by Gregg Olsen
Stutzman left the Bylers on January 17, saying he was going back to New Mexico to return the borrowed Gremlin. Before leaving he paid for his phone charges.
“I can’t believe it that I didn’t notice that there were no calls to Wyoming,” Byler said later.
As January gave way to February, the unbearable winter chill of the snow-powdered Kansas prairie only made John Yost feel more lonely. He wondered if Eli Stutzman felt the same.
The weeks apart had erased any of the concerns he’d had about his new lover. The murder in Texas, the dead wife, the dead lover from Colorado—none of it mattered. Too many things about Stutzman were just right.
He found Stutzman’s phone number in New Mexico and dialed it—it was the number to the trailer house on Chuck Freeman’s Aztec ranch. The number, however, had been disconnected. Maybe Eli was still there? Maybe he just couldn’t afford to pay his bill? Yost searched again, this time pulling up the number of a friend of Stutzman’s who lived near the ranch.
The man who answered the phone said Stutzman had moved to Texas. He didn’t have a phone number, but the man provided an address in Azle, Texas.
Yost mailed a valentine and waited. He didn’t want to be pushy; he just wanted Stutzman to know how much he cared and how much he wanted to see him again. No strings. No pressure. He would wait.
Stutzman, meanwhile, mailed his last car payment—$176—to Neil’s Auto Plaza on February 8. One can only wonder why he told Eli Byler that the car had been borrowed, yet bragged to John Yost about the great deal he’d gotten on it. . . .
Yost received an answer of sorts from Eli Stutzman on Valentine’s Day.
There was no return address on the small white envelope postmarked Fort Worth, Texas. Inside, Yost found the three photographs he had given to Stutzman when they first met through the ad. There was no explanation or good-bye. As far as Yost was concerned, Stutzman had sent him a “Dear John” letter.
But why? Yost’s first reaction was to find Stutzman and talk with him. Maybe Stutzman needed help? Maybe he was in some kind of trouble?
Weeks passed. Maybe a month or two. Later, when he tried to put it together, Yost could never be sure. All he knew was that he was not going to let Eli Stutzman slip out of his life forever. He got his telephone number from Stutzman’s friend in Ohio. The number was to a place in Azle, Texas.
Stutzman was cool and abrupt when he answered Yost’s call.
“I don’t want you contacting me anymore. You took a big chance sending me that card. If my boyfriend saw it he would get angry at me. Don’t call me. Don’t write to me at all.”
Stutzman was adamant, but Yost didn’t want the conversation to end at that. He wanted to know who Stutzman was involved with and what the circumstances of the relationship were.
“I’ve fallen in love with one of my sisters’ husbands and we’ve dropped out of sight.”
“Your brother-in-law?” Yost didn’t know what to make of that.
“Yeah. That’s why we’re hiding out down here. We don’t want her to find us. He’ll have to pay alimony. That’s why we came out here. We’re just laying low until it blows over.”
Stutzman said he and his brother-in-law/lover were running a successful vending-machine business in the Fort Worth area.
“We had to hide out. We didn’t want to leave a trail.” Stutzman emphasized his words with sincerity and urgency.
When Yost thought about it later, the story seemed outlandish. Yet, Stutzman had talked so fast and given so much information, there seemed little room or need for questions or details. How had his family taken all of this? First, losing Stutzman to the modern world, then losing a son-in-law to Stutzman? It was a regular Amish Peyton Place with Eli Stutzman as the lead character.
Stutzman was so anxious to end the conversation that Yost didn’t ask about Danny.
A little sadly, Yost put away the soccer ball. Stutzman wouldn’t be coming back for it after all.
Stutzman stopped in at Kenny Hankins’s new trailer house in April to pick up a few things, spend the night, and test some bad news. He stunned Hankins with the news.
“I’ve just come from Danny’s funeral. He died in a terrible traffic accident in Salt Lake City,” Stutzman said.
Hankins thought something was wrong, something other than Danny’s death.
“He had no emotion about it whatsoever. A man who just lost his kid, I thought he would have broke down and bawled, but he showed no emotion, just he’s gone, that’s it,” Hankins later said.
