After 2 grisly killings, a Nebraska community wonders if any place is really safe
FORT CALHOUN, Neb. — The gruesome murder of a retiree and then a priest has shocked everyone in tiny Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, including Sheriff Mike Robinson.
He has lived in the community just north of Omaha for 62 years and cannot remember a single murder before these two.
“It's really out of character,” Robinson said. “It's a good city, a good place to live, a good place to raise your family.”
Robinson says people are disturbed not only by the killings, but also by the horrific details of how their neighbors died in seemingly random attacks.
Linda Childers, 71, was killed Aug. 13 when she was shot three times with a crossbow and had her throat slit at her remote home near a creek about a mile north of Fort Calhoun. Less than four months later, on Dec. 10, the Rev. Stephen Gutgsell, 65, was fatally stabbed during a burglary at the rectory next to St. John the Baptist Church, where he was scheduled to lead Mass later that month. day.
The brutal killings have shocked residents who have grown accustomed to a certain tranquility in Fort Calhoun, a town of 1,100 nestled in the rolling hills along the Missouri River. The city is just eight miles from Omaha, but seems a world away from the state's largest city and its nearly half a million residents.
The murders undermined Adam Schutte's “warm and cozy” small-town image.
“It's scary,” Schutte said, while having a drink at the Longhorn Bar and Grill recently. “It certainly makes you wonder.”
Usually, the conversations at Fort Calhoun center on topics like the high school boys basketball team and its improbable appearance in the state tournament last spring for the first time in 99 years. But such milestones have faded into the background lately.
Denise O'Neel has spent a week a month with her fiancé at Fort Calhoun for years, so she knows it well. She no longer has much confidence in its safety.
“As soon as he goes to work, my door is now locked,” O'Neel said. “All I know is that little Fort Calhoun doesn't feel as safe as it used to.”
Fort Calhoun traces its origins to a meeting between explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and the Oto and Missouri tribes in August 1804 – 63 years before Nebraska became a state.
The community has long offered a glimpse into the past through living history programs at a reconstructed fort dating to 1820. Volunteers dress up in Old West garb and reenact scenes from the period when the area was first settled. The high school sports teams are called the Pioneers.
At the time of her death, Linda Childers had lived in Fort Calhoun for almost 50 years. Police arrested William Collins, 30, about two weeks after she was killed. He was found in Texas with Childers' car and some of her belongings.
Kierre Williams, 43, was arrested at Gutgsell's home. When a deputy arrived, Williams was sprawled over the priest, who was bleeding profusely.
Both men are charged with murder, burglary and possession of a weapon and are due back in court early next month. Authorities say Williams had a job at a meatpacking plant in Sioux City, Iowa, while Collins was a self-described “minimalist” who camped by the river for about a week.
It's not clear what brought them to Fort Calhoun and investigators have found no connection between them and the victims.
Collins' attorney has said he plans to plead not guilty but declined to discuss the case. Williams' attorney with the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy did not respond to a message.
For some, the deaths have shaken their belief that Fort Calhoun is inoculated against the violence they hear about in Omaha and other major cities.
Childers' stepdaughter, Wendy Sue Childers, spent much of her childhood at Fort Calhoun with her father and stepmother, whom she considered her best friend. Now living in Missouri, she says news of Gutgsell's murder so soon after her stepmother's death makes her question whether a place is truly safe.
“I don't know what's happening,” she said. “It just spreads. It spreads to the rural communities that are quiet and peaceful and mind their own business.”
The priest's murder had such a deep resonance that people who do not regularly visit St. John the Baptist joined with his parishioners to fill the small church at a vigil on the day he died. On Monday, mourners nearly filled a 1,000-seat cathedral in Omaha for Gutgsell's funeral, where he was remembered as a movie buff who was deeply concerned with making sure people were ready to meet God, especially if they died just as violently if he.
Mike Cimino, a longtime resident, said the killings were shocking but didn't change how he feels about Fort Calhoun. He's always liked that he could take his kids to their Catholic school in downtown Omaha in about 20 minutes, and every time he needs to make a Costco run, the big city is just minutes away.
“In a bigger city I would probably feel less safe than here,” he said. “I think it's just a coincidence that this happened.”
Robinson, the sheriff, notes that Fort Calhoun is safe in almost every respect, with virtually no thefts, burglaries or vandalism.
“I'm sure they're worried and scared,” Robinson said of the residents. “We're just trying to reassure them that they are as safe now as they have been for the last 10, 15, 20 years.”
As she picked up a few gift bags at the Dollar Tree, Debbie Shultz said she still feels safe, but acknowledged the weight of the deaths.
“Of course it makes you anxious, but it's still my sweet little town and I wouldn't trade it for anything,” she said.
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Beck contributed to this report from Omaha, Nebraska.