CRANDON, WIS. — There are no strangers in tragedy in a town this small.
Susan Hill, the co-owner of the only mortuary here, knew Tyler Peterson, the 20-year-old lawman who fired a fusillade into a room filled with seven young people early Sunday, killing six and wounding one. Hill also knew one of his victims. Both were related to Hill by blood or marriage.
On Monday, as this heartbroken town grappled with the enormity of the rampage that ended with Peterson's death during a standoff with police, Hill wasn't taking sides -- and neither were many others.
It was all too sad.
Hill was writing the names of the seven dead on individual manila folders, preparing their paperwork for a tentatively planned seven straight days of burials. Her strokes were clean and cursive. But when she put down the pencil, her hand was shaking.
"We're not used to this," Hill said. "We're at a loss for words."
Crandon, a blue-collar town of about 2,000 people about 120 miles south of Lake Superior, is in an area known for logging, fishing, Indian casinos and an annual off-road race. It had seen senseless deaths from ATV wrecks and murder-suicides.
But it had never seen so many -- so young -- die at once, on homecoming weekend no less, when the streets were covered in the burnt orange foliage of fall and floats decorated by students from each grade paraded through town. On Monday, North Lake Avenue was still filled with rah-rah decorations boasting of the recent clash between the Crandon Cardinals and the rival Florence Bobcats.
Crandon won the high school football game 34-0.
But by Monday afternoon the decorations on North Lake were being replaced by somber messages calling for unity and strength in grief.
The Pack Em Inn, a local watering hole, put "Our hearts go out" on its marquee. Down the street, next to the Sinnerman Tattoo Co., someone set up an impromptu altar on a long wooden bench in front of an American flag. A white sign with green-and-yellow lettering spelled out "Love you guys." Seven red roses lay in front of the sign -- one for Peterson as well as for those he had killed.
"All the boys grew up together in this town. That's what happens when you have a graduating class of about 63 people," said Sjana Farr, the wife of a local pastor. Her son, Jonathan, a corporal in the Marines, was returning on emergency leave to grieve with his high school mates -- for Peterson and two of his victims, Bradley Schultz, 20, and Aaron "Chunk" Smith, 20.
