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approaching $4 trillion, Nussle said it’s addressed.” time to ask why we got there and what He also sa we need to do to get out. — and the j:Buck verdict is expected in two weeksBy ANN LANGELCourier Staff Writer Judge James Bauch will pronounce a verdict in about two weeks in the murder case of Gary L. Buck.Bauch heard closing arguments from attorneys Tuesday after four days of testimony. Buck earlier waived his right to a jury trial.While Black Hawk County Attorney Tom Ferguson said there is no question Buck is guilty of first-degree murder. Buck's attorney, Karl Briner, said the defendant could be found innocent by reason of insanity.Briner added Lhat if the state hasn’t proven several elements of first-degree murder, that Buck could be found guilty of second-degree murder, assault with intent to commit serious injury or assault while displaying a weapon.Buck did not take the stand during the trial. He is accused of killing Darren Gerdemann, 3, the son of Buck'sgirlfriend, on Nov. 25, 1991.Ferguson said Buck was home alone with his girlfriend’s children at 840 Central’Ave., Evansdale, when Trenia Gerdemann went to the store.“That’s the last time she sees her son alive,” Ferguson said.The children were squabbling and Buck sent them to their rooms, but Darren refused. Buck then fired a pellet gun at the boy's head.Buck thought the hoy had gone into shock, and to put him out of his suffering, he took a knife he’d been sharpening mid held “the child with his right hand, and with Ins left hand, cut Darren’s throat, Ferguson said.Ferguson said Buck held Darren over the bathtub so Buck would not get blood on himself or the floor, and rinsed away all evidence.Buck then wrapped the body in garbage bags and it in the basement. Later he put the body in a picnic cooler, Ferguson said.To prove first-degree murder, the state must show Darren died as a result of Buck cutting his throat, that Buck acted with malice aforethought, and acted premeditated!y, deliberately and with die specific intent to kill.Ferguson said Buck showed specific intent by the significant force he used to injure the boy, including the two neck wounds caused by the knife.“He wanted to make sure he got the job done,” Ferguson .said of Buck.Ferguson pointed out that Buck had remarked children got on his nerves and that the only time he liked them was when they were sleeping.Although Buck was relying on a defense of insanity, there was no evidence he did not understand the nature of quality of his acts, nor lhat he was unable to determine right from wrong. Ferguson said.He said Buck did not mention any compulsion by spirits or outside forces to commit the crime, even though he may have believed it.Briner said there is “disparity” between Buck as a person and the “horrific acts” to which he admitted. Buck had been an honor student in high school and is shy, quiet and gentle. Briner said.“At the heart of the evidence is a mystery, an enigma, a riddle that defies rational explanation,” he said.He said there is no rational way to explain why Buck killed the boy. but it’s obvious something had changed inBuck when he came home from a six-. month stint in the U.S. Army. After that he bought tape recordings and T-shirts his mother thought were satanic. and also possessed a ceramic skull in which he bunted candles, Briner said.Buck had told Gerdemann it had been revealed to him in Taroi cards that “in a previous existence he'd done something unforgivable and was doomed he would do something unforgivable again,” Briner said.Buck was also troubled that their Evansdale homo was a fmmcr funeral home, and a murder had occurred there in the 1970s. He had nightmares about dead Ixxlies. Briner said.Briner said that if Buck is found innocent by reason of insanity, the ease would go into a civil commitment proceeding, with Buck confined in a fully secured psychiatric setting.”The slate called 16 witnesses. Buck's mother was the sole defense witness.
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