3 die in Carlinville
Rampage leaves woman, teen dead, ends in suicide
By JAYETTE BOLINSKI
and LISA KERNEK
STAFF WRITERS
CARLINVILLE — A Centralia man went on a murderous rampage Tuesday that
left his teenage daughter and former sister-in-law dead and his
ex-in-laws’ house in flames before committing suicide.
Carlinville police authorities speculated George Setzekorn, 53, wanted
his ex-wife, Patricia Young, back and resented her parents for
allowing her to live with them.
Setzekorn, who also went by George Young, had been convicted of
shooting and killing another ex-wife about 15 years ago, police said.
The family had an order of protection against him because of previous
threats.
The apparent double homicide and suicide shocked this community of
5,685, which was celebrated as a great place to live in the 1993 book
“The 100 Best Small Towns in America.”
Dead are Setzekorn, 53; his former sister-in-law Janie Goesmann, 45;
and 14-year-old Skylar Young, whose body was found in the basement of
the burning home of her grandparents, Neal and Margaret House.
Skylar, who reportedly attended middle school in Carlinville, was seen
getting off the school bus at the House residence about 10 minutes
before the fire was reported Tuesday afternoon, police said.
Authorities did not say how she died.
Macoupin County Coroner Charles Landers could not be reached for
comment Tuesday night.
Setzekorn’s ex-wife, Patricia Young, was not injured. Young reportedly
works at Carlinville Area Hospital but was not believed to be on duty
when her sister and ex-husband were rushed there by ambulance.
Neal and Margaret House were taken to the Carlinville hospital, where
they were treated for smoke inhalation and released. He is 78. She is
74. Macoupin County Sheriff Gary Wheeler said their house was
destroyed. It was not known how the fire was started but it was
believed that Setzekorn set it.
“The frame is still standing there, but it’s gutted,” he said.
The ordeal began at 3:38 p.m., when authorities received a report of a
fire at the House residence, which is on Illinois 108 just east of
Carlinville.
According to Carlinville Police Chief Steven Stone, an ambulance that
was responding to the fire was waiting to make a turn near Boente’s
Shell at Center and South streets, when rescue personnel heard gun
shots.
They searched the area and found Goesmann, who had been shot in the
head, in the backyard of her house at 115 S. Center St. Authorities
said Goesmann’s husband and three children were not home at the time
of the shooting.
About that time, Setzekorn was seen running toward his car, which was
parked near the Shell station. He got into it, pointed a gun at his
head and shot himself, Stone said.
Goesmann and Setzekorn were taken to Carlinville Area Hospital about 4
p.m., where they died in the emergency room, according to a hospital
official.
Patricia Young and Skylar had been living with her parents for about a
year, Stone said. Authorities said they believe Skylar was the only
child Young and Setzekorn had together.
“We have reason to believe this shooter had set the fire because he’d
made threats before to cause trouble for Janie’s folks,” he said.
Setzekorn was released from prison in May 2001 after serving time for
a similar domestic murder, Stone said.
“It makes me wonder why he was out walking around,” Stone said. Stone
was unsure how long Setzekorn and Young had been divorced.
“I know it was since at least ’97 because that’s when it first came to
our attention that he was a problem,” he said. “From what I
understand, he wanted her back, and the family was helping her out,
and he didn’t like that. He wanted her to be desperate and come back
to him.”
Despite the order of protection, Stone said the police had no record
of Setzekorn causing trouble — beyond threats — prior to Tuesday.
“He never had a violation that we could hang our hat on,” he said. “As
a matter of fact, I’ve never seen the man. I’ve only seen his
picture.”
The multiple crime scenes disrupted traffic flow as police blocked off
Illinois 108 on the east and west sides of the House property. Smoke
from the burning home billowed north across the highway.
Carlinville police and firefighters were backed up at the multiple
crime scenes by the Macoupin County Sheriff’s Department, the Illinois
State Police, Gillespie authorities and members of the South Central
Illinois Drug Task Force. Stone said authorities did not believe drugs
played a role in the incident, but the task force was on hand to
provide manpower.
Stone said he believes the state fire marshal will investigate the
scene of the fire. He added that officers were talking to residents
who might have seen the crime.
“We’ve talked to a couple people in town who helped us out and saw a
couple of things,” he said.
