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Ambrosio ANALCO RAMIREZ
Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics: Domestic
dispute - Jealousy
Number of victims: 5
Date of murders: June 9,
2007
Date of birth: 1985
Victims profile: His ex-girlfriend Nicole McAffee, their twin infant boys,
McAffee's sister and a friend
Placid small town slept through a quiet night but
awakened to tragedy
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
June 10, 2007
This story was written in
Milwaukee by Greg J. Borowski and John Diedrich. It was reported in
Delavan by Annysa Johnson and Erica Perez and in Milwaukee by Linda
Spice.
Delavan - On a clear night, at the close
of a picture-perfect June day, it was easy to drift off to sleep.
And the noises in the distance, the pops in the dark, well, it had
to be kids and firecrackers.
Only it wasn't.
Residents along S. 2nd St. awoke Sunday to a stunning
tragedy: Six dead, including infant twins. A 2-year-old girl
hospitalized after being shot in the chest.
And a mess of relationships and connections that
authorities would not discuss, even by late Sunday night.
Police would not say whether the shooter was among
the dead, and whether the series of killings ended in suicide. But they
issued a statement that said the community was not in danger from the
shooter.
Walworth County District Attorney Phil Koss said he
couldn't reveal all the details of the case but added, "it is clearly a
domestic situation."
He said police didn't have anyone in custody, "nor
are they seeking anyone, but nothing can be ruled out. There are still
unanswered questions."
Identities of the victims were not released. But
family members identified one - Ambrosio Analco - as the father of the
three children. Another, Vanessa Iverson, 19, was at the house visiting
friends Saturday night, her family said.
"We want to make sure there is no stone unturned,"
Delavan Police Chief Timothy O'Neill said at an afternoon news
conference, but he did not take questions from reporters.
State investigators are assisting in the case.
"The investigation is an ongoing and complex death
case, and we certainly are not going to make premature comment," said
Department of Justice spokesman Kevin St. John.
For others the confusion left shock.
"Any tragedy like this has got to affect the whole
community," said Don Brick, a 48-year resident. "It is beyond
comprehension that anything like this can happen in a community like
this."
The neighborhood, of course, is a quiet one. After
all, Delavan is a quiet town, some 7,956 residents about 40 miles
southwest of Milwaukee in Walworth County.
The house, a two-story white duplex, is a few blocks
from downtown. The streets are filled with older homes that ring Phoenix
Park, a large spread of green with playground equipment and play fields.
Most residents say there were no signs of trouble
with the family, renters who had moved in about eight months ago. One
neighbor, though, said he heard yelling and door-slamming recently.
But on Saturday there was no shouting, no arguments.
Just the shots.
Based on a 911 call, those came just after 10:30 p.m.
The address: just blocks from the police station.
In a vehicle outside the house, police found the 2-year-old
girl, shot in the chest.
She was taken by ambulance to Memorial Hospital in
Rockford, Ill., about 40 miles away, then transferred by helicopter to
University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison.
Late Sunday, she was listed in serious condition.
Inside the house, on the second level of the duplex,
the scene was worse: There were the two babies, twin boys, both dead.
And four adults, all shot. All dead.
One of those killed was Ambrosio Analco, according to
his cousin Marco Pastrana.
Analco had been to Pastrana's house earlier in the
evening. He had his 2-year-old daughter, named Jasmine, along, and the
twin infant boys. Their exact age is unclear.
The group left about 9 p.m., Pastrana said, headed
back to the home where the children lived with their mother, Nicole
McAffee. That is where the shooting occurred.
Pastrana said Analco and McAffee had once lived
together but there were problems and they split. He didn't elaborate.
McAffee lived in the house with her sister and
another man, Caspar Huerta, said Jose Huerta, Caspar's brother. Caspar
Huerta was not shot, his brother said.
Jose Huerta said he once saw bruises on McAffee's
face.
"She said (Analco) was the one who punched her. I
told her to go to the police. She didn't say nothing. He told her he was
going to kill her," Huerta said.
