Background: The area leading into Pewitt”s Nest Nature Preserve on County Road West in the Township of Baraboo, Wisconsin (WKOW/YouTube). Inset: George Paul (Sauk County Sheriff’s Office).
Authorities report a tragic incident where an elderly man from Wisconsin fatally shot his wife at a local nature preserve and later targeted a nearby police department. The suspect, George Paul, aged 80, now faces charges of first-degree intentional homicide for the murder of his wife, Susan Paul, also 80. The Sauk County Sheriff’s Office has disclosed these charges, which include pointing a firearm at a person, reckless endangerment, property damage, and firing a weapon within 100 yards of a building.
The incident unfolded on the afternoon of May 8, while the couple was at Pewitt’s Nest Nature Preserve, situated on County Road West in the Township of Baraboo, approximately 50 miles from Madison.
Eyewitnesses recounted seeing a man forcefully extract a woman from a vehicle before shooting her multiple times and escaping towards Baraboo. These witnesses promptly alerted the authorities, who arrived to discover the woman deceased from several gunshot wounds at close range in the preserve’s parking area.
Law enforcement identified the deceased as Susan Paul and named George Paul as the suspect.
Roughly an hour after the shooting, reports came in about a man driving into the Sauk Prairie Police Department parking lot in a Kia Carnival minivan. After exiting the vehicle, he allegedly fired multiple shots at the department’s entrance and vestibule; fortunately, no officers were harmed during this attack.
About an hour later, deputies learned that a man “had driven into the parking lot of the Sauk Prairie Police Department in a Kia Carnival minivan, exited the van, and fired several gunshots into the front door and vestibule of the police department.” No staff members were injured.
Police pulled the man over and “determined this was the same subject and suspect vehicle from the earlier shooting incident at Pewitt’s Nest.” Law enforcement maintains that this man was George Paul.
When interviewed by detectives, the suspect claimed that his wife was actually a “creature” who had been posing as his wife for 55 years, according to a criminal complaint obtained by regional CBS affiliate WISC. He allegedly also had conspiracy theories that such creatures were trying to take over the world and said he shot at the police department to get officers’ attention.
George Paul was reportedly known to law enforcement as a man with dementia, as he is said to have called before and threatened to shoot a police staffer and watch her bleed. He allegedly admitted to killing his wife, and when cops arrested him, they allegedly found a pistol, a purse, and blood inside his vehicle.
The defendant was lodged in the Sauk County Jail. He has a status conference in court scheduled for July 14.
