Town note
It is the county seat of Gillespie County.
about 0:06:37The story
His mother described him as affectionate and soft-hearted; his father remembered that at fourteen, on a deer hunt, he was shaken and could not stand the blood. He was a star athlete but left school after punching an assistant principal and finished at Portage High School. In 1976, aged eighteen, he joined the Navy, then received an early honourable discharge that his parents came to believe was psychological. His parents sold their dairy farm near Poynette and moved to Fredericksburg, Texas, and he followed. He married Janie Luckenbach and they had three children. In 1981 he was committed involuntarily to Kerrville State Hospital and diagnosed as paranoid after becoming hostile to his family. His parents returned to Wisconsin in 1982; he stayed in Texas. By 1986 his wife was terrified of him. In her divorce petition she said he threatened her and was obsessed with the idea that the devil lived in their house. He said he had seen the devil on the wall, cut him with a knife and watched blood run out. He was admitted to Starlight Village Hospital and diagnosed with schizophrenia. He buried all the living-room furniture in the back garden, arranged as it had stood in the room, and nailed the curtains to the wall so neighbours could not film him. He was transferred to Kerrville and then to the Waco Veterans Administration Hospital for antipsychotic medication. At the end of 1986 he moved back to Wisconsin and was treated at the Tomah Veterans Hospital, Northern Pines and Cumberland Memorial Hospital, with diagnoses of schizophrenia, depression, delusions, auditory hallucinations and homicidal ideation towards his family. After the divorce he became more unstable and returned to Texas, where he was committed again and diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. In 1989 he married Sonya Alvarado and their daughter was born. In 1990 he was committed after threatening to kill his wife, their baby, his father-in-law and himself; in 1992 he was committed again, and records noted several named personalities. In August 1992 Sonya left him and moved in with her parents, Joe and Amanda Alvarado. On 1 September she found him mumbling at home; they argued and he struck her in the face with a rifle butt. She obtained a protective order and returned to her parents. On 8 September he shaved his head, sawed off a shotgun, put on military fatigues and drove to the Alvarado house with the shotgun and a .30-06 deer rifle. Sonya heard the back sliding door shatter and ran, but he caught her and hit her with the rifle butt. She crawled back inside; he cornered her in a small hallway, shot Joe and then Amanda through the head, and turned the rifle on her, but it jammed. Over two and a half years his court-appointed lawyer found him unable to cooperate. Quarterman. He died of natural causes at the hospital in Galveston on 26 May 2025, aged 67. Joe and Amanda Alvarado are buried at St Mary Cemetery in Fredericksburg.