CODY REETZ - 14 yo (2009) - Grafton/Germantown WI

The stepfather of a 14-year-old Grafton boy found dead at a
Wal-Mart parking lot could be charged Tuesday in the boy's death - a
crime Germantown's police chief said Monday was premeditated and not
the result of a physical fight.
Cody A. Reetz's death "was not an accident but planned prior to the murder,"
said Police Chief Peter Hoell, who declined to comment on how the boy died.
Charles A. Avey Sr., 37, of Grafton, was in custody Monday in the Washington
County Jail on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide. The
charge could be filed Tuesday, Hoell said.

Reetz's body was found inside an Oldsmobile minivan about four hours after his
mother came to the Grafton Police Department to report a domestic
violence incident at the hands of Avey, Grafton Police Chief Charles
Wenten said Monday.
Trista Avey told police that her husband struck her with a hammer multiple times Nov. 8.
Trista Avey, also known as Trista Ziehr, reported the incident a week later,
arriving at the Grafton Police Department about 4 p.m. Sunday.
She told police that her son, Cody Reetz, was with the suspect that
afternoon, but she did not express concern for the boy's safety at the
time, Wenten said.
Grafton police then issued a bulletin to other law enforcement agencies to be
on the lookout for the man and the boy. That evening, Charles Avey
voluntarily surrendered at the Washington County Sheriff's Department
in West Bend, Hoell said. The Sheriff's Department then contacted
Germantown police about 8 p.m. Sunday with information on the location
of a possible homicide victim.
Grief counselors at school
Reetz was an eighth-grade student at John Long Middle School. Grief
counselors will be available at the school for a few weeks, Principal
Greg Kabara said in an e-mail message sent to parents Monday.
Reetz had attended sixth-grade classes at the school. His family moved to
Mequon last year but returned to Grafton for this school year,
Superintendent Jeffrey Pechura said.
Laura Hanley, a neighbor to Reetz in the Arrowhead Apartments, said the boy
"seemed a particularly happy little guy; one of the few (kids) who
said, 'hi.' "
She and the manager of the apartment complex on Delaware Ave. said the family had moved in about a month ago.
Hanley recalled seeing the family's minivan and noticing that in the window was an image depicting a happy family.
"I actually had a conscious thought - I hope that's the case," she recalled.
Hanley said hearing the news that authorities believe Charles Avey premeditated the homicide was chilling.
"I can't imagine what a 14-year-old boy could do," she said.
Charles Avey has an open felony prosecution against him in Washington County Circuit Court on five identity theft charges.
From November 2008 to January 2009, Avey allegedly opened credit card
accounts under the name of his wife's former husband, who is the boy's
biological father, and charged more than $22,130 worth of merchandise
to the accounts, according to a criminal complaint. Avey's initial
court appearance on the identity theft charges was Nov. 2.
Charles Avey told investigators that his wife, Trista, had no involvement in the identity theft scheme.
The spending spree included $2,910 worth of furniture from a Cash and Carry
store in West Bend; jewelry valued at $5,161 from a Shaw's Jewelers in
Brookfield; charges of $11,237 on a Home Depot credit card; $1,678 in
charges from a Toys R Us store in Milwaukee; and a charge of $1,144 at
Tires Plus in Brown Deer. The Tires Plus charge was for work done on a
1999 Oldsmobile minivan. That is the same minivan in which police found
the boy's body, police said.
The suspect also has been convicted of issuing worthless checks in Door and
Fond du Lac counties in 2006 and in Ozaukee County this year, state court records show.

Surveillance cameras in the Germantown Walmart parking lot caught
every minute of what happened before and after Cody Reetz's tragic
death.
The last video of Cody Reetz taken before his death was taken at a
gas station in Jackson. You can see the happy eighth grader at the
check out counter as his step father Charles Avey is caught on tape
making a phone call.
Twenty minutes later, Walmart surveillance video shows Charles Avey's mini van pulling in to the store parking lot. At 4:11 p.m. - you see a man believed to be Avey get in the back of
the van. At 4:20, he grabs a duffel bag from the back and then gets
back in, sitting in the van, presumably with Cody's body, for 25
minutes. He then gets out, looks through all the van's windows, and
walks through the parking lot, leaving Cody's body hidden under clothes
and a backpack.
Minutes later cameras capture another
car, driven by a friend, pull up to the mini van. Avey gets out, opens
the door to his van, looks around inside, and then gets back in the
passenger seat, and has his friend drive him out of the Walmart parking
lot.

Several hours after Avey left the
Walmart parking lot, the surveillance video shows police arrive in the
store parking lot and start their investigation into Cody's tragic
death.