But Pastrana said his cousin couldn't have harmed his
children.
"He loves his kids, he wouldn't do anything to hurt
them," he said. "He wasn't drinking. He didn't do anything. He was just
there to see his kids. I'm upset, but I'm angry, too. What kind of
person would do that?"
In an interview with WTMJ-TV (Channel 4), the police
chief said the house was not the sort that generated calls. He indicated
police had few contacts with the people who lived there.
Kay Macara said her daughter, 19-year-old Vanessa
Iverson, was among those killed. She was at the house to visit friends.
"She was very happy, very bubbly, friendly," Macara
said. "She was always there for anyone in the family."
And she was one to prevent a confrontation.
"She would always step in if two people were
fighting. She was the mediator," Macara said. "We did have our family
quarrels but she would always try to make peace."
As she spoke, tears ran down her face.
"I want answers," she said.
Duane Iverson, Vanessa's brother, said he last spoke
to her at 9 p.m. Saturday.
"Everything seemed fine," he said.
That was the attitude in the neighborhood Saturday
night, as lights were flicked off in house after house.
Jesus Valadez arrived home Saturday at about the time
of the shootings and got in the shower. Although he lives next door, he
heard nothing and didn't know anything was wrong until Sunday morning
when he took out the garbage.
"All the cop cars were everywhere," Valadez said.
That scene played out in other homes on the street.
Soon, many were outside their homes, some sitting on lawn chairs,
watching the investigation unfold on the other side of the police tape.
At one point, Walworth County Coroner John Griebel
arrived, carrying several folded body bags under his arms. Later, bodies
were wheeled out on stretchers.
Leanda Mena, who has lived on the street for 17 years,
was among those watching the commotion.
She said people tend to move in and out of the unit
where the shootings occurred, so she doesn't get to know them well.
"There was never any trouble there," she said. "There
are always quiet people. It's kind of sudden for something like this to
happen."
Mena heard the shots before she went to bed, only she
didn't know it until morning.
"I didn't pay much attention," she said. "I shut off
the TV and went back to sleep."
She thought it was kids and firecrackers.
Only it wasn't.
Domestic dispute leads to 6 deaths
Twin infants among dead in Wis. house; 2-year-old
survives
June 11, 2007 -
Associated Press
DELAVAN, Wis. - A domestic dispute
erupted into a mass killing in southern Wisconsin,
leaving six people, including two infant boys, shot
to death, and a 2-year-old girl with a gunshot to
her chest.
A prosecutor said late Sunday no one
was in custody but that police weren’t looking for a
suspect and no one else was in danger. Officials
often use such language when the shooter is among
the dead.
“What we have is a complicated death
scene and we’re investigating all the possibilities,”
said Kevin St. John, a spokesman with the state
Justice Department, which is leading the
investigation.
Walworth
County District Attorney Phillip
Koss said the shooting was part
of a domestic dispute, but he
wouldn’t elaborate until
autopsies were completed and the
crime scene was fully evaluated.
Officers,
responding to a report of shots
fired, stormed an A-frame duplex
Saturday night with weapons
drawn, kicking in the door,
neighbor Richard Heideman said.
He saw two paramedics go in
behind them and come back out
minutes later.
“That’s
when I knew everybody was dead,”
Heideman said.
As the
bodies were wheeled out, one
onlooker dropped to his knees on
a neighbor’s lawn and threw his
hands to the sky in prayer.
The 2-year-old
girl was found in a nearby van,
seriously wounded. A male family
member who escaped the shooting
was helping investigators.
Names released
Police released
the names of the dead Monday.
The adults were Nicole Marie
McAffee, 19, the mother of the
three children; McAffee’s sister,
Ashley Lynn Huerta, 21;
McAffee’s ex-boyfriend and the
children’s father, Ambrosio
Analco, 23; and Vanessa Iverson,
19, a family friend of McAffee.
Also
killed were McAffee’s twin boys,
Isaiah Christian Analco and
Argenis Analco, who were less
than a year old.
