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Wounded Man 'Satisfactory'- - —— - i ~ - 1 ■■'v.*#:•■IW,v:*o$ivX111v:..Billmmm*vmm:XvXv*X:if•X-X-33*§*xv;:11£*!wg*x:*(Gazette Photo)Captain MacDonald examines exhaust hose on death carillllllIllllllllllllllllllIllllllll1llllllIlllll!liniltHllllIflHMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllllllllIIIIIIIllllllllllllllllllIIIIIIIIIHIIIIHIIIIIIlllllHlllllllllllHIII11UilllHll(l(IIllllfinin Walworthf*’ «■*iELKHORN — Seven highway after the collision, which oc-deaths in Walworth County curred at 2:40 p.m.yesterday set a new tragedy Killed as a result of separatemark in frafficrecords of the one-car accidents were:sheriffs department. Raymond Flores, 27, Muk-Five deaths resulting from one wonago, who died of multiplehead-on collision on Highway 11 internal injuries at 4:30 a.m.west of Delavan was the worst today.toll from a single accident since James W. Huguet, 27, Rt. 2,1955 Clinton, who was pronouncedAnd, ironically, the members dead of head injuries at Lakelandof a Madison family riding in one Hospital at 12:40 a.m. Sunday,of the cars had been traveling to The head-on collision %'/* milesvisit a cemetery between west of Delavan and one-halfElkhorn and Burlington mile east of the Hollisters Cor-yesterday in order to avoid ners intersection of Highways 11,making the trip next weekend 14 and 89, occurred as Earland facing the hazards of driving Quast, driving west, was passingin the heavy traffic of Memorial another car. The collision of theDay weekend. Quast car with an eastbound carKilled in the Highway 11 crash driven by Kenneth L. Christman,were: 21, Madison, occurred on theRuth E. Christman, 80, south side of the highway at aMadison, broken neck and in- point marked for “no passing” byternal injuries. westbound traffic.Patricia Sullivan, 20, Madison, Kenneth Christman is inmultiple head injuries. critical condition today atEarl R. Quast, 25, Lake University Hospitals, Madison,Geneva, broken neck and where he was transferred im-multiple head injuries. mediately after treatment atHis brother, Leon O. Quast, 28, Lakeland. He has internal andFontana, broken neck and head injuries.He and his friend,multiple head injuries. Miss Sullivan, were both pinnedLeon’s wife, Beverly Love behind the steering wheel of theQuast, 30, multiple internal in*. car. Mrs. Ruth E. Christman, thedriver’s mother, also was a frontDead on Arrival seat passenger, but was thrownThe Quasts and Mrs. Christ- from the car by the impact,man all were dead on arrival at In the back seat were RichardLakeland Hospital. Miss Sullivan E. Christman, 28, Madison,died at the hospital 70 minutes brother of the driver, and*fMuch More Inside....4Comics ..................... 6ALAKE pollution Editorial .................... 6Abatement Committee must ap-' Every Day .................8Aply to another federal agency for Farm ....................... 19funds. Pa8e 4 Hospitals .................... 3NORMAN ANDERSON Whitt- 1ele^|v;±7 Mwater, elected president of the ,cietv ........... 9Wisconsin Junior diamber of ™iy ............ 16 wCommerce. Page 10 W...................16’ 17Richard’s wife and two children. Richard had lacerations to iace and legs. His wife, Karen, 26, lad lacerations to the face and a possible broken shoulder and leg injury. Richard R. Christman,31/2, suffered a broken left leg.K i tnberly Christman, 6 months, suffered a head bump. All four were taken to Lakeland Hospital.En Route to Cemetery Richard Christman told Sgt L. A. Hausner of the sheriff’s department they had been en route to visit the grave of his father.The three Quasts had been riding in the front seat. The driver and his sister-in-law were both pinned behind the steering wheel and it was 20 minutes before they could be extricated. Leon Quast was thrown from the car.Two ambulances and two rescue squads from Delavan and Darien and a truck of the Delavan Fire Department assisted at the accident, along with the several wreckers andsquad cars.Alone in Car Flores died as the result of an accident on Stone School Road four miles east of East Troy at 2:28 a.m. Sunday. Alone in his car, he was driving south when it ran off the east shoulder, struck a mail box, crossed the driveway at the home of Robert Herinicks, struck a tree and then spun around and hit a power pole. Flores was pinned with his back against the roof of the telescoped wreckage. Several rescue units assisting were unable to remc b him until 3:59 a.m. After transfer from rescue squad to ambulance he arrived at Lakeland Hospital about 4:30 a.m. and a doctor said death had just occurred.The accident which killed Huguet occurred on Highway 89four miles south of Whitewater at 11:40 p.m. yesterday.By TOM GIORDANOUrial “Riley” Behling made a threat Friday: If his girlfriend did not promise to marry him this weekend, there would be murderand a suicide.There was no promise. But there was murder. And there was suicide. Two murders in fact, I he first homicides in Janesville in 25 years.Dead are:—Goldie Lorraine Thomas, 28, of 432 N. Parker Drive, shot once in the chest as she lay in the driveway beside her home at about 4 o’clockyesterday morning.