West Bend - Charles A. Avey, the Grafton man accused of the
Nov. 15 murder of his teenage stepson, Cody Reetz, waived his right to
a preliminary hearing to review the evidence against him on Wednesday.
Avey, 37, did not enter a plea Wednesday to a first degree intentional
homicide charge. He is accused of strangling Reetz, 14, with a necktie
about 4:15 p.m. Nov. 15 inside a minivan parked in the lot of a
Germantown Wal-Mart.
Avey allegedly decided to kill Reetz as payback to the boy's mother, Trista
Avey, for reporting to police that same day that Avey had beaten her
with a hammer earlier in November. She also is known as Trista Ziehr.
Washington County Circuit Judge David Resheske said Wednesday that Avey remains in
the Washington County Jail on $750,000 bail. A plea hearing and trial
will be scheduled at a later date.
After Wednesday's court hearing, Avey's defense attorney requested a
substitute judge in the case. John Kuczmarski, an assistant state
public defender in West Bend, declined to comment on the reason for the
substitution request.
Avey faces life imprisonment if convicted of the first-degree intentional homicide charge.

Judge rejects Avey's mercy killing claim, imposes life sentence


West Bend — A Washington County judge Friday forcefully rejected convicted murderer Charles A. Avey's last minute story that his stepson Cody Reetz asked to be killed so that he wouldn't face further sexual assaults by an alleged abuser Avey did not name in court.
In a statement read to Washington County Circuit Judge James Muehlbauer at Friday's sentencing, Avey described his strangling of 14-year-old Cody as a mercy killing and repeatedly said Cody wanted to die.
"Cody is in a much better place," Avey said of the Grafton boy's death.
Muehlbauer told Avey that his "attempts to put some spin" on the horrible facts of the murder did not make sense.
"For you to claim this was a mercy killing, and for you to say he is better off, is one final insult to Cody's family," Muehlbauer said.
The judge then sentenced Avey, 38, to life imprisonment with no opportunity for release. Under state law, the judge had the option of sentencing Avey to life in prison with an opportunity for release under state supervision after 20 years.
"You are quite calculating, and I find you to be quite dangerous," Muehlbauer said to Avey.
"I don't see you as a remorseful person," Muehlbauer said.
Both of Cody's biological parents - Trista Avey, Charles Avey's wife, and Allen Reetz of West Bend - asked Muehlbauer to put Charles Avey in prison for the rest of his life. Both parents cried throughout Friday's proceeding.
"Cody will always live in our hearts," Trista told her husband in comments she read in court. "You will rot in prison with your black heart."
Allen Reetz said, "You've taken a sweet, innocent life from all of us."
Avey used a necktie to strangle Cody Reetz on Nov. 15 inside a van parked in the lot of a Germantown Wal-Mart.
'Innocent little boy'


Washington County District Attorney Todd Martens also recommended life in prison with no possibility of release due to "the incomprehensible brutality and savage nature of this crime."
"Avey squeezed the life out of an innocent little boy who loved him," Martens said. "Their faces must have been inches apart."
Avey's story of a mercy killing is contradicted by cell phone text messages he sent and handwritten notes he wrote to Trista and other family members, as well as his confession of killing Cody, Martens said.
Charles Avey told investigators that he strangled Cody as payback to the boy's mother for reporting to Grafton police on the same day that Avey had beaten her with a hammer earlier in November. She also is known as Trista Ziehr.
In discussing the Nov. 8 beating of his wife, Avey told the judge that his wife started the fight.
"She never knew when enough was enough," he said. "I finally snapped."
Muehlbauer later observed that Avey continually tries to blame others for his actions.
Charles A. Avey Jr., 15, a Jackson resident and one of Avey's three biological sons, sobbed as he read a statement in court asking the judge to allow the possibility for his father's release from prison.
"I hate what he did, but God has a plan for all of us," the boy said. "I love you, Dad."
Trista Avey, Allen Reetz and more than a dozen other family members and relatives were in the courtroom Friday during Avey's sentencing. Each wore a pin bearing a photo of Cody. He was in the eighth grade at John Long Middle School in Grafton at the time of his murder.
Avey pleaded guilty to first-degree intentional homicide on April 1 and waived his right to a jury trial. Muehlbauer convicted him that same day.
At the April 1 court hearing, Avey testified that he tightened a necktie around Cody's neck with the intent to kill him while the two were inside the van.
He had told his stepson only that the two of them were going "for a ride" late in the afternoon of Nov. 15, according to an investigator's report.
After he parked the van outside the Wal-Mart, Avey told Cody only that "they were going to sit there and talk," according to a summary of the investigator's interrogation of Avey.
After murdering the boy, Avey covered the body with clothing and book bags and left the van to meet a friend.
He had called the friend while in Jackson, before driving the van to Germantown, and asked her to pick him up at the Wal-Mart parking lot.
Avey subsequently turned himself in to the Washington County Sheriff's Department.

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