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Those were the first words Jordanne Murray’s father uttered to a 911 dispatcher moments after an enraged sheriff’s deputy gunned down his daughter and five friends in her Crandon apartment.
The state Department of Justice released the transcript of Paul Murray’s frantic early morning call for help Thursday, two months after closing the case and seven months after releasing more than a dozen other 911 calls.
Agency officials initially released a heavily edited version of the call in the weeks immediately after the incident. DOJ Records Custodian Steven Means said in a letter Thursday he now feels he can release most of the rest of the transcript after editing graphic descriptions of the bodies. He would not release an audio copy of the call, however.
Agency spokesman Kevin St. John said DOJ officials felt enough time had passed since the incident to mute a written account’s impact on the victims’ families. An audio recording still would be much more hurtful than a transcript, though, St. John said.
State investigators have said 20-year-old Forest County Sheriff’s Deputy Tyler Peterson was entangled in a bitter on-again, off-again romance with Jordanne Murray, 18. He found Murray snuggling with 20-year-old Aaron Smith at a party about 2:30 a.m. Oct. 7.
He opened fire with his AR-15 SWAT rifle, killing Murray and Smith. He also killed Lindsey Stahl, 14; Katrina McCorkle, 18; Lianna Thomas, 18; and Bradley Schultz, 20. Peterson shot another partygoer, 21-year-old Charlie Neitzel, but he survived by playing dead.
Peterson fled and drove around the countryside before holing up at a friend’s cabin. As SWAT teams surrounded the place, he walked into the woods and killed himself, shooting himself in the head.
Paul Murray, who lived above his daughter’s apartment, called 911 at 2:51 a.m. Before the 911 dispatcher could say a word, Murray said “Everybody’s dead.”
As the operator tried to get an address, Murray continued, “ shooting Jesus, he just he killed everybody in my daughter’s apartment.”
“OK. Slow down,” the operator responded. “Calm down and breathe for me. Now, what’s going on?”
“Tyler Peterson, the cop, he just flipped out and killed everybody in my daughter’s apartment, and one guy’s still alive.”
Later, Paul Murray told the operator he saw Peterson leave the apartment.
“I seen him with a gun in his hand, and I seen him get in his truck and scream out of here ... Oh, God. We need an ambulance bad ... Come on, somebody’s got to get here. There’s one kid yelling for his life.”
An officer arrived and told Murray to put his hands up. Murray told the operator he had to drop his phone. The transcript ends shortly after.
The Justice Department also released investigators’ summaries of the victims’ autopsy reports that showed Smith, Schultz, McCorkle and Jordanne Murray had been drinking. None of them had reached the legal drinking age of 21.
Smith was the only one legally drunk. His blood alcohol content was 0.090 percent, just over Wisconsin’s 0.08 legal limit.
Jordanne Murray’s BAC was 0.074 percent. McCorkle’s was 0.029 percent, and Schultz’s was 0.057 percent.
Tyler Peterson’s BAC was 0.125 when he died, according to autopsy summaries DOJ released in February.
The Justice Department took over the case hours after the initial shootings. The agency closed the case two months ago, but still has not released the actual autopsy reports or text and e-mail messages sent by the victims and Peterson.
St. John said investigators returned the autopsy reports to Forest County District Attorney Leon Stenz and have no copies. Stenz didn’t immediately return a message Thursday seeking the documents.
St. John said the agency is waiting to see if any of the victims’ families challenge the release of the messages.
Documents released Thursday backed up the Justice Department’s previous statements that Peterson killed himself.
Investigators have said he shot himself in the head three times in the woods as police closed in. That raised questions about how Peterson could have shot himself three times.
A summary of Peterson’s autopsy, released by the Justice Department, showed only one of the three shots damaged Peterson’s brain. Also, soot rings were found around the entrance wounds, suggesting the shots were fired at close range by Peterson.
