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Murder defendant ’s occult beliefs revealedBy ANN LANGEL and LARRY BALLARDCourier Staff WritersA bizarre element to an insanity defense being used by an accused murderer brought forth testimony about his use of Tarot cards and a skull, ami his belief in reincarnation.Testimony Tuesday in the opening day of the first-degree murder trial of Gary L.Buck, 21, of Evans-dale, revealed he may have dabbled in the occult.Buck’s attorney,Karl Briner of the public defender’s office, exhibited a skull Buck allegedly used to scare his girlfriend, and also introduced cassette tapes that Buck may have believed carried messages when played backwards.Buck is accused of killing Darren Gerdemann, 3, the son of his live-in girlfriend, Trenin Gerdemann, on Nov. 25, 1991. After becoming angry with the boy. Buck shot him in the head with a pellet gun and slit his throat with a knife, according to the prosecution.Trenia Gerdemann had been living with Buck about a month at 840 Central Ave., Evansdalc, when the boy was killed. Police found Darren’s body in a garbage bag in a picnic cooler in the basement.Gerdemann said Buck told her lie was plagued by “nightmares about seeing dead skeletons and bodies in the basement” of their apartment, a former funeral parlor that was the scene of another murder in the mid 1970s.She testified that Buck had repeatedly said he believed inGary Buckreincarnation and past lives.“He felt that in a past life he bad done something really bad,” she said. “He thought he knew what it was, but he wouldn’t tell me. He thought he was going to do something bad in this life.”The source of Buck’s fascination apparently came from a deck oi cards Gerdemann said she found while cleaning out the apartment after the murder investigation was completed.She learned later they were Tarot cards, which people often use in fortune-telling. She said Buck, who allegedly told police he “only liked children when they were sleeping,” had talked about the cards before Darren was killed, touting their ability to predict his future.“I told him nothing can make you do something but yourself,” she testified. “He tried to see how far 1 would believe things. He tried to see how gullible I would be.”Gerdemann described Buck as a shy, private man who kept the pellet gun, equipped with a laser-guided scope, on a shelf above a bedroom closet, along with several knives, including a machete.Buck would polish and sharpen the knives, she said, “three or four times a week.”“He liked to hunt,” Gerdemann said.Gerdemann remained composed while answering questions from Black Hawk County Attorney Tom Ferguson’s about the afternoon of the killing.She appeared, however, to fight back tears when Ferguson displayed, item by item, the clothing Darren was wearing when police found his body.Trenia Gerdemann weeps after seeing a color photograph of the body of her son, Darren, 3. Gerdemann's live-in boyfriend, Gary Buck, isAnd when Ferguson showed a color photograph of the boy’s body as it was found inside ihecooler, Gerdemann covered her face and wept.George Wright, now a Black Hawk County sheriff’s deputy, was an Evansdalc police officer at the time of the murder, and testified he was a witness to Buck’s confession.Wright said that after Buck was arrested at the couple’s home, lie admitted shooting Darren from three to four feet away.Wright testified Buck said that upon seeing the screaming boy’swound on his forehead, he thought Darren was going into shock and was suffering, so Buckcm his throat and drained his blood into the bathtub.“He slated he went and got Ihe knife because he couldn’t take the screaming,” Wright said.Wright said Buck .staled that the “instant he saw (Gerdemann’s) children, he didn’t like them. Wright also said Buck said that if he’d had his truck that day he could have disposed of the body.Wright also said Buck staled that .since he was 4 years old, he wanted to kill the world.” BuckDAN NIERLtNG/Courier photo editorstanding trial for allegedly murdering the child ast November.also told Wriglu he’d gotten out of the military by pretending hewas “crazy.”Ferguson asked Wright if Buckhad said anv outside forces orm/spirits had forced him to commit the crime, or whether Buck claimed he had killed the boy as a “sacrificial offering.” Wright answered no.Ferguson called six witnesses on the trial’s opening day. Buck waived his right to a jury trial. Judge James Bauch is hearing the ease and will render a verdict at the trial's conclusion.ti
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