Off-duty deputy is shot dead after killing 6 in Wisconsin town

An off-duty deputy sheriff shot six young people to death early Sunday before being killed by authorities in a Wisconsin town so small that it doesn’t have traffic lights.

The gunman, Tyler Peterson, 20, a Forest County deputy and part-time officer for the Crandon Police Department, killed three high school students and three recent graduates who had gathered at a home Saturday night to eat pizza and watch films.

A seventh victim was in critical condition.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the victims included Peterson’s ex-girlfriend Jordann Murray, 18, who graduated from high school last year.

“Everyone is reeling,” said Richard Peters, superintendent of the Crandon School District, who knew the victims of the shooting.

Three of them attended Crandon High School, a school with about 300 students from grades nine to 12. The other three had graduated within the last three years.

“Crandon is small-town America, a close-knit community,” Peters said. “No one envisaged anyone in this community would do something like this. We all knew the kids, and they all knew us.”

The gunman struck in a two-story duplex about a block from downtown Crandon, a town of about 2,000 residents about a 225-mile drive north from Milwaukee.

Officials disclosed few details of the shootings, and Peterson’s motive remained unknown.

The mother of one of the victims, however, told the Associated Press that he may have been a “jealous boyfriend.”

Jenny Stahl, 39, identified her daughter, Lindsey, 14, as one of the victims. She said Lindsey called her Saturday night to ask whether she could sleep over at a friend’s house.

“I’m waiting for somebody to wake me up right now,” Stahl said. “This is a bad, bad dream. All I heard, it was a jealous boyfriend and he went berserk. He took them all out.”

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p.j.huffsutter@latimes.com

jenny.jarvie@latimes.com

Huffstutter reported from Crandon, Jarvie from Atlanta.