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Father / May seek custody of daughterContinued from page AIGerdemann, 38, is serving a 10-year prison term for burglarizing a Lamont business. He said he only saw Darren three times, the last when Darren was just 6 months old.Trenia Gerdemann considers herself Darren’s only parent because, she says, her husband had refused to contact her about Darren and the couple’s daughter, 4-year-old Danielle.Nevertheless, William Gerde-mann’s sorrow seems to run deep,“I have been completely shut out,” he said. “I have a lot of hurt and regret because I can never see him orspend time with him.”He remembers Trenia as a loving mother, but questions some of her actions.“I just want to ask her, 'Why didn’t she think?’ ” Gerdemann said. “If she would have been thinking, I believe my son would be alive.”To women, he advises: “Know the person before you have a relationship, especially if there’s children involved.”Trenia doesn’t think William should be allowed to second-guess her because she’s always put the children first.William met Trenia, 23, when she was a teen-ager. He worked for her father, and said that although he wasmuch older, her family was not against the marriage.Gerdemann said they’ve been married five years and neither has filed for divorce, but he plans to.He also is talking to an attorney about the possibility of getting custody of Danielle.But Trenia says “he has no chance in hell” of getting custody of the girl.Gerdemann said the boy’s death will sink in after his release from prison. He’s going through counseling now, but said he really will need itthe most after he serves his sentence.As for Gary Buck, he hopes “I never get the chance to meet the man.”Mother / Thought police had wrong manContinued from page AJhe’s guilty,” Trenia Gerdemann says. “I 'want to see that man bum in hell for eternity. When you kill something a wbman gave life to, that’s instant hate,”After Buck was arrested, he told Gerdemann, “I love you and I’m sorry I hurt Darren,” she says.If he killed Darren, how could he say he loved me?” she asks. “That’s one man I can say that I hate. I’m Christian, and they always say you should always forgive, but I can’t.When they met at their jobs at IBP inc., Buck was quiet and had a good sense of humor, he was always able to make her laugh, she says. After a month of dating, Buck suggested they live together—although Gerdemann is still legally married —because she had been commuting 50miles from Lamont.Her children liked Buck.They always say that little kids can tell whether someone’s a good person,” she says, and the kids were all over him, so I thought, ‘OK, he must be all right.’ ”Gerdemann had had several badrelationships and gauged Buck against those. She thought he was different.When he suggested they live together, Gerdemann, who gets no government assistance, made it clear that he would have to pay his share.She said it was fine if he thought hecould handle living with three kids.So Gerdemann selected a house at 840 Central Ave. in Evansdale.“It seemed fine,” she recalls. “It was close to a school, had a nice size yard. Everything seemed perfect.It turned out to be a nightmare.” The night before the murder, Buck had talked of marrying her. However, she’s still married to William Gerdemann, 38, who’s serving time in prison for burglary.She has no contact with her husband, and it’s a chapter of her life she’d rather forget. She gave birth toU ——They always say that little kids can tell whether someone's a good person, and the kids were all over him, so f thought, 'OK, he must be all right/»Trenia Gerdemann Mother of murder victimDanielle, now 4, and married Bill three weeks later — at age 18.“My mother hated Bill. She thought I could do better, and she was probably right,” Gerdemann says.Bill and Trenia lived together 8 months, and she left him after the relationship become too abusive. She says he had beaten her physically and had threatened to take their daughter if she didn’t write bad checks to get him cash.She said she was placed on three years of probation for the check charges, but was at least free from the abuse.When she left her husband, she was 6 months pregnant with Darren. To this day, she hasn’t divorced William Gerdemann so I don’t do anything like get married again.”She moved to Dubuque with her father and later got involved with another man, who fathered her third child, Jessica. They lived together off and on for about two years.But that relationship also deteriorated, and she booted him out.“It was nightmare city. I fall in love way too fast,” Gerdemann says.But when that man tried to rekindle their relationship last New Year’s Day, Gerdemann noticed that her son’s death had changed how she felt about men and about herself.“I couldn’t deal with him saying he loved me,” she explains. “The only thing 1 love right now is my kids. Ionly live for my kids.”Her last memory of Dairen is that he had a bit of a cold, but that he was fine when she left the house that cold November day to get groceries. Upon her return, she found Buck carrying her daughters under his arm and saying Dairen had gotten angry and left the house and was missing.Darren had a habit of hiding, so at first, Gerdemann was not worried. Police were called, and they eventually found Darren’s body in the basement, wrapped in a garbage bag and stuffed into a picnic cooler.When Buck was being handcuffed, Gerdemann thought the police had made a mistake,What are you doing?” she yelled as they took him away.She was questioned about involvement in the murder, and police asked her whether she’d helped clean up the evidence.Buck allegedly confessed to the crime, saying Darren had misbehaved, and he just lost it” and killed the boy.Gerdemann thinks Buck may have been jealous of her children and wanted to get rid of Darren because he was the little man” in the household.“Darren was a very macho little guy and had the attitude that ‘you don’t mess with my sisters, and you don't mess with my Mom,’ and I don’t think Gary could handle that,” Gerdemann says.Through alt of it, she manages to cope.“The best thing in the world is keeping busy,” she says. “The girls are my strength. Their smiling faces are what keep me going.”And for those in similar situations she offers a warning:Don’t think that if you start living with someone that it’s OK and that you will have someone for extra income and that it will be love ” she advises. Always watch. If he’s not the father, check and doublecheck. Don’t be stupid. Don’t make the mistakes I've made. Think of Darren.”
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