how he died or where.

Officials say the 20-year-old suspect _ a Forest County Sheriff's deputy and part-time Crandon police officer _ went to the home of his former girlfriend early Sunday and began firing his gun, hitting seven. Six died at the scene and the seventh, a 19-year-old Pickerel, Wis., man, was in critical condition Sunday.

Officers were called to the scene at 2:47 a.m. for a report of shots fired.

The suspect "was a good kid, likes to hunt and fish, just a normal kid and they were all real good friends," said a Crandon man who was friends with the families of both the suspect and some of the victims.

Cody Hanson, 17, is a senior at Crandon High School in the same grade as two girls who were shot to death. He knew the suspect from seeing him around town.

"I've seen him, I've talked to him. He just doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would do that," Hanson, said.

As streets were barricaded near the duplex in the small community about 100 miles northwest of Green Bay, word quickly spread among stunned neighbors and family members. Two of the victims were seniors at Crandon High School, which had just celebrated a homecoming victory Friday night.

"This is affecting everybody in this small community," said Tom Vollmar, a Forest County supervisor who has lived in Crandon 57 years. "There's no family that hasn't been touched in one way or another."

The shooter and the other victims had recently graduated from Crandon where the school's crisis team gathered twice today. Counselors fanned out to local churches to help family and friends of the victims who had gathered there.

Kelly Flanery, 15, a sophomore at Crandon, knew all of the victims and said the ex-girlfriend of the shooter worked at Subway and also an ice cream shop in Crandon.

She "was like the nicest person. She was friends with everyone," said Flanery.

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