Goesmann was a registered nurse at Carlinville Area Hospital, where
she worked primarily in the emergency room, said Art Knippel, the
hospital’s director of administrative services. She also had been an
honor student at Lewis and Clark University and graduated from
Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville in the fall of 1997,
according to newspaper records.
Knippel was not sure what year Goesmann started working at the
hospital but said she’d worked there for several years and had many
friends.
Carlinville resident Rosie Stutzman said she was shocked by the
tragedy and remembers Goesmann as an excellent nurse. Stutzman said
Goesmann had come to her home to provide nursing care to her mother
before her death about a year ago.
Mayor Brad Demuzio, 37, said he cannot remember a crime of this
magnitude happening in Carlinville since he was a child. “I couldn’t
believe it,” Demuzio said after hearing the news of the shootings.
The last murder in Carlinville was in December 1999, when Charles H.
Reisinger Jr. of Irving strangled and suffocated his estranged wife,
Jennifer, a Carlinville nursing home worker. Her body was found along
a rural road 15 miles from town. He is serving a 35-year sentence.
The last multiple murder in Carlinville also involved estranged family
members. On Dec. 18, 1968, Sherman Kline shot and killed his wife,
three social workers and himself, as well as injuring four of his
children at a Christmas reunion organized by the Department of
Children and Family Services, according to The State Journal-Register
archives.
A clerk who was working Tuesday night in Boente’s Shell station across
the street from Janie Goesmann’s house said customers were coming in
and talking about the shootings.
A patron of Rookie’s Tavern on the square, who asked to not be
identified, said residents are in shock.
“We’re a very small community. Everybody here is considered very
close,” he said. “It touches everybody when this kind of thing
happens. Everybody feels sorrow for the family. We wish them all
well.”
Jayette Bolinski can be reached at 788-1530 or
jayette....@sj-r.com. Lisa Kernek can be reached at 788-1459 or
lisa.kernek @sj-r.com. Correspondent Michelle Richee also contributed.
© Copyright 2002, The State Journal-Register
http://www.sj-r.com/news/wednesday/a.htm
--
Anne Warfield
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/
Scene played out before
Setzekorn killed previous wife
By SARAH ANTONACCI
STAFF WRITER
When George R. Setzekorn sought revenge on his ex-wife’s family
Tuesday night, it was a virtual replay of an earlier crime spree.
Setzekorn, 53, had played out a similar scenario in 1977 and 1978 when
he allegedly burned his estranged wife’s family home in South
Jacksonville, six months later set fire to his own sister’s home in
Okawville and days after that shot his estranged wife in the back as
she left for work from her brother’s Athens home.
Verna Stapleton Setzekorn’s 11-year-old son watched his mother’s
murder at 6:18 a.m. Jan. 4, 1978, according to State Journal-Register
archives.
For that crime, George Setzekorn served eight years in prison on a
20-year-sentence for which he was supposed to have spent 10 years in
jail.
Becky Todd is Verna’s sister. She first heard the news about George
Setzekorn’s Carlinville rampage early Wednesday and was shaken.
"When I realized who it was, I was just stunned," said Todd, who lives
with her mother in Jacksonville.
"It has been a very eerie day. It’s scary not knowing he was that
close."
Much of their thoughts were filled Wednesday with sympathy for
Patricia Young, the family she lost and the family that remains to
bear the brunt of the pain that George Setzekorn left in his wake.
"Our hearts go out to them that they are going to have to live through
this,’’ said Todd. "It’s something I wouldn’t wish on anyone to live
with these kinds of thoughts and memories."
Their own memories of the eerily similar tragedies caused by Setzekorn
24 years ago came flooding back as well.
George, 28, and a registered nurse, and Verna, 33, and a nursing
student at St. John’s, met while both were working at a Springfield
nursing home. The two married in January 1977.
It didn’t take long for things to start looking bad.
"He was so controlling. The threats, the dependency, the total control
he had to have ... In their relationship he was very, very
controlling. It was difficult for my sister because she was
independent and it was difficult for her to try to become this person
he apparently needed," Todd said.
Todd remembered listening in on phone conversations between her sister
and George Setzekorn during which he’d threaten to harm her.
