Gary Hirte shut off the headlights on the eleven-year-old Dodge Dynasty and eased it onto the roadside halfway down Arrowhead Lane. The way the cops would later piece it together, Hirte had it all planned in advance, and even in the dark on that moonless July night in 2003, he could feel the perfect place to park his father's car. Investigators would later tell Stuff magazine that they believe he found a spot deep down the dead-end road so as not to wake up the crazy guy who lived there. The next house, according to published reports at the time, was nearly a quarter-mile away, far enough, authorities speculated, that Hirte felt confident that no one else would see him. He shut off the engine. So far, everything was going just as he imagined it, just as he had planned it, and just as he had practiced it a few nights earlier.

A few nights earlier, he and one of his best buddies, Eric Wenzelow, had gone out to that same godforsaken corner of Winnebago County, Eric would later tell Stuff Magazine. Eric was pretty familiar with the old farms along the two lanes; his girlfriend lived not far away.

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"Shining for deer." That's what Hirte told Eric they were doing when they went cruising along in almost total silence for nearly an hour beside the pastures and woods, freezing timid does and fawns with the glare from the 500,000-candle-power spotlight before driving past Glen Kopitske's house.

Eric hadn't thought anything of it. It was something they often did on the nights when Hirte wasn't at work slinging ice cream cones at the Dairy Queen drive-up window, according to Stuff. It's unclear whether Hirte realized that he was taking a risk in bringing his friend along that night. Hirte was certainly no fool. He must have realized that Eric might get rattled if the cops got wind of the trip later on. Wouldn't that be ironic? Hirte had gone to all that trouble, authorities would later say, to plan the perfect crime. Authorities say he picked out the perfect victim: a guy whom no one would really miss and who could not be linked to Hirte. He had even taken the weather into account. Yet, for reasons that only he could possibly understand, he had made the decision to bring a witness along on a dry run, a guy who, if the cops ever got wind of Hirte's involvement, could give them the evidence they'd need to put Hirte at the scene of the crime.

Who knows? Maybe the risk even added to the excitement. Maybe Hirte, the golden boy, the kid who had never failed at anything, couldn't even imagine that his friend would turn against him.

To be sure, Gary Hirte knew that he was more than just Eric's friend; he was his hero. They were different in almost every way. While Eric was a scrawny 18-year-old with mediocre grades and no real accomplishments aside from a few good finishes on the Weyauwega-Fremont High School track team, Gary Hirte was a local hero in every sense of the word: He was a straight-A student and had been a member of the prom court. He was also a star wrestler and football player. And if that wasn't enough, Hirte was the first kid from Weyauwega, Wisconsin to make Eagle Scout in 20 years. Everything in his life, it seemed, ended with a trophy. Eric was completely in his thrall. And Hirte knew it.

No one other than Hirte, really knows for sure what happened the night that Glenn Kopitske died. The way investigators picture it, Hirte slid his 240-pound frame out of the driver's seat and went to the back of the car, they told Stuff. He popped the trunk, reached down and pulled out a 12-gauge shotgun. At some point, he chambered a round — a deer slug. Even the choice of ammunition showed foresight and planning. Hirte had chosen a slug that was solid enough to drop a buck at 50 yards and yet brittle enough to shatter into shrapnel after entering a man's skull, a slug that — if it hit just right — would turn a man's brain into porridge and leave no exit wound. Just in case Hirte needed more ordnance, however, he also carried an eight-inch buck knife, the same blade Eric had often seen him use as he casually sliced off calluses and the occasional wart from his hands.

According to Detective Capt. Steve Verwiel, Kopitske was asleep in his tiny bedroom, sprawled nude on his bed, when Hirte slipped into the garage.

The dog, a mongrel, was yapping. According to his sister-in-law, Kopitske had rescued the dog a few months earlier, an excitable little half-a-lab, endearing enough to be kept, but not endearing enough to be kept inside.

He waited for a few moments; then eased his way into the house.