Background: The area leading into Pewitt's Nest Nature Preserve on County Road West in the Township of Baraboo, Wisconsin (WKOW/YouTube). Inset: George Paul (Sauk County Sheriff's Office).
A Wisconsin man gunned down his wife at a nature preserve before calling her a "creature" and taking aim at a local police department, authorities say.
George Paul, 80, has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the death of 80-year-old Susan Paul, the Sauk County Sheriff's Office announced. He has also been charged with intentionally pointing a firearm at a person, endangering safety by reckless use of a firearm, criminal damage to property, and discharging a firearm within 100 yards of a building.
On May 8 at about 2 p.m., the married couple was at Pewitt's Nest Nature Preserve on County Road West in the Township of Baraboo, Wisconsin. The area is located about 50 miles northwest of Madison.
According to the sheriff's office, multiple witnesses saw a man "pulling a female from a vehicle before shooting her multiple times and fleeing the scene" in the direction of Baraboo. These witnesses called law enforcement, and deputies arrived to find the woman "deceased from multiple close range gunshot wounds in the parking lot of the nature preserve."
Officers identified the victim as Susan Paul and the suspect as George Paul.
About an hour later, deputies learned that a man "had driven into the parking lot of the Sauk Prairie Police Department in a Kia Carnival minivan, exited the van, and fired several gunshots into the front door and vestibule of the police department." No staff members were injured.
Police pulled the man over and "determined this was the same subject and suspect vehicle from the earlier shooting incident at Pewitt's Nest." Law enforcement maintains that this man was George Paul.
When interviewed by detectives, the suspect claimed that his wife was actually a "creature" who had been posing as his wife for 55 years, according to a criminal complaint obtained by regional CBS affiliate WISC. He allegedly also had conspiracy theories that such creatures were trying to take over the world and said he shot at the police department to get officers' attention.
George Paul was reportedly known to law enforcement as a man with dementia, as he is said to have called before and threatened to shoot a police staffer and watch her bleed. He allegedly admitted to killing his wife, and when cops arrested him, they allegedly found a pistol, a purse, and blood inside his vehicle.
The defendant was lodged in the Sauk County Jail. He has a status conference in court scheduled for July 14.
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