—Steven Lon Brown, 21, of 212Vz W. Milwaukee St., shot twice in the abdomen at point blank range in Mrs. Thomas’ bedroom, just moments before she was fatally shot.—Behling himself, 35, of 451N. River St., who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his car in a field in Plymouth Township less than two hours after the double murder. He had bought the hose which carried the poison gas from the exhaust into the front seat of the car- only last-9Wednesday.Also shot in the pre-dawn shooting spree was Douglas Miller, 22, of 465 S. Fremont St., wounded by a single bullet in the stomach and listed in satisfactory condition at Mercy Hospitalthis morning after undergoing surgery. Anothershot missed Miller.All were shot with a .38 caliber pistol wieldedby Behling, described by friends as beingdespondent over a recent coolness by Mrs.Thomas toward their previously intimate relationship.Hit by CarBehling shot his former paramour moments after knocking her down in the driveway with his car. Witnesses heard Behling say: “Is this the way you want it, Goldie? Is this the way you wantit?”They say she begged him: “Don’t do this. Don’t do this.” Then he fired a single shot into her chest. Mrs. Thomas died an hour later at Mercy Hospital.The bizarre shotting occurred while three young children were inside the house. One oi them Mrs. Thomas’ five-year-old son, Jimmy.A friend of the slaia woman, Mrs. Joyce E. Brown, 29, of 768 S. Main St,, a weekend guest, said she was awakened by Jimmy, who, she said, called out to her:“Joyce, get up. Riley’s got my mom.”Belli ing had left work at General Motors in Janesville earlier than usual Saturday, according to a friend and co-worker, Joe Boschma, Clinton.“Behling works the 4:30 to 1 a.m, shift, but Friday he left between9:30 and 10 p.m.,” Boschma said.He said Behling had been upset recently because Mrs. Thomas had rejected him. “He told me if she didn’t marry him, there was going to be a murder and suicide, or words to that effect,” Boschma said.“I told him he’d better behave himself or he would get into trouble, said Boschma. “I never thought he’d go this far,” he added.Because three of the principals were dead and a fourth hospitalized and unable to talk, details surrounding the incident were, at times, sketchy and inconsistent.However, accounts by first hand witnesses, both at the scene and earlier, made it possible to piece together this chain of events:Apartments DarkThe four apartments in the two-story frame house at 432 N. Parker Dr. were dark and quiet shortly before 4 a.m. The victims and the three children were in Mrs. Thomas’s first-floor apartment. The two other children were Mrs. Brown’s sons, Donny Lee, 10, and Timmy, 3.In an adjoining apartment was Dennis Zingsheim, 20, with his wife and child. They were asleep, as were the tenants in two upstairs apartments.Zingsheim had retired about 2:30 a.m., he said. He said Mrs. Thomas and her guests had not returned home by that time. The children were alone, but a babysitter from next door had run in earlier to make sure they were asleep.Sometime between 2:30 and 3 a.m., Mrs. Thomas and her friends came home.Behling who had been, according to his friends, “greatly upset because Mrs. Thomas(Continued on Page 15)v.m-W.y.;.v.•vV*v.mISV-V..■■v.IURIAL ‘RILEY’ BEHLING (1955 PICTURE)Suicide after killing 2GOLDIE L. THOMAS Shot to DeathSTEVEN BROWN Shot to DeathDOUGLAS MILLER WoundedKiller Was 'Crazy in Love With That GirlAt 6 o’clock Saturday night Urial “Riley” Behling was in good spirits cleaning up the lawn in front of his home at 451 N. River St.Twelve hours later he was dead, a suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning just a short time after he had killed the girl friend who had rejected him and the girl friend’s suitor for theevening.What had happened in those hours before Behling arrived at 432 N. Parker Dr. to shoot to death Mrs. Goldie Thomas and Steven Brown and seriously wound Douglas Miller? Pick the story up with William Miller, 19, who rented an apartment upstairs from Behling. He was working in the yard with Behling late Saturday afternoon.