GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A man charged with a Green Bay homicide took “selfie” videos and photos with the victim’s body, wrote a Bible verse on the victim’s wall and left a handwritten apology, prosecutors allege.
Caleb Anderson, 23, of Caspian, Michigan, was charged Thursday with the Aug. 1 stabbing death of 65-year-old Patrick Ernst. He was killed in his apartment on Green Bay’s west side.
According to the criminal complaint, Anderson found Ernst through Grindr, a smartphone app men use to meet other men for sex. Anderson said he did not intend to have sex with the victim, but thought it would be a quick way to find someone to kill.
“I always just wanted to kill somebody” since he was 14 or 15 years old, he told police in an interview, according to the criminal complaint.
Through tears, Anderson allegedly told police he put a sweatshirt over Ernst’s mouth so his neighbors wouldn’t hear him screaming. He said Ernst kept asking him, “Why are you doing this to me?”
Investigators say they checked on Ernst after he didn’t show up for work. They entered his apartment to find it trashed. Officers found Ernst’s body in his bedroom. A forensic pathologist from the Brown County Medical Examiner’s Office counted 38 stab wounds to Ernst’s head, neck and abdomen, along with 12 more to his left hand and arm, with some of those being defensive wounds.
Written on the wall above the body was “Psalm 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me,” along with the date.
A note was written on a piece of paper on a chair, reading, “I Am so Sorry.. he didn’t deserve this.”
Anderson took Ernst’s car and headed to Alabama, police said. He was arrested in Alabama, but not before allegedly killing another man, whom he said he also met through the smartphone app. Anderson also claimed to have set fire to a church, though he was unable to tell investigators where the church was.
Alabama authorities took data from a “burner” phone Anderson bought. Among the evidence was a five-second video prosecutors described as “disturbing,” showing Anderson with Ernst’s body. The phone also had photos of Anderson in Ernst’s apartment, including a cut Anderson had suffered while allegedly stabbing Ernst.
Before the killings in Green Bay and Alabama, Anderson admitted attacking a woman who was jogging in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He said he thought about sexually assaulting or killing the woman, but then thought of his mother, and decided to let the woman go.
Anderson remains jailed in Alabama, where he pleaded not guilty Thursday to a charge of capital murder. He has not yet been charged with the U.P. attack.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Anderson in Wisconsin, but online court records do not indicate that extradition proceedings have begun.