Stutzman’s blue eyes were cold and distant.
“The Barlows’ Bronco was going onto the freeway on-ramp when a truck hit it broadside,” Stutzman said. “Danny suffered massive head injuries—his head swelled up like a balloon.”
Hankins was shocked, yet Stutzman remained oddly controlled.
Stutzman said he had flown up from Texas to go to the funeral.
“How come you have a car then?” Hankins asked, trying to pin Stutzman down.
“I had a car up there already.”
Stutzman stayed the night in Hankins’s mobile home.
“I got a sheet and draped the whole thing, because that way the sun wouldn’t be shining in and exposing him to my neighbors. Whether he slept nude I don’t know. He was dressed when I got up the next morning,” Hankins recalled.
They loaded up the boxes that he had left. Now he had room in his car for the stuff.
Stutzman gave Hankins a couple of sheepskins as a thank you.
“I told him they were nice, because he had a couple in the box, along with a straw hat and several other things. Pictures, knickknacks and stuff, and two cock rings. They were bull rings! Solid chrome rings. He had two, one bigger than the other, and I shook my head when I saw them,” Hankins said.
Stutzman left without seeing Chuck Freeman. Hankins did notice, however, that he placed a call to Kevin Whitten.
The Gingeriches received a letter from Stutzman, postmarked Farmington, New Mexico, April 14, 1986. Stutzman apologized for being so late, but their letter, dated February 26, had just reached him.
“It had no zip code on it,” he wrote.
Again he played up the charade that Danny was with him and enjoying school and involved in the soccer program.
“He finally has all of his new teeth which make him look quite different,” Stutzman wrote, “He had some trouble with a couple teeth. Had to take him to the dentist twice.”
Stutzman hinted that he and his son would be taking a trip in the summer to see the family.
He directed some comments to Susie, who had expressed concern over Ida’s Amish clothes and other belongings: “All of Danny’s Amish clothes and Ida’s clothes, are all packed in the chest with mothball, and I plan on keeping them till Danny is grown and give them to him.”
The letter was sent the same week People came out with the story of the unknown boy from Chester.
• • •
Stutzman called Hankins to say he was settled into a place in a small town near Fort Worth—a nice big house on Toronto Road in Azle, Texas.
Stutzman called again and asked Hankins to send some of the things from the boxes stored at his house. He said he’d had a falling out with the man he was living with, and was moving across the street.
“He wanted some sealed envelopes and the pictures of Danny and of his wife,” Hankins said later.
Hankins couldn’t help but notice a newspaper clipping about the barn fire that had taken Ida’s life. It surprised him, and he told Chuck Freeman about it.
Stutzman had told them his wife had died in a car wreck. “We secretly owned a car . . .”
Of course, the photographs of the woman were not of Ida Gingerich. She was Amish, and they didn’t pose for photos. Maybe one of them was the same photo Stutzman had used as his “girlfriend” when Eli Byler and his family came out to Colorado on vacation in 1983.
Into the summer of 1986, Hankins continued to forward letters for Stutzman, who occasionally sent
him twenty dollars to cover postage.
Weeks after Stutzman had told him that Danny had died in a car wreck, a letter arrived at Hankins’s addressed to “Eli Stutzman and son Danny.”
The return address was that of a Stutzman in Ohio. Hankins figured it was Stutzman’s father.
This is one hell of a note, Hankins thought. If Stutzman’s dad knew the kid was dead, why was he writing? Hankins had understood that when Danny died Stutzman had told his folks. They hadn’t come out because they don’t fly.
So now what was Stutzman up to?
PART THREE
Judgment Day
“I wanted to leave Danny where God could find him.”
—Eli Stutzman
CHAPTER THIRTY
Amos Gingerich was working in his generator-powered carpentry shop building picnic benches for the Englischers when the death letter came. It was postmarked Fort Worth, July 30, 1986. His son Dan opened it and read it aloud.
7/29/86
Dear Folks,
Greetings in his name, who shed his blood for us.
