CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. — Authorities in northwestern Wisconsin say the gunman who carried out a deadly shooting spree murdered three family members, then entered the home of a complete stranger he was infatuated with.
Chippewa County Sheriff James L. Kowalczyk says the situation that led Ritchie German, Junior to a stranger's home may be similar to the one involving Jake Patterson, who became obsessed with Jayme Closs and subsequently murdered her parents and kidnapped the teen.
Investigators say German, age 33, fatally shot his mother Bridget, his brother Douglas and Douglas' 8-year-old son Calvin with a handgun, perhaps as early as Friday night or Saturday morning in their home in the Town of Lafayette. Their bodies weren't discovered until after dispatchers received a 911 call around 10:30 Sunday night from a home in the Town of Hallie. There, they found 24-year-old Laile Vang shot to death, and Ritchie German dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Laile Vang's parents, 51-year-old Teng Vang and 39-year-old Mai Chang Vang, were wounded by blasts from a shotgun. Both are hospitalized but are expected to survive.
"What was the motive, why did this happen?" Sheriff Kowalczyk asked rhetorically. "We're working on that answer. Right now, I've got to be honest. We don't know."
Law enforcement responding to the Vang home in Lake Hallie found Douglas German's SUV running outside the residence. Investigators believe Ritchie took the vehicle after killing his brother, and inside the truck they discovered items that suggest he may have been planning to kidnap Laile Vang. The sheriff also said they have recovered texts sent by Ritchie German to Laile Vang, texts described as sexual in nature, but believe she had no idea who he was. At this point they aren't sure how German got Vang's cell phone number, or how he identified her as a potential victim.
"We have his phone, we have all the phones of victims, of people involved, we're downloading those, it takes a search warrant so it's a slow process," Kowalczyk explained.
This is the timeline investigators lay out for the shootings in the Lake Hallie home of the Vang family. They say Ritchie German exited his brother's vehicle shortly after 10:20 p.m. Sunday and fired a shotgun blast into the front door. German was confronted by Teng Vang and fired another blast, wounding the patriarch in the hand. Mai Vang then approached German and was also shot in the hand. German found Laile Vang, fatally shot her, and then witnesses say the gunman turned the weapon on himself.
Investigators recovered at least 10 spent shell casings from the scene. Three children and an adult were also in the home but escaped injury.
Sheriff Kowalczyk says the way things unfolded at the Vang home, combined with the text messages to Laile Vang and the items found in the SUV German was driving are hauntingly familiar to the Jayme Closs kidnapping case.
"In the Closs case the door was breached, a shotgun was used, Mr. Closs was shot, Mrs. Closs was shot, very fortunate in that the Vangs are going to survive their injuries, but it could have been very similar in nature to what happened," the sheriff asserted.
There is a hole in the time frame between the shootings at the Vang home and the murders of German's family members, which investigators believe may have occurred either Friday night or Saturday morning. Sheriff Kowalczyk says the body of Bridget German was found in the basement of the family home, while Douglas German and his son Calvin were found in a bedroom, wrapped in a sleeping bag. They say Bridget failed to show up for her job at a grocery store in Lake Wissota Saturday morning, concerning the manager there. Ritchie German allegedly called the store later that morning, saying his mom was sick and in the hospital.
The sheriff is asking anyone who encountered German anytime Saturday or Sunday, or even in the weeks prior to the shootings, to call the department's tip line at 715-726-4563.
Ritchie German, Junior had lived on and off with his mother since 2004. In 2006 law enforcement was called to the home and arrested Ritchie German after he discharged a gun during a domestic situation. He was convicted of disorderly conduct, and sentenced to a year's probation. German is described by surviving family members as a loner, who has no known friends.
Neighbors in the small communities where the shootings took place are reeling from the events of the past few days. Brennan Thorgerson told KARE 11 he knows the gunman's mother Bridget, not just as a neighbor but from her work at the service counter of a nearby grocery store where they frequently chatted.
"Super easy going, would always give people a hard time but in a good way." Thorgerson said about her. "Always could put a smile on someone’s face like talking to her in the morning and stuff like that."
Another neighbor, Carolyn Prochnow, initially believed the gunshots were fireworks.
"I just heard rapid boom, boom, boom, boom," Prochnow said. "We didn’t know what it was, we thought it was really loud fireworks."