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72 bloody lies 10 leopold and loeb Greg Fester had led a train wreck of a life growing up between the communities of Beaver Dam and Horicon in southcentral Wisconsin. His criminal history could be traced back to age ten. at twelve, Fester confronted two students at his middle school with a twelve-inch butcher knife. By the time he was fourteen, he wound up on a law enforcement sex offender registry and ended up at an alternative school. Fester set small arson fires and committed random acts of vandalism. He shot out car windows with pellet guns for kicks. “This was a kid who grew up with law enforcement in the back of his pocket,” remarked Horicon Police chief Doug Glamann. “every police officer on our department knew who he was, where he lived, and every one of them would do a second look-over every time we saw him out in public.”1 as Fester got older, he grew more violent and impulsive. His life was clouded by heavy drug use. at seventeen, he fathered a child, but Fester had no role in raising the infant. in December 2004, Fester approached the teenage mother outside the Beaver Dam High School. He warned her to stay away from his current girlfriend. Fester grabbed the ex-girlfriend with one arm and pulled out a knife, holding it near her waist. He shoved her backwards and threatened to kill her. The knife incident on Beaver Dam school property resulted in Fester’s expulsion. The police arrested him for use of a dangerous weapon, a serious misdemeanor. Under a summer 2005 plea bargain, Fester was convicted of disorderly conduct and put on probation for one year. By april 2006, Fester, age nineteen, had racked up at least twenty separate arrests or juvenile citations. illegal drugs consumed his life. He constantly smoked marijuana. He owned dozens of bongs and pipes to feed his high. Fester also dabbled in heroin and cocaine, but he didn’t use those drugs as 72 leoPold And loeb 73 frequently. He also experimented with Dextromethorphan. Dex is the ingredient in over-the-counter cough suppressants. When taken in excessive dosages, it can spark hallucinations. around town, Fester recklessly rode around on a noisy dirt bike. As a result, police officers made frequent house calls to discuss the matter with his parents. Fester was also prescribed ritalin and Mirtzapine to treat hyperactivity and depression. His parents allowed their unruly and out-of-control teenager to move into one of their rental apartments, an upstairs loft in downtown Horicon. Fester looked like a weirdo in this mostly conservative community with a population of about four thousand. Besides having a cross-dressing fetish, the teenage punk with long straight black hair wore spiked dog collars around his neck and painted his fingernails black. He slapped thick white makeup on his face and pretended to take on the persona of his idol, rocker Marilyn Manson. When Fester walked past unsuspecting local residents along the downtown city sidewalks, he deliberately widened his eyeballs and was delighted when he freaked people out, especially the elderly. Fester hated school. He despised police officers. He didn’t work. He had no respect for others. He had no career ambitions or long-term goals. and yet he was genuinely adored and idolized by his new younger girlfriend. Unlike Fester, Jessica reid came from a broken home. Her father was not part of her life. Growing up in the Milwaukee suburb of West Bend, reid made the junior high honor roll and her school’s dance team. at age thirteen, reid saw her world change when her mother and stepfather split up. Over the next couple of years, Jessica’s mother, rhonda Davis, constantly picked up and moved from town to town. Jessica was enrolled in five different schools over that period. She had no stability in her home life.2 “Jessica was always sweetnatured , kind-hearted,” said her grandmother Marge Mortensen. “When her parents divorced, i think her whole world fell apart.”3 eventually,reidlandedinthesametownasGregFesterandthetwocrossed paths. She found school boring and the classroom unchallenging, so she quit attending. When she was sixteen, she was arrested for disorderly conduct, possession of drug paraphernalia, and truancy. in 2006, the skinny girl with long sandy-blond hair turned her back on her education. She moved in with a group of guys from Horicon. consequently, the Horicon Police Department also kept a close eye on that place, which had a reputation...

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