The twin’s
2-year-old sister, Jasmine, was
in serious condition at
University of Wisconsin Hospital
in Madison.
Marco
Pastrana, Ambrosio Analco’s
cousin, said Analco no longer
lived with the children’s mother.
Analco left Pastrana’s house
Saturday night to drop the kids
off with her at the duplex,
Pastrana said.
The
landlord of the complex, Duane
Brellenthin, said two sisters
rented the upstairs apartment.
He declined to name them,
deferring to police. He said
they’d lived there about a year
and a half, and he’d never had
problems with them.
'I want answers'
With tears in her
eyes, Kay Macara said on Sunday
that her daughter, Iverson, went
to the apartment the previous
night to visit friends.
“My child,”
she said. “I want answers.”
Monday
morning, a cluster of teddy
bears, stuffed bunnies, a
dinosaur and candles stood under
a tree outside the duplex.
Neighbor
Leandra Mena, 65, said she heard
what she thought were
firecrackers coming from the
house around 10:30 p.m. Saturday.
“I thought
it was firecrackers because it’s
so close to the Fourth of July,”
she said.
Police
cordoned off
two blocks
around the
duplex for
most of the
day. On
Sunday
morning
neighbors,
some still
bleary-eyed,
clustered on
the
sidewalks,
watching
investigators
move bodies
out of the
house.
Tina
McKinnon,
37, lives
about a
block away
and said
there was
never any
commotion at
the house.
“The
children
were very
pleasant,”
she said.
Delavan,
home to
about 8,000
people, lies
in the farm
fields and
woods
between
Janesville
and
Milwaukee.
The P.T.
Barnum
Circus, “The
Greatest
Show on
Earth,” was
founded in
Delavan in
1871, and
statues of
circus
animals
decorate the
town square.
Delavan: Slayings Fit 'Family
Annihilation' Pattern
Jun 15, 2007 - Associated Press
MADISON - Infant twins blown away. Their mother and
her sister shot down at the same time, along with a friend who was in
the wrong place at the wrong time.
The sheer audacity of the mass killing that left six
dead in Delavan has people asking "How could this happen?"
But experts said Tuesday the killings follow a
pattern played out often enough in the U.S. that social scientists have
coined a name for it: family annihilation.
"The pattern is so strong," said Jack Levin, director
of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict at Northeastern
University in Boston and author of the book "Extreme Killing."
"It's almost always a husband-father who methodically
executes the members of his family. He plans the attack far in advance.
He's suffered a prolonged period of frustration and depression. He
experiences what he sees as the catastrophic loss of his children. He
blames everybody but himself for his problems."
Delavan police discovered the bodies of Ambrosio
Analco, his ex-girlfriend Nicole McAffee, their twin infant boys,
McAffee's sister and a friend Saturday night in a duplex about two
blocks from the police station. They'd been shot.
They also found the 2-year-old daughter of McAffee
and Analco in a van outside. She'd been shot in the chest but was
treated and later released from the University of Wisconsin Hospital.
Walworth County authorities said the incident was a
murder suicide with Analco as the shooter.
Gaspar Huerta, McAffee's brother-in-law, said he
escaped the shooting by jumping out a window and called police from a
neighbor's house. An audio tape released by police shows he told the
dispatcher McAffee's boyfriend was in the apartment shooting everyone.
The Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C.,
estimates about 1,200 Americans die each year in murder-suicides. Its
study on the first six months of 2005 found that nearly all the killers
were males who used guns, and three-fourths of the cases involved a
romantic partner, such as a girlfriend, wife or former spouse.
The most recent report by the Wisconsin Coalition
Against Domestic Violence found 28 people were killed in the state in
2004 as the result of domestic violence. Five perpetrators committed
suicide.
Levin estimated that each year there are about 16 to
20 "family annihilations," which he defined as four or more victims,
usually relatives.
It begins with depression and a sense of owning or
possessing a partner, feelings more common in men, Levin said. Those
feelings eventually produce threats.
