May 16, 2011 at 7:07 a.m.
Logger's brush with death not his first, he says
The April 19 shoot-out in the woods of northern Wisconsin is not the first time that John “Homer” Van Meter has bumped against death, he says. Among them were two auto accidents and the time a tree fell on him. He's no stranger to bullets coming his way either.
“It's not the first time I've been shot,” the 52-year-old logger told The Daily News in an interview at his home Thursday. While he provided details about an auto accident that almost claimed his life at age 19, he declined to talk about the other shooting incident.
Investigators from the Lincoln and Oneida county sheriff's departments are working together to retrieve clues and develop leads about the events of April 19, the day Van Meter claims two men approached him as he was working in the woods outside Tomahawk and began shooting at him.
The gun battle lasted several hours and included a long chase through the woods, according to the account given authorities. When he emerged from the woods, Van Meter was bloodied and suffering from a gunshot to his abdomen, among other injuries.
After a hospitalization of several days at Aspirus Hospital in Wausau, he was discharged and returned home Wednesday night.
Van Meter and his wife, Darlene Machtan, live in a comfortable home just outside of Rhinelander. Beautiful prints of songbirds and plants grace the paneled walls. They have three dogs, including 115-pound Riley, a three-year-old Akita who was with Van Meter at the time of the shooting. Riley, with his long fur and weight, sizes up favorably with