"We had tapes of threats and so much that he had said and done. No one
(in law enforcement) would do anything. I remember my brother and my
sister’s son saying (the day Verna was murdered), ‘Now can you do
something? Can you do something now?’"
Verna filed for divorce in March the same year, citing mental cruelty
and fear for her safety and that of her children by a previous
marriage. The divorce decree was signed that summer, but the
proceedings were never finalized.
When she left, she was able to take only a few things belonging to her
children — a boy and a girl. Setzekorn allegedly took all their
belongings and put them in a storage unit in Springfield. In any case,
Verna never saw their belongings again, according to Todd.
Verna and her kids moved in with her parents.
In June 1977, while Verna’s family was on vacation out of state,
someone broke into the house and set three fires. Each fire was set
near something that had value to Verna — her bed, some mementos and an
area in the attic where Verna’s mother stored things for the children.
The family lost most everything, Todd said.
Setzekorn was the main and only suspect in the fire. Todd said arson
investigators came to South Jacksonville from Chicago to look for
clues. According to newspaper records at the time, Setzekorn failed a
lie detector test. But no one could place him in the Jacksonville area
at the time of the blaze.
In December, a similar fire broke out at Setzekorn’s sister’s home in
Okawville. No one was home at the time of that Christmas blaze that
caused $8,000 to $10,000 damage. Setzekorn, according to authorities
in 1978, was the main suspect in that fire, too.
"His family was wonderful people," Todd said. "He was so angry with
us. That’s why he burned his sister’s house because she stayed close
to my sister and offered to help her out when they were starting over.
As far as I knew, his family were wonderful people."
Then on Jan. 4, 1978, George Setzekorn waited around the corner of
Verna’s brother’s house in the Pheasant Run subdivision in Athens for
her to leave for work. She walked out of the house and toward the
driveway when Setzekorn fired a 12-gauge shotgun at her back, striking
her.
Ron Phillips was sheriff at the time. He remembers the day well.
"It was a premeditated and cold-blooded murder," he said. "I pulled up
at the end of the drive and saw her laying face down. I remember it. I
remember getting there and calling for help and calling for an
ambulance. Ain’t that awful he just got 10 years (in prison)?"
Todd said that when Verna was murdered, George Setzekorn’s parents
came to her funeral. They hugged Verna’s parents and told them how
highly they thought of her and how sorry they were for what their son
had done.
"I feel terribly sorry for his family. I thought that was so brave,"
Todd recalled.
Todd said her family was unaware that George Setzekorn was released
from jail until he showed up in the Jacksonville grocery store where
Todd’s family worked. Though Todd’s own daughter was only 6 when her
aunt was murdered, she recognized him immediately when he came into
the store.
Todd said everyone in her family was on pins and needles after that,
wondering if he’d be around the corner or whether he’d show up as a
new neighbor on the street behind them.
Todd said Verna’s two children spent most of the day in shock after
reading newspaper accounts of George Setzekorn’s actions Tuesday
evening.
"I don’t really have words of advice for (Patricia Young’s) family.
You just live day to day. There is no good advice. It’s been a long 24
years since it happened and every day when you look at her children
you feel it, you see it."
Sarah Antonacci can be reached at 788-1529 or
sarah.a...@sj-r.com.
© Copyright 2002, The State Journal-Register
http://www.sj-r.com/news/thursday/a.htm
Rampage stuns town
By LISA KERNEK
STAFF WRITER
CARLINVILLE — When George Setzekorn lashed out at his ex-wife for the
last time Tuesday, he did not touch her but instead pointed his gun at
two of the people she loved most: a sister and a daughter.
Setzekorn apparently lay in wait as his 14-year-old daughter, Skylar
Young, got off the school bus at 3:25 p.m. Tuesday at the house she
shared with her mother and grandparents.
Thirteen minutes after Skylar arrived home, firefighters were called
to the house to put out a fire set by Setzekorn. Rescue workers found
Skylar’s badly burned body inside the adjacent apartment she shared
with her mother, but an autopsy Wednesday confirmed that the girl died
from a gunshot wound to the head.
Skylar’s mother, Patricia Young, was still at work at Carlinville Area
Hospital when she received a phone call alerting her to the fire.
Young left the hospital and began driving home, stopping to collect
her sister, Janie Goesmann, whose house was on the way.
