Murder of Glenn Kopitske - Trophies and Boasts

Trophies and Boasts

Two weeks after Kopitske's murder Hirte called his friend, Eric Wenzelow, and asked him if he knew about Kopitske's murder. Over two weeks earlier, Wenzelow had been with Hirte, cruising Winnegabo County at night, in Hirte's Dodge Dynasty shining a 500,000-candle-power spotlight around. Hirte called it "shining for deer." The game involved shining the light at deer, thus paralyzing them, and took them right past Kopitske's house.

"I did it," Hirte told Wenzelow during that call.

Wenzelow did not believe Hirte initially. So Hirte showed him the 8-inch long hunting knife he said he used to stab Kopitske in the back and chest, and the keys he said he'd taken from Kopitske's home.

In August 2003 Hirte met Olivia Thoma at the Waupaca County Fair, where she was chosen "Fairest of the Fair." Over the course of their relationship, Hirte told Thoma how he had murdered Kopitske. Thoma became convinced that Hirte was telling the truth and, in January 2004, told local police about her suspicions, providing details about the murder that had not been reported in the media.

Hirte told Thoma that he had driven his father's car, which matched the description given by Kopitske's neighbor, to Kopitske's home and shot him in the back of the head with a 12-gauge shotgun, then stabbed in him twice in the back and once in the heart.

On January 28, 2004, Thoma agreed to engage Hirte in a telephone conversation about the murder, while the police listened and recorded what was said. During that telephone call, Hirte told Thoma he'd killed Kopitske "to see if he could get away with it."

After his arrest, Hirte would confess to a very different motive.