Off-duty officer kills ex-girlfriend, 5 more

MILWAUKEE – A law enforcement officer and jilted ex-boyfriend went on a shooting rampage early Sunday morning in his former sweetheart’s Crandon home, killing her and five others and wounding another person who had gathered for a 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.

Crandon Mayor Gary Bradley said Sunday afternoon that the suspect was dead.

“He was brought down by a sniper,” Bradley said.

Officials say the 20-year-old suspect – Forest County Sheriff’s Deputy and part-time Crandon police Officer Tyler Peterson – went to a movie and pizza party at 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. after a report of shots fired.

Sheriff Keith Van Cleve said he would meet with state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen this morning to discuss the case. The state Department of Criminal Investigation will handle the case because the suspect was a deputy and officer, Crandon Police Chief John Dennee said.

Three of the victims were Crandon High School students, said schools Superintendent Richard Peters, and the other three had graduated within the past three years.

Authorities didn’t identify the victims Sunday, but the ex-girlfriend was believed to be Jordann Murray, 18, a 2006 graduate of the high school, according to family and friends.

“There is probably nobody in Crandon who is not affected by this,” Peters said, adding that students would be especially affected. “They are going to wake up in shock and disbelief and a lot of pain.”

Another 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.”

A second victim was Bradley Schultz, 20, a third-year student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who was home to visit friends, said his aunt, Sharon Pisarek.

“We still don’t have many details, but from what they’ve told us, there was a girl next to him and he was covering her, protecting her,” she said, sobbing. “He was loved by everybody. He was everybody’s son. Senseless.”

Marci Franz, 35, who lives two houses south of the home, 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.

“I was just about to get up and call it in, and I heard sirens,” she said. “There’s never been a tragedy like this here.”

Peterson “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.

As streets were barricaded near the duplex in the community of about 2,000 about 100 miles northwest of Green Bay, word quickly spread. Two of the victims were seniors at Crandon High School, which had just celebrated a homecoming victory Friday night.

Peterson and most of the other victims had recently graduated from Crandon, where the school’s crisis team gathered twice Sunday.

Counselors fanned out to churches to help family and friends of victims.

Kelly Flanery, 15, a sophomore at the high school, knew the victims and said Peterson’s ex-girlfriend worked at Subway and also an ice cream shop.

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

School was canceled today.