Setzekorn, meanwhile, had left the burning house and also had driven
to Goesmann’s house. Young may have arrived at Goesmann’s house in
time to hear — or perhaps see — Setzekorn shoot Goesmann outside the
house, police and hospital employees speculated Wednesday.
Setzekorn presumably saw Young but never harmed her, hospital
employees and police said. After shooting Goesmann, Setzekorn sat down
in his parked Ford Mustang and shot himself in the head. Police found
two .22-caliber pistols in his car and are investigating how a
twice-convicted felon obtained them.
Young rode in the ambulance that carried Goesmann to Carlinville Area
Hospital, where Goesmann died in the emergency room where she worked
as a registered nurse.
Although she never made it to her parents’ house, where Skylar had
been shot, she apparently had a premonition that something was wrong.
"Patty said to me, ‘I know he’s killed my daughter,’" said Robert
Porteus, CEO of Carlinville Area Hospital.
Setzekorn also was taken to the hospital, where he died in the
emergency room. Autopsies Wednesday confirmed that both Setzekorn and
Goesmann died from gunshot wounds to the head.
Goesmann’s and Young’s parents, Neal and Margaret House, also were
treated at the hospital for smoke inhalation and released. Young and
her daughter lived in a separate apartment attached to the garage of
the Houses’ residence. Margaret apparently was making dinner and Neal
was watching television when they smelled smoke, the first clue they
had that something was wrong, according to a family member.
Why, some here asked Wednesday, did Setzekorn choose targets other
than his ex-wife?
"I think it’s a real possibility (Setzekorn thought) that this would
hurt her most, killing the daughter, the sister," said Art Knippel,
director of administrative services for Carlinville Area Hospital.
Employees of the 33-bed hospital where both sisters worked had been
aware for years that Setzekorn had harassed the two women following
his 1997 divorce from Patricia Young, his third wife. Young married
Setzekorn on Sept. 2, 1986, in Marion within months of his release
from prison for the murder of his previous wife. Setzekorn was Young’s
second husband; she retained the last name of her first husband, and
Setzekorn adopted it, possibly to conceal his criminal history.
The couple divorced in October 1997 in Winnebago County. Starting Oct.
31, 1997, he began calling her, according to court records. Young
moved to Ohio with two of her children, including Skylar. She
tape-recorded a conversation during which he demanded she either
reconcile with him or give him Skylar by a certain day, or he would
kill her and others in her family.
George Young was sentenced on Nov. 14, 1997 to five years in prison on
an intimidation charge. The Illinois Department of Corrections paroled
Setzekorn on March 22, 2000 and discharged him from parole on Feb. 5,
2001. What would have been a 10-year sentence was reduced to five
years because of a lack of proof that he actually made the phone call
in Winnebago County.
On Dec. 1, 1997, Janie Goesmann sought an emergency order of
protection against Setzekorn after receiving telephone threats.
Setzekorn had threatened Goesmann that if Patricia Young did not
return to Illinois and surrender custody of Skylar, he would kill "all
family members" and himself.
A Macoupin County judge on Dec. 17, 1997, dismissed Goesmann’s order
of protection a couple of weeks later after Goesmann failed to attend
a hearing to extend the order, according to court documents.
But a couple of years ago, Goesmann and Young requested protection
from both the Macoupin County Sheriff’s and Carlinville Police
departments, police said. Police patrolled both sisters’ homes but
never saw Setzekorn. Police had not received any reports of recent
harassment.
Last August, Patricia Young sought to modify Setzekorn’s visitation
rights with Skylar, in part because she was afraid of her father and
"does not desire to be in his immediate presence unsupervised,"
according to court documents.
Goesmann sometimes accompanied Young to court, Macoupin County Sheriff
Gary Wheeler said.
"I think that’s why she’s not with us," Wheeler said.
"We believe the sister-in-law was instrumental in getting her sister
away from him, so he had a grudge against her. She wouldn’t back down
to him. She helped her sister get through all this."
On Tuesday, the family’s worst fears came true. Word of the tragedy
spread fast in this town of 5,685 people. About 70 high school
students milled about in the hospital parking lot soon after the
murders Tuesday afternoon, Porteus said. Late Tuesday night, teachers
at Carlinville Middle School met to prepare themselves to comfort
grief-stricken classmates of Skylar Young on Wednesday. Two of Janie
Goesmann’s three children attend Carlinville High School.
