Gary Hirte

A Community in Denial

It says something about the way people in his tiny community of 1,800 saw Hirte that almost no one took him seriously when he talked about the murder.

Candace Delong

It's ironic, but despite all of his accomplishments and triumphs, his stellar grades, his athletic prowess and even his popularity, Hirte still needed to build himself up. That, said former FBI profiler Candace Delong, may very well have been why he spent time with Eric in the first place and why he chose a 14-year-old girlfriend. "More often than not, psychopaths... hang around younger women and younger males. Why? They are easier to impress and control," Delong said.

Eric insists that he has a less complicated view. "He likes to brag about things or whatever," Eric said. "So you know what? You don't really believe that stuff."

Weyauwega Fremont HS

By the time the school year got underway, Eric said, virtually everyone at Weyauwega-Fremont High School had heard about Hirte's tall tales of murder and mayhem. In fact, Hirte had even incorporated them into his athletic regimen. During football practice before big Friday night games, Hirte would rumble menacingly, "I killed somebody," to anyone within earshot, Eric said. "Everybody just thought it was a joke."

It will always be a source of frustration for Verwiel that in the six months after Glenn Kopitske's slaying, despite the fact that at least two people at the high school had heard Hirte's detailed claim of responsibility for it, not a single person mentioned the rumors to police.

"I wouldn't say it's outrage, but it's a source of irritation to me to know that there was a couple of kids walking around the high school that had full knowledge of this crime and didn't come forward with it." He also challenges Eric's contention that he never believed Gary Hirte was a murderer. "Now they're saying we thought he was just bragging, but I don't believe ... that Eric thought that," Verwiel said. "I'm sure that he was afraid of Hirte ...maybe he just, for his own safety, thought 'I've got to keep my mouth shut or he'll just kill me.'"

Kurt Duxbury, principal of Weyauwega-Fremont High School, believes that Verwiel's concern may be misplaced. To him, the very notion that one of their own could be such a cold-blooded killer was unimaginable, and thus, even though he confessed to many of his fellow students, the confession fell on deaf ears. In a way, Duxbury argues, that may be a testament not to apathy or indifference, but to the sterling moral character of Gary Hirte's classmates.

"If you look at our student body here in Weyauwega, we have just outstanding students." Duxbury said. "I wouldn't put it on our youth at all. This is small-town USA and you know our kids are a reflection of that. They have good values ... Our discipline problems here are small. We're still dealing with kids who are talking too much in class ... not the dangerous things, so you know, so our kids, you know, for the most part ... I believe that they didn't believe it, so they didn't feel it was even an issue."

One person, however, began to believe that Hirte was a killer and found the courage to step forward.

Home of Hirte

After several telephone conversations with Hirte over the course of the fall, many of them focusing on the murder, Olivia Joy Thoma slowly became convinced that he was telling the truth. Thoma has declined to be interviewed for this piece. However, according to Verwiel, as time went on, the studious young woman "did her own homework on this thing and realized there really was a murder here and this is the guy saying he did it."

It wasn't an easy epiphany. "I think there was a lot of denial," at least at first, Verwiel said. "She may have half-believed it or maybe even believed it because it ate [at] her. It eroded her through the holidays."

Finally, Thoma came to feel, as Verwiel put it, "that... somebody's got to know [about] this."

Though his is critical of most of Hirte's schoolmates, Verwiel says he can understand why it took so long for Olivia Thoma to come to grips with her darkest suspicions about Hirte.

Eagle Scout badge patch

"I mean, for all of us, it's a big pill to swallow that this star athlete, A-student, Eagle-Scout-type of person could be our monster," Verwiel said. "I mean you see the rage inflicted on the victim, it's hard to put the two together."

In January, while home for the holidays, Thoma told her story to the local police. Like everyone else, the police were skeptical at first. But when the young woman provided details about the crime that had never been reported in the local media, details that police believed could only have come from the killer, they sat up and took notice.