This is Tuesday morning 10:30 A.M., the Temp. is 104 degrees already. Hope yours are all well. With some things have not all been well recently. But I’m sure our good Heavenly Father knows best. He gives to be taken.
I just found out this morning that the message I sent yours last week was returned instead of delivered. It was a Mail-A-Gram (Tel-A-Gram). The post office’s reason was because there was no ph. # included for destination’s party.
The sad news is about Danny. He was in a car accident near Salt Lake city on Monday of last week (July 21st) around 10 A.M. & died at the hospital in Salt Lake City Utah, on Tuesday night 11:30 P.M. (July 22nd) due to head injuries.
Grave side services were held on Thursday (July 24th) for Danny in Kemmerer, Wyoming where Danny is buried at the [Barlow] Family cemetery.
I’m sorry you did not get my message. But I tried. When I had the message sent I was assured that the message will be delivered to yours personally by someone for your local post office no later than Wed. 10 A.M. July 23rd your time.
Danny has been at this children’s camp at Lyman, Wyoming since June 1st. (Same place as last summer) Which is run by the [Barlow] Family & was being taken to the airport by [Dean Barlow] to Salt Lake City, where they were hit by a semi truck. He was going to fly here to Dallas–Forth Worth Airport, where I was going to pick him up. I received word of the accident at noon Monday just as I was getting ready to go pick him up. So I went to Salt Lake City Monday afternoon, and got back here yesterday.
Am finishing up a project here I started earlier, will probably be here about 2 more weeks & will return to N. Mexico.
So long for now,
Eli.
The stationery featured pictures of running horses and upbeat mottos: “There is only one success . . . to be able to spend your life in your own way.”
Stutzman had obviously found his way. Without Danny.
For the Gingeriches, relief followed the immediate shock of the death message. Amos later told his family, “If only this could be true. It would be an answer to our prayers. God did not want the boy to suffer anymore.”
Still, parts of the letter were puzzling. There was no way the Gingeriches would have missed the boy’s funeral if Stutzman had truly tried to get hold of them. It would not have been difficult to call an Englischer in the Beaverton, Michigan, community to get a death message delivered.
“We would have gone by bus or rented a car and driver,” Gingerich said years later, still unable to make sense of his son-in-law’s motives.
In Apple Creek, Eli and Susan Stutzman received a similar letter.
Word spread about the boy’s tragic death.
Liz Chupp called Stutzman to offer her condolences. Stutzman had been so kind to her and Leroy when their five-year-old daughter died in a farm accident in Kentucky.
Now both of the old friends had lost a child.
Stutzman sobbed as he recounted the accident that took his boy’s life.
“I was so thankful for the time we had in the hospital,” he said. “Danny drifted in and out of consciousness, and we were able to talk before he died. It was a very precious time for me,” Stutzman said.
“He told me what a great father I was . . . and I told him how much I loved him. I can’t believe he is gone. Danny is my last bond to my dear Ida.”
Later, Chupp figured Stutzman had told her only what he thought she wanted to hear.
In August, Stutzman returned to Ohio to see old friends and rekindle happier memories. He made it to the gay bar in Akron, where he ran into Rick Adamson, the man who first met Stutzman when the former Amishman’s nude photo and convenient address had caught his eye in Stars.
“Danny died in a car wreck in Utah . . .”
Amos Gingerich wrote his suspicions to his old neighbor in Fredericksburg, David Yoder, an Amishman who had done considerable traveling.
“Amos was troubled and wanted to get to the bottom of Eli’s story,” Yoder said.
The Amishmen agreed that a little detective work was needed—a trip to the Barlow family cemetery in Lyman, Wyoming, would be a good place to start. If that led nowhere, they wanted to find the hospital where Danny had died.
Gingerich wrote ahead to the police, but since there was no police department in Kemmerer, the letter didn’t reach the authorities in Lyman until later. “We are looking for the Barlow family cemetery,” the letter said.
Amos, his daughter, Susie, and son-in-law Andy Miller joined Yoder at the Chicago bus terminal, and arrived in Lyman on Wednesday, November 12, a little after 6:00 A.M.