“He seemed in good spirits to me,” Miller said. “We were cleaning up the lawn and Riley didn't seem upset, or anything, although he had been despondent during the week.” Miller is employed at GMAD where Behling also worked.Saturday night, Mrs. Thomas, Brown, Miller and Joyce BroWn, a friend of Mrs* Thomas, notrelated to Steven, were at the Evergreen Tavern.“They were having a few drinks and dancing,” said Jerry Dobson, a bartender at the tavern. About midnight, Dobson said, Behling came into the tavern.“He told me he had been at another tavern and just dropped in for a couple of drinks. And that’s all he had,” Dobson said.‘Had Some Words’Dobson said Behling called Mrs. Thomas out to the hallway and “had some words with her, but there was no disturbance or anything.“After he talked with Goldie, he asked me to come out and talk with him. He told me he was at a loss over Goldie and couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t tell him she wanted nothing else to dowith him,” the bartender said.Dobson said he suggested, to Riley “that he leave her alone for a couple of weeks and forget it.”“Riley left about 1 a.m. after asking me to tell Goldie to have a good time and that he would see her in the morning,” Dobson said. “He did tell me he waicrazy in love with that girLDobson never saw Behling again, but Mrs. Thomas and the others did. That was shortly after 2 a.m. when they left the’ Evergreen.“Riley was outside and pulled Goldie by the arm and said he wanted to talk to her,” Mrs. Brown said. She said Goldie told Riley to leave her alone, and he walked away.Mrs. Thomas and the others went to the North Parker Drive address. No one knows for certain where Behling went Police SpeculatePolice speculate he either drove around for a while with the .38 caliber pistol used in the shooting, or that he went home to get the gun, before going to Mrs. Thomas’ house.After the shootings he drove to a field in Plymouth Township where he connected a hose to the car’s exhaust pipe and worked it through the window, He died shortly afterwards of carbon monoxide poisoning.Police found a receipt in Behling’s pocket indicating he had bought the hose for about $15 last Wednesday. Authorities feelcertain Behling had planned theshooting days ago, though they feel he meant to take only the lives of Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Brown.Steven Brown was an apparent victim of circumstances since Saturday was the first time he had dated Mrs. Thomas. And friends agree it “wasn’t really a date, they just got together for a few drinks.”Brown was released from the Walworth Coorrectional Institution only last April 14. He had been sentenced to Green Bay reformatory in Sept., 1967 for burglary, then was transferred to the Walworth County institution, according to the state probation department. He was employed at Hough Shade Manufacturing Corp. in Janesville.Miller, also on probation, works for Blackhawk Roofing, Guse said.Mrs. Thomas was employed at Borg’s in Delavan, and Mrs. Brown was unemployed, policesaid.Behling was recently divorced from his wife, Virginia. They had four children. They had been separated for several months,. however, according to police.Since the divorce became final, Riley began brooding because, one policeman said Behling toldhim, “he felt that he had given up his wife and children for Goldie, and now he was losing her too.0Police had been to talk with Behling a couple of weeks ago to deliver a message from a Florida broker who was handling a realestate transaction for him.“When I talked to him about the real estate, Riley told me he had given up his whole world for Goldie,” the policeman said..Was Former MechanicRiley had been employed at the General Motors Assembly Division for five or six years, according to a coworker, Joe Boschma, Clinton.Before that, he worked at an automobile agency in Clinton as amechanic.Since leaving Goldie’s apartment a month ago, Riley begin behaving differently, Boschma and other friends said.They reported he beg§a drinking more than uaull, although everyone who spoke(Continued on P* 2, CM. IV I
Newspaper Details
Janesville Daily Gazette
Janesville, Wisconsin, US
Mon, May 26, 1969
Page 18
Full Page
Clipped by
Hedberg P.
Wisconsin, USA 06 Jun 2022
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