© 2008 Michael Leon
A man charged with 12 felonies for "allegedly kidnapping ... two men, stripping them, chaining them up in his home, beating them and sexually assaulting them several times" (Wisconsin State Journal, July 15) outside Wisconsin Rapids is described by a former coworker interviewed by mal contends as "friendly, with a good sense of humor."
Edward Lanphear is also being investigated for possible links to the murder of UW-Madison student, Brittany Zimmermann, the Wisconsin State Journal reports, though police say at this time that there is no direct connection other than the facts that Lanphear and Zimmermann are both from Wood County, and that Lanphear had a newspaper article about the Zimmermann case at his residence.
In this exclusive interview conducted by phone, the former coworker, who worked with Lanphear for some eight years in the 1980s and 1990s at the then Consolidated Papers Inc., a paper company based in Wisconsin Rapids, now known as NewPage Corporation, said of Lanphear, "He never, ever gave you the impression of being violent, or even being capable of things like that."
The coworker, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the topic in the small town of Saratoga where the coworker lives, said, upon reading of the story in the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune online, "I was dumbfounded. I mean this is completely out of character of the guy I remembered. ... He was outgoing and a big hunter. ... He invited me to go hunting with him once at the Arctic Circle."
No comments:
Post a Comment