Court records show Analco had no domestic violence
convictions in Wisconsin, but Victor Huerta said his sister-in-law told
him Analco had threatened to kill everyone in the apartment if McAffee
cheated on him.
Analco had found a letter to McAffee from another man,
he said.
Experts said that kind of jealous anger can build
into a selfish rage -- often as a relationship ends -- that can engulf
anyone around the primary target.
"It's like gasoline. When you spill gasoline and
ignite it, a lot of things get burned," UW-Madison psychiatry professor
Burr Eichelman said.
Family annihilators tend to be socially isolated
husbands and fathers, Levin said.
Analco, who moved to the United States from Mexico,
may have found himself in that situation in Delavan, he said.
They also want revenge against the women they think
ruined their lives, Levin said. Court records show Analco was making
$8.80 an hour in March and had been ordered to pay McAffee about $442 a
month in child support.
They see killing the children as a way to devastate
their partner before killing her, too. Killing friends and extended
family is more unusual, Levin said.
McAffee's sister and friend may have been killed to
inflict more pain on her, or they could have just been in the way, Levin
said.
If indeed Analco was the shooter, "the easy answer is
he killed everyone who was available," Levin said. "But I think there's
more to it here. He killed everyone associated with (McAffee). He got
even with her by destroying everything she loved."
Then comes the last act -- suicide.
"Without that person," said Meghan Stroshine, an
assistant professor at Marquette University who studies domestic
violence, "they don't see a point in going on living."
Delavan: Six Dead in Mass Murder
By Sean O'Flaherty, Silvia Acevedo, Tom Murray & Mick
Trevey - TodaysTMJ4.com
Jun 15,
2007
DELAVAN - In a press briefing Wednesday Delavan
Police officials declared that the mass murder in Delavan should be
considered a murder-suicide and that the killings were committed by
a lone gunman.
Police officials identified the gunman as 23-year-old
Ambrosio Analco.
Investigators finished their investigation Tuesday at
the home where six people were shot dead and a 2-year-old was injured by
gunshots.
Officials are now waiting on forensic evidence before
the case can officially be closed.
Ambrosio Analco shot the others, including his ex-girlfriend
and their three children, and then turned the gun on himself. Analco was
among the dead.
"I was in my house and my sister-in-law, her
boyfriend, comes and starts shooting everybody," Gaspar Huerta said on
the tape.
The operator appears to be in disbelief about what he
is being told.
"You saw the person doing this?" the operator asks.
"Yeah," Huerta said. After giving the address he
pleads, "Could you please hurry up please?"
Found dead in the duplex were:
-- Ambrosio Analco, 23. The reported gunman. He
did not live in the duplex.
-- Nicole McAffee, 19. Analco's ex-girlfriend.
-- Ambrosio and Nicole's 6-month-old twin boys,
Isaiah and Argenis.
-- Nicole McAffee's sister, Ashley Huerta, 21.
-- Ashley's friend, Vanessa Iverson, 19, of Delavan.
Found wounded in a van outside the residence was
2-year-old Jasmine Analco, the daughter of Analco and McAffee.
The girl was treated at University of Wisconsin
Hospital from a gunshot wound to her chest - the bullet just missed her
heart. A spokesman said Jasmine was released Wednesday.
Huerta said in the 911 call that he escaped from the
shooting by jumping off the second floor roof of the duplex.
When asked who the shooter was, he gives a name that
is difficult to decipher. When asked again, he says he can't think of
it.
"Is he still there with the gun?" the dispatcher
asked.
"I think so," Huerta said. "He's there shooting my
wife and all the kids."
BACKGROUND
Gaspar Huerta's brother, Victor Huerta, said Nicole
McAffee and Ambrosio Analco often fought. Analco once threatened her
with a gun a few years ago, Victor Huerta said.
Victor Huerta said his brother (Gaspar) and Gaspar's
wife (Ashley Huerta) lived in the apartment and took in Nicole McAffee
and her children after she separated from Analco.
Gaspar Huerta wasn't happy about the situation,
Victor Huerta said. He wanted to live alone with his wife.