The school made counselors available to students Wednesday and let
pupils play a favorite CD of Skylar’s, Carlinville School
Superintendent Michael Collins said.
Middle school officials delivered a school photo of Skylar to Patricia
Young, whose family photos were destroyed in the fire. Young and her
parents are staying with family members in Carlinville.
At Carlinville Area Hospital, about 70 grieving employees gathered in
a room and talked about the tragedy.
Porteus remembered Goesmann as quiet, compassionate and committed to
family, like her sister, Patricia.
Hospital employees and churches have pulled together to buy funeral
clothes, collect cash donations and provide meals to the grieving
survivors.
"It’s a small hospital," Porteus said. "This is a family."
At the house east of town where George Setzekorn began his rampage,
the smell of charred wood still hung in the air Wednesday. A family
member of Neal and Margaret House carried burned dresser drawers out
of the destroyed house and set them on the lawn.
"Trying to retain a little history," he said.
Lisa Kernek can be reached at 788-1459 or lisa....@sj-r.com. Sarah
Antonacci and Jayette Bolinski contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2002, The State Journal-Register
http://www.sj-r.com/news/thursday/b.htm
Why was Setzekorn free to kill again?
Plea deal kept son off the stand; good behavior cut time in prison
By SARAH ANTONACCI and LISA KERNEK
STAFF WRITERS
How did a man who murdered his estranged wife in front of her
11-year-old son and allegedly set fire to two homes get out of prison
after only eight years - just to do it again?
It's a question Verna Stapleton Setzekorn's relatives have been asking
themselves for the past two days.
Verna Setzekorn was murdered by her estranged husband, George R.
Setzekorn, in front of her brother's Athens home in 1978. Tuesday
night, he killed again, this time shooting his 14-year-old daughter,
his ex-sister-in-law and himself in Carlinville.
"We never thought it was long enough," said Nancy Jarrett of
Setzekorn's time in prison for the '78 killing of Verna Setzekorn.
In a plea agreement George Setzekorn, then 29, was sentenced to 20
years in prison for that murder. He was expected to serve at least 10
years but was released after eight.
Verna Setzekorn was killed in Jarrett's front yard. George Setzekorn
waited on the side of the house for his estranged wife to leave for
work. When she did, he fired one round from a 12-guage shotgun into
her back, killing her.
As it turns out, a combination of factors led to Setzekorn's
relatively short sentence and early release ultimately giving him the
ability to kill again.
Nolan Lipsky, a Petersburg attorney, was the prosecutor in the 1978
murder case. He remembers portions of it vividly. Other parts have
faded with time.
"I remember that day emphatically because Verna was supposed to come
to my office to get an order of protection against (George)," Lipsky
said.
The plea agreement was reached to spare Verna Setzekorn's 11-year-old
son, Billy, from further trauma, according to Lipsky.
"The only witness to the event was her son, and I sat down and
discussed with her brother and sister-in-law whether they wanted the
child to testify," he said. "They opted he not testify."
Lipsky said that decision complicated matters, because the gun used in
the murder was never recovered.
"There was no evidence," he said.
Nancy Jarrett remembers it a bit differently. She says it was George's
idea that the boy not testify.
"I remember being told that George made this decision because he
didn't want Billy to have to testify, or maybe he knew Billy saw him,
or he knew it was damaging evidence. It was so long ago," she said.
But not long enough to dull all the memories.
"We have all, in the last two days, relived everything that happened
then," Jarrett said Thursday. "It brought it all back up. We hurt for
that family. I know my sister-in-law said to me, 'Maybe if we had done
something different, pressed it harder, it could have stopped this for
them.'"
Setzekorn's sentence started Jan. 4, 1978, the day of Verna's murder.
Police came directly to Springfield and arrested Setzekorn at his
home.
At the time, most Illinois felons served only about half their
sentences because they were given day-for-day "good time" credit -
credit for good behavior while in prison, said Sergio Molina, a
spokesman for the Illinois Department of Corrections. Setzekorn also
received credit for the time he had spent in the county jail awaiting
his trial.
