The Bully of Toulon

From our September 2002 issue: For years, a rough-hewn man named Curt Thompson threatened and intimidated his neighbors in the small farming community of Toulon, Illinois. Many complained about him, and a few filed charges, yet little was done, and residents learned to alter their lives to avoid him. Then one night, authorities say, a newcomer paid him a call, and the town’s worst fears came true

By Robert Kurson

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Jim and Janet Giesenhagen

Jim and Janet Giesenhagen were perfectly Toulon. His mother, Ardelle, lived across the alley on a homestead bought by her great-great-grandfather in 1829. Jim co-owned a local television/heating/ air-conditioning business, earned a black belt in karate, attended church every Sunday, led a Boy Scout troop. Janet worked long hours at a Peoria grocery store, about an hour away, then went home to play with their daughter, Ashley, and surf the Internet. Ashley played soccer and piano, and remained a Daddy's girl. Most Friday nights the family went out for supper, often for pizza at Happy Joe's in Kewanee. Their future plans were simple: Save money for retirement, make a trip to Disney World.

In 1986, the Giesenhagens told police that Thompson's Labrador retriever had bitten six-year-old Shawn Henderson, Janet's son from a previous marriage, who lived with them. Stark County authorities filed charges, and the case went to trial. The jury found in favor of Thompson. The Giesenhagens were now on Thompson's list.

Ardelle Giesenhagen, Jim's mother, and others say Thompson began to stalk the Giesenhagen family, and kept it up for years. "Day after day, around eight in the morning, Curt would drive down the alley behind Jim's house, just circling very slow, three or four times, almost not moving, and glaring," recalls Joe Tracy, Jim's best friend. "He knew that was about the time Ashley went to school. And it didn't quit. Jim made complaints. Nothing was ever done."

Jim began driving Ashley the few blocks to school. In his car, day or night, he zigzagged rather than take the shortest route, always careful to avoid passing near Thompson's house. Though Jim held a black belt in karate, he rarely, if ever, confronted Thompson; he knew that the man owned guns, and believed that a challenge might short-circuit Thompson's temper.

Ardelle Giesenhagen, then in her 60s, was not so patient. After Thompson extended his vendetta to her and her husband, and began to circle her house and glare at her, she told him, "Curt, you're not God! I'm not scared of you. You could shoot me today and it wouldn't worry me because I know where I'm going. But I don't know if you're going anyplace but down below." Thompson just glared at her. Another time, when he parked in the alley and glowered while Ardelle gardened, she shook her finger at him and said, "Curt, what do you think you're doin'? Move it!" Thompson only snickered and drove off.

Perhaps the moment that most frightened Ardelle occurred just after her husband died, in 1999. She, Jim, Janet, and Ashley were in her backyard playing with Ardelle's cats. "Curt drove his truck down the alley and told Jim and Janet he was going to kill them," Ardelle recalls. "Someone called the police. Bob Taylor came. Curt said he'd get him, too. Taylor did nothing. He didn't arrest him. Nothing."

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About five years ago, shortly after Joe Tracy went to work for Jim Giesenhagen, he, too, began to have problems with Thompson. "I had no connection to Curt, no dealings with him," Tracy says. "My only offense was that I was friends with Jim."

Sometimes, Thompson would block Tracy on Main Street with his truck or follow him out of town or try to run him off the road as he walked to the grocery store. Every day, Tracy says, Thompson circled his house, glaring. When he told Thompson, "Curt, why don't you just leave us alone? We're not bothering you," Thompson replied, "Yes, you are bothering me. You're harassing me all the time," and Tracy could only shake his head.

In 1999, Tracy filed a criminal complaint claiming that Thompson had followed him for two miles into the country, then jumped out of his truck at an intersection and waved a hammer threateningly. Jim and Janet Giesenhagen gave statements about Thompson's behavior in connection with that case. Thompson was convicted of simple assault, and in August 2000, he was ordered to pay $116 in court costs, $25 per month in probation fees for 24 months, and a $100 public defender's fee. He was also ordered to stay away from Joe Tracy and his family, and from Jim Giesenhagen and his family—an order Tracy says Thompson violated repeatedly.

"Jim didn't know what to do," Tracy says. "He went to the law, he made lots of calls, and they didn't do anything."

Finally, Jim set up a video camera on the back of his garage and pointed it toward the alley. Thompson drove by and glared. Often. Jim and Tracy believed that this was clear evidence of violation of the court order prohibiting contact with the Giesenhagens. Jim delivered the tapes to the state's attorney. Tracy says they never heard back.

More than a year after the conviction in the hammer-waving case, Thompson had paid just $18 of the required fees and costs. Judge Scott Shore issued a summons for him to appear before the court for nonpayment. Thompson did not appear. On October 15, 2001, Shore issued a warrant for Thompson's arrest. It was this warrant that Deputy Streicher had tried to serve the night he was shot, more than five months after it had been issued.

On that Friday night last March, while Deputy Streicher lay on Curt Thompson's porch, Thompson streaked in the squad car toward the Giesenhagen house. Inside, the family was enjoying a quiet evening together. Janet was on the couch. Jim and Ashley had gone to the basement, probably to fetch a vaporizer to soothe Janet's asthma.

Court documents allege that, armed with Streicher's service revolver and his own sawed-off shotgun, Thompson pulled into the driveway of the house, smashing the rear end of a parked Mercury SUV and driving it through wooden fence posts and into a pole flying the American flag. Thompson jumped out of the vehicle with the shotgun. He climbed the four wooden steps that led to the side door of the house, leaving the squad car lights flashing in the driveway. Then, the indictment alleges, Thompson broke down the door to the house and burst in, carrying his sawed-off shotgun. At close range, he fired at Janet, hitting her in the arms and the chest, leaving her left forearm dangling by a thread of skin as she collapsed to the floor. Then, authorities say, he likely moved to the basement, where he fired the shotgun and struck Jim Giesenhagen in the face, the buckshot obliterating his tongue and the floor of his mouth. Jim fell dead. Thompson did not harm Ashley, who probably witnessed her father's killing. Finished, Thompson left the house.

Ashley called her grandmother, Ardelle. Toulon does not have 911 service; the town voted it down twice, thinking it too expensive, at $2.85 a month, to adopt. Ashley told Ardelle, "Grandma, come quick! Curt Thompson just killed my daddy and hurt my mommy." Ardelle, who did not know whether Thompson was still inside the Giesenhagen home, threw on her shoes and coat and ran across the alley.

When Ardelle stepped inside, she saw Janet on the floor, one hand to her chest, the other nearly detached from her arm. "Grandma, he's down there," Ashley said. Ardelle looked down the stairs and saw Jim lying in a pool of blood, a hole in his head. She could tell that he was dead, but wondered what had happened to his beard.

Ardelle called the sheriff's office. Janet asked for a pillow, which Ardelle retrieved for her. "My back hurts," Janet said. Ardelle placed the pillow behind Janet's back, then covered her with a blanket.

As Ardelle waited for an ambulance, she went to Ashley's bedroom. Just a few weeks earlier, after Thompson had driven by Ardelle's house and glared, Ashley had locked the windows and said, "You know what, Grandma? We need to pray for Curt. He doesn't have anybody to love him." Now Ashley's socks were soaked in blood. "Let's kneel and pray for Mommy because I think she might make it," Ardelle told her granddaughter. Then she noticed that Ashley had started to pack a suitcase of clothes because she knew she wouldn't be staying home that night.

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Photograph: Courtesy of Ardelle Giesenhagen