Heartbreaking

This story makes me weep

Charles A. Avey used a necktie Sunday to strangle his stepson, 14-year-old Cody Reetz of Grafton, as payback to the boy's mother for reporting to police that he had beaten her with a hammer, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday.

Avey, 37, was charged Tuesday with first-degree intentional homicide in Washington County Circuit Court.
"This was a savage act," Washington County District Attorney Todd Martens said in court. "And it was committed against a family member."

More than a dozen of Reetz's relatives sat silently in the courtroom Tuesday watching Avey. Some cried and shared a box of tissue.

The criminal complaint says Avey used a second necktie to tie the boy's neck to an armrest inside an Oldsmobile minivan, then hid Reetz's body under clothing and a backpack. He killed the boy inside the minivan while it was parked at a Germantown Wal-Mart, the complaint says, and left the lot with a friend shortly before 5 p.m. Sunday.

Avey had called the friend from a Jackson gas station about 30 minutes before killing the boy to request a ride from the Germantown parking lot, the complaint says.

The friend arrived at Wal-Mart about 4:20 p.m. Sunday, and Avey got into her car several minutes later, the complaint says. He asked to be driven to the van so that he could make sure it was locked.

Avey rode to Grafton with the friend and observed police waiting for him outside his apartment. He then called his ex-wife, Krista Avey, and asked her to pick him up at a Piggly Wiggly in Jackson because his van had run out of gas.

She arrived with the three children they had together prior to their divorce, but Avey asked her to take them to her home because he wanted to talk.

Avey later requested to be driven to a West Bend cemetery to view his mother's grave. Once there, Avey confessed to his ex-wife that he had killed Reetz, the complaint says.

Nearly five hours before the boy's body was found in the minivan Sunday, Avey's current wife, Trista Avey, went to Grafton police with a relative and reported that her husband repeatedly struck her with a hammer Nov. 8.

The criminal complaint says the two were arguing that day in their Grafton apartment when Avey began strangling her with his hands and pounded her head, arms and back with a hammer. The woman's delay of one week in reporting the attack shows there was a "climate of intimidation in the household," Martens said Tuesday.

After reporting the crime Sunday, Trista Avey told officers that her son, Reetz - an eighth grader at Grafton's John Long Middle School - was with the suspect that afternoon.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

This is so wrong on so many levels. First, the obvious. What kind of monster can so callously snuff the life out of a 14 year old boy? And for what? To "get back" at the mother? Seriously?? Are there really people out there who are so cold and so callous that they can actually take the life of a child to "get back" at someone?? I know - foolish question. Unfortunately, this happens all to often.

But...BUT...what about the mother?? She is reporting that this POS beat her with a hammer, yet she allows her son to be alone with same said person?? I don't know about you, but if someone were beating me up, and yes, I've been there before, I would NOT let any child of mine stay alone with him. He OBVIOUSLY has a violent temper, and to leave a child alone with this animal while you are reporting the very same animal to the police?? Somethin' ain't right with that.

And yes...I know she's grieving. I won't take away from that, however I wouldn't be heartbroken if she was charged with, at the minimum, reckless endangerment. I'm sorry folks, but in this case, her lack of common sense was criminal, and was, if not a proximate cause, at least contributing factor in the murder of this innocent boy.