But he helped care for the children, Victor Huerta
said, and whenever Analco came over Gaspar would go in another room
because he felt Analco wasn't a good father.
Victor Huerta said he visited with his brother, his
brother's wife, McAffee and all three children around 6 p.m. Saturday.
Ashley Huerta told him Analco had told Nicole McAffee that he would kill
everyone in the apartment if he ever caught her cheating on him.
Victor Huerta said Analco had discovered another
man's letter to McAffee.
Nicole McAfee's friends told a similar story. They
said Ambrosio Analco had repeatedly abused Nicole for several years. In
fact, Nicole told a friend that Ambrosio had threatened to kill her.
Nicole's friend Molly Lewallen said that Ambrosio had
found a letter Nicole had received from a boyfriend named Emmanuel.
But Marco Pastrana, Analco's cousin, said Monday that
Analco couldn't have been responsible. Analco and the children were at
his house Saturday before Analco left about 9 p.m. to take the children
back to their mother, he has said.
Police took a report of shots fired at the duplex
about 10:30 p.m.
"I don't think he'd kill Nicole, or his kids, or her
sister," Pastrana said.
WHAT HAPPENED
Officers called to the area Saturday night for the
sound of shots found 2-year-old Jasmine Analco in a white mini-van in
the driveway of the home. She had a gun shot wound to her chest.
She was taken first to Lakeland Hospital, then
transferred to Rockford Memorial Hospital in Illinois, and then flown to
UW Hospital in Madison.
Walworth County SWAT officers entered the home next
to the van at 309 S. 2nd Street and found six people who had been shot
to death.
Neighbor Richard Heideman said officers stormed the
house with weapons drawn, kicking in the door. He saw two paramedics go
in behind them and come back out two minutes later.
"That's when I knew everybody was dead," Heideman
said.
The dead were all found on the second floor of the
duplex.
Delavan Police Chief Timothy O'Neill said a gun was
recovered inside.
The Walworth Sheriff's Department was called to the
scene to assist with the investigation.
Authorities spent most of Sunday removing the bodies
from the home.
James Brandenburg, 57, of Delavan dropped to his
knees as police wheeled out bodies and threw his arms to the sky. He had
spent several minutes earlier, also on his knees, praying.
"It's tragic. It's getting worse all the time," he
said. "If we want to, we can put a stop to this."
Police said they were talking to family members and
learning more about the situation at the household.
Chief O'Neill told a Sunday press briefing that the
investigation had been turned over to the state Division of Criminal
Investigation.
Victor Huerta said he talked to his brother Gaspar on
Monday morning -- "He's really crying, upset" -- but Victor didn't know
where Gaspar was staying or where he was Monday afternoon.
Victor Huerta said he wished police would hurry up
with their work because it could put suspicion on his brother, who
"never would do something like this. He always tries to run from
problems."
OFFICIAL RECORDS
Analco was ordered in December 2005 to pay $25 a
month to cover $4,165 in birth expenses for Jasmine.
He was found in contempt in March for not paying
child support and ordered to pay $442 per month for all three children.
A Walworth County judge sentenced him to six months in jail but stayed
the sentence as long as he paid the support.
Records show he and McAffee shared a home in Elkhorn
at some point and lived together at a different Delavan apartment before
McAffee moved into the duplex where the shootings took place.
A makeshift shrine of teddy bears, stuffed bunnies, a
dinosaur and candles stood under a tree outside the shooting scene
Monday. People came all day to pay their respects and place items in
front of the house.
The building's landlord, Duane Brellenthin, said the
other couple that lived in the duplex was on vacation Saturday.
Brellenthin couldn't understand why anyone would shoot little children
"It's tragic, that's all you can say. Why would anyone kill kids? I can
understand somebody getting upset and going overboard, but to do the
kids in, that's just nuts."
Sisters Nicole McAffee and Ashley Huerta rented the
upper apartment in the duplex where the murders occurred. Police asked
the landlord to open some locked areas of the duplex on Monday, but no
more victims were found.