At the police station, they were told to wait at a café while Dean and Margie Barlow were notified. The police had never heard of a Barlow cemetery, and they didn’t have any records indicating an accident involving Danny Stutzman and Dean Barlow.
“We were having breakfast, and they called for us to come down, and we hurried to meet this Dean Barlow,” Gingerich recalled.
At the station, Gingerich gave a nervous and confused Dean Barlow the letter from Stutzman recounting Danny’s death. The Barlows had brought a photo of Danny, just in case the Amish had confused him with another Amish boy.
“It’s Eli’s stationery, his handwriting,” Barlow said, sinking into a chair as he read the letter. “But none of this is true . . .”
Margie Barlow sat like a lump, looking as though she had been shot.
“We had the boy until December of 1985. We haven’t seen him since,” Barlow said.
The Barlows showed a copy of the July 5 agreement they had made with Stutzman to care for Danny.
Around nine o’clock, the Barlows took the Amish up to the house and introduced their children.
“They liked Danny, he was a good boy, an intelligent boy, they said. He was good on their computer,” Yoder recalled.
The Barlows hoped the news of Danny’s death was a terrible mistake. They said Stutzman had been working at a cabinet shop in Benton, Ohio, and Danny had been attending a Mennonite school. They had talked with Stutzman a couple of times after he had left with Danny, but each time they had asked to speak with the boy, they had been told he was either asleep or outside playing.
“He took Danny to see his ailing grandmother once a week,” Barlow said.
Margie Barlow served cookies and gave Amos a photograph of Danny and Eli taken in front of their Christmas tree on December 14, 1985—no one knew it then, of course, but it was Danny’s last photograph.
The Amish wondered how Barlow and Stutzman had become friends. Barlow said it was through a thoroughbred-horse deal. As a story, it was possible. After all, nearby Evanston did have Wyoming Downs.
Still, there was something about the Barlows that made the Amish wonder if they were being completely truthful.
When the Amish indicated that Stutzman had had a bad temper or some emotional problems in the past, they were met with disbelief. That was not the Eli they knew, they said.
Dean Barlow said that when Stutzman ran into trouble over the murder of his employee in Texas, he and his wife had agreed to take Danny in.
“Eli had a wood-working business, and had a few fellows working for him that did not get along the best, so one fellow took Eli’s gun and shot the other. Eli’s fingerprints were on the gun, but the other fellow’s were on top of Eli’s,” Yoder later recalled the Barlows saying.
When he came to pick up Danny in December, Stutzman said that he had been cleared of the Texas charges.
Dean Barlow bought the Amish soda pop and drove them the hundred miles to Salt Lake City. It was no trouble, he insisted. His father had cancer and he was going to visit him anyway.
Barlow told Amos Gingerich, “Eli has some questions he needs to answer.”
The Wyoming man wanted the Amish to know how wrong he thought the bann was, how much it had hurt Eli Stutzman. Maybe his hurt had contributed to all of the lies.
Amos tried to explain. “It is not a boycott, we do it so they repent.”
The next day the Amish caught a train for Denver’s bus station, though they had considered going to Durango to see what they could turn up. The trip had been the furthest west Amos and Susie Gingerich and Andy Miller had traveled.
After returning to Michigan, Amos Gingerich received a letter from Margie Barlow. The Barlows had written to Stutzman again and there had been no response. “We thought for sure Eli would have called or written us by now, so we are a little worried,” she wrote.
In Ohio, David Yoder continued the role of detective, but nothing panned out. At the Benton Mennonite school, no one had heard of Danny Stutzman.
Chris and Diane Swartzentruber were on a buggy ride with their friend Amos Slabaugh, who lived south of Kidron, when Eli Stutzman’s name came up. The Amishman said he had heard that Danny had died in a car accident and that some Amish had gone looking for the child’s grave, but that they couldn’t find it.
“Right when this was said, I’m not a real religious person, I don’t attend church, but I do believe in God. Something went through me. Chills,” Diane later recalled. “I knew something else had happened to Danny.”
