SIX YEARS LATER (PART 12)

It had been nearly six years since the brutal murders that had terrorized eastern Wisconsin in June of 2008. The small village of Fredonia had gained not only notoriety within the state, but within the nation as well. The State found funding to increase the police presence in the village. And William Donaldson had been promoted to sergeant. All this attention would have normally made him proud. But under the circumstances, he was anything but. In the past six years Fredonia had become something of a macabre tourist destination. Curious true crime fans would come to visit, seeking out the locations of the Buster Koons crime scenes. More than a few real life crime-type television shows had come to film dramatizations about the events. There were even whisperings that a big-time Hollywood director was making inquiries about filming a big budget biopic about it. In Donaldson’s view, village president Charles Lapham was too quick to cash in on any moneymaking deal he could get – especially since he considered the whole Buster Koons saga as giving Fredonia a black eye. Sure the extra revenue for the village was nice. But at what cost? He often wondered if he was truly irritated at the president for profiting on the carnage. Or was he more irritated because the crimes had never been solved?

It was something he wrestled with every single day.

10-12 murders had been attributed to Buster Koons. The discrepancy laid with Rob and Heather, the young couple on the Fredonia railroad tracks. The official cause of death had been labeled an accident. But the toxicology reports had come back negative. There was no evidence pointing toward suicide. And most people (including Donaldson) found it hard to believe that both of them could have fallen in front of an oncoming train, or had fallen asleep on the tracks and not woken up in to the screaming sound of a locomotive. But based on any evidence to the contrary, an accident it was. No one believed it though.

Gary Grassman had never showed up in Fredonia. Or had he? Is it a coincidence that shortly after his alleged arrival the killings stopped? For awhile Donaldson surmised that maybe Grassman was Buster Koons himself. But investigations proved that Grassman was in Florida during the murders in Fredonia and Manitowoc. While flight records show that Grassman did in fact board a flight from Orlando to Milwaukee on June 19, 2008. But his whereabouts from that day forward remain a mystery. There were a few witnesses on Washington Island who stepped forward and claimed to have seen Grassman on the Island the day of the murders. But the reports were sketchy at best. And there was never any sufficient proof that he was there. Still the mystery remains. Why did the Buster Koons murder spree suddenly come to an end? And where was Gary Grassman? Was he somehow involved in ending it?

The questions from that horrible time weighed heavily on Donaldson’s mind. Some days were worse than others. Tuesday May 13, 2014 was one of the worst days. Because at 4:30 that afternoon he received the call he hoped he’d never receive again. It was Officer Peterson. “Sergeant, Buster Koons has returned.”