"While incarcerated, based on his institutional adjustment, which is
basically his good behavior, it earned him additional good time,"
Molina said. "In today's climate, this guy would serve, on a murder
charge, 100 percent of his time. Legislation is what's changed since
then."
Setzekorn was paroled on Jan. 26, 1986, and discharged from parole
three years later.
Lipsky said his second vivid memory of the 1978 murder was that
Setzekorn was a registered nurse.
"You wouldn't think that someone who cared about people enough to
become a nurse would do this," he said.
Setzekorn's interest in nursing may also have led him to his eventual
victims.
He and Verna met while both were working at a Springfield nursing
home. He was a registered nurse, and she was a recently divorced
nursing student with two children.
"She was going through a divorce, and it was a difficult time in her
life. He befriended her and was kind to her. It's hard to understand,
but he had a very loving and gentle side to him that she saw," Jarrett
said.
Within weeks of their marriage, however, Verna's impression of her new
husband changed.
"It wasn't long after Verna was married, about three weeks, she called
me at work and wanted to know what to do about getting the marriage
annulled, or about some of the problems. I think she feared for her
children and for herself. It was from that time on a lot of fear and
terrorizing occurred in our family," Jarrett said.
After Setzekorn's release from prison, he moved to southern Illinois.
His brother, Fred, introduced him to Patricia Young, another recently
divorced nurse who was living in Centralia.
Setzekorn courted Young with romantic letters and poems.
"She was crazy about him," said Penny House of Carlinville, Patty
Young's younger sister. He was "a real smooth guy" and very
intelligent, House said.
Setzekorn lied about the circumstances of the 1978 murder when he was
courting Patricia.
"He told her that his ex-wife took a lot of drugs, he was deeply in
love with her and that he just went crazy one day," said House. "She
had left him. He said he loved her so much and that he begged her and
begged her to come back and that it was a crime of passion."
Young's family later looked into the 1978 case and found no indication
that Verna Setzekorn had ever used drugs.
However, Young didn't learn the truth about her husband until after
she married Setzekorn in September 1986. Their daughter Skylar was
born in December 1987.
After Young married Setzekorn, he became abusive and refused to let
her see her daughter from her first marriage, House said.
"My sister lived with him over 11 years in terror," House said.
Setzekorn continued threatening Young, Skylar and other family members
following the couple's 1997 divorce. For a time, Young and Skylar
moved out of state to escape his harassment.
"He actually blamed everybody for encouraging her to leave," House
said.
The family was so frightened of Setzekorn that House's 78-year-old
father, Neal House, carried a gun with him when he went out to feed
the cows, Penny House said. Penny House also kept a gun.
On Tuesday, Setzekorn killed his daughter and Young's sister, Janie
Goesmann, and set his ex-in-laws' house on fire.
With Setzekorn's history of murder and harassment, he should have
remained locked up, House said.
"Maybe something could change so that victims could be protected. That
feels really important to me," she said.
Sarah Antonacci can be reached at 788-1529 or
sarah.a...@sj-r.com. Lisa Kernek can be reached at 788-1459 or
lisa....@sj-r.com.
© Copyright 2002, The State Journal-Register
http://www.sj-r.com/news/friday/a.htm
I will not be surprised if this lady commits suicide at some point in the
future. I would imagine some pain is almost unbearable...
PattyC
--
???
"Anne Warfield" <indi...@aolxxx.com> wrote in message
news:3ccca634...@news.earthlink.net...
> This happened a few days ago, actually, but it's interesting me more
> and more.
>
> 3 die in Carlinville
> Rampage leaves woman, teen dead, ends in suicide
>
> By JAYETTE BOLINSKI
> and LISA KERNEK
> STAFF WRITERS
>
> CARLINVILLE - A Centralia man went on a murderous rampage Tuesday that
> of Setzekorn causing trouble - beyond threats - prior to Tuesday.
>Thanks for another fascinating story, Anne. I much regret that this guy got
>exactly what he wanted, to make the latest ex-wife suffer forever in misery
>over what has occurred. Her child and sister? God...
>
>I will not be surprised if this lady commits suicide at some point in the
>future. I would imagine some pain is almost unbearable...
>
>PattyC
I hope she doesn't. I don't want him to win.
God. At least the bastard's dead now.