Arrest
The following day, police interviewed Hirte's friends at school, including Wenzelow, who told them about driving past Kopitske's house with Hirte in July while they were "shining for deer", and how Hirte had told him about the murder and showed him the knife.
Hirte was called to the principal's office and arrested. Hirte admitted telling friends that he had killed Kopitske but claimed to have been making it up. He later hired Gerald Boyle, who had previously defended Jeffrey Dahmer, as his defense attorney.
The same day, police arrived at the Hirtes' home with a search warrant. In Hirte's room, they found Kopitske's keys above the doorsill. They also found a 12-gauge shotgun in the basement.
On August 30, 2004, Hirte was charged with first-degree murder. He was held in Winnebago County jail on $400,000 bond. He pleaded not guilty, and later changed his plea to not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. If he were found guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, Hirte would be able to petition every six months for release.
Lawyers suggested that DNA evidence suggested the theory that Hirte killed Kopitske just to see if he could get away with it was not true.
Read more about this topic: Murder Of Glenn Kopitske
Famous quotes containing the word arrest:
“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist’s way of scribbling “Kilroy was here” on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)
“Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with me,
Why plowing, building, ruling and the rest,
Or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest,
By cursed Cain’s race invented be,
And blest Seth vexed us with Astronomie.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)