Psychiatrist: Seitz on Mission of Mercy
MILWAUKEE - The story of the potential confessions of Vernon Seitz gets more bizarre when you talk with Seitz's psychiatrist. She told TMJ4's Charles Benson that the 62-year-old Seitz was on a mission of mercy.
She said Seitz wanted to put his mind at ease about killing a 14-year-boy in Racine back in the late 1950's when Seitz was only 12-years-old.
Seitz claimed he did not know the boy's name but that he was forced to kill the teen after being kidnapped from the Racine Zoo, taken to a secret location and tortured.
He alleges his captors gave him a gun and said kill the14-year-old or we will kill you.
The psychiatrist said that Racine police investigated Seitz's story and found nothing. They didn't know what he was talking about.
We could not confirm that with Racine police.
Read more below this series of Vernon Seitz story links: **WARNING: Contains graphic content** Click Here to read to read the search warrant **WARNING: Contains graphic content** In the search warrant police indicated that Seitz told his psychiatrist that he had killed two boys, but the psychiatrist now says it was only one boy.
• Confessions of a Killer?
• Psychiatrist: Mission of Mercy
As adult Seitz seemed to be a loner but he did own Vern's Barber Shop on Packard Ave. in St. Francis. The shop is now closed.
Richard Francel was close friends with Seitz. "(He was) just a relaxed, easy going guy. Very knowledgeable. Very intelligent," Francel said.
Francel said police interrogated him after Seitz's death. But, Francel said he never knew about his friend's collection of child pornography or his alleged confession. "No. he was never like that," Francel explained.
Seitz grew up in Racine, and while his sister-in-law called him a gentle man who loved children, neighbors told their kids to stay away from him.
"You get an eerie feeling from someone you just say stay away from them," said neighbor Shannon Crawford. "I'm very glad I didn't let [my kids] go over there more often."
Sister-in-law Susan Seitz, though, said Vernon was abducted and abused as a boy and believes his interest in child abductions stemmed from this experience.
"Vernon went to [Jacob Wetterling's] parents and confided in them and told them 'Jake is in heaven,'" she said, adding that she doesn't know whether he really could have killed two children 50 years ago.
"I really didn't know that part of Vernon," she explained. "I knew the gentle side of Vernon. I knew the caring and I knew the hurting that he went through when somebody got abducted or kidnapped or never returned home."
The former head of Wisconsin's FBI office, though, thinks Seitz's confession could be believable.
"I think it would be something to take very seriously and coupled with what was found through the search warrant, I would give it great credibility," said retired agent Mike Santimauro.
"I think folks always have the potential to act out their fantasies, and sometimes they do."
Santimauro focused in on a list of drawings found in Seitz's house that police say depict naked boys being abused and questioned whether Seitz himself could have drawn them.
"If he acquired all of this stuff and just had a fascination with it, that's one thing," Santimauro explained. "If he active
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