FAMILY AND NEIGHBORHOOD REACTION
Family members of the victims feel upset and say they
cannot come to terms with what happened. DeeDee, an aunt of Nicole
McAffee and Ashley Huerta, said, "It is overwhelming to lose four
members in one night." She continued, "We miss you and we love you and
you'll never be out of our hearts."
Mary Ballbach, Vanessa Iverson's aunt, said she's
tired of the police silence. Iverson's mother, Kay Macara, can't get
closure, she said.
"Right now she's got nothing," Ballbach said.
Victor Huerta, the brother of Gaspar Huerta who
escaped the shooting unharmed, felt upset too. He said that Nicole
McAffee and Ashley Huerta were his best friends.
"It's tough to forget. That's mostly the thing - when
something happens like this. You need to be taught to forget but I don't
think it's going to go away."
Pete Brancheau, 59, who lives across the street from
the shooting scene, said he heard six shots Saturday night but thought
nothing of it because children in the neighborhood play with
firecrackers "all the time," he said.
About a minute later, he heard a series of about
three shots, he said. He looked outside a few minutes later and saw
police cordoning off the area.
It's scary," he said. "Especially when there's a baby
involved. There's no answer for it."
Another neighbor, Leandra Mena, 65, said she heard
what she thought were firecrackers coming from the house around 10:30
p.m. Saturday.
"I thought it was firecrackers because it's so close
to the Fourth of July," she said.
Mena said she didn't know the people who lived in the
duplex.
"This is something we never thought could happen here,"
she said.
Tina McKinnon, 37, lives about a block away and said
there was never any commotion at the house.
"The children were very pleasant," she said.
Gov. Jim Doyle issued a statement Monday saying his
thoughts and prayers were with everyone affected by the "heartbreaking"
shootings, which he said were "a reminder that we need to work to ensure
the safety of families and communities across the state."
Delavan is a quiet community of 8,000 people about 40
miles southwest of Milwaukee. The white house where the shootings took
place is on a tree-lined street that is a block from a United Methodist
Church.
The city two-block downtown area has brick-covered
streets. The P.T. Barnum Circus, "The Greatest Show on Earth," was
founded in Delavan in 1871.
Delavan: 911 Call From Survivor
By Lauren Leamanczyk & Erin Drew Kent - TodaysTMJ4.com
Jun 15, 2007
DELAVAN - Delavan police released the first 911 call
reporting a shooting that left six dead at a duplex.
The caller was Gaspar Huerta. He escaped the mass
murder by jumping from a second floor balcony. Gaspar's wife Ashley was
murdered in the shooting rampage.
Operator: Delavan 911 what's your emergency?
Caller: Yes, I live at 301 South 2nd Street.
Operator: Uh, huh.
Caller: Apartment A. I've got a gentleman here that
says there's been some gunshots fired outside.
Operator: OK. Uh, did you hear them yourself?
Caller: No, I didn't. The gentleman's right here he
wants to talk to you.
Operator: OK, put him on.
Gaspar Huerta: Hello.
Operator: OK, you say gunshots?
Huerta: Yeah, I was inside of my house and my sister-in-law,
her boyfriend comes and starts shooting everybody (unintelligible) the
roof.
Operator: You saw the person doing this?
Huerta: Yeah.
Operator: OK, where at?
Huerta: 309 Second Street. Could you please hurry up
please?
Operator: What's the person's name that's shooting?
Huerta: (unintelligible)
Operator: What's his name?
Huerta: Uh, I can't think of his ... name right now.
Operator: Is he still there with the gun?
Huerta: I think so.
Operator: He's at 309.
Huerta: I went onto the roof, I jump out.
Operator: He's upstairs shooting?
Huerta: He's there shooting my wife and all the kids.
Operator: He started shooting your..
Huerta: I don't know. ...
Operator: Hey listen, at 309 South 2nd Street he's
shooting your wife and kids?
Huerta: (unintelligible) I saw shooting my wife and
saw shooting his, their, I don't know all the people there was another
one of my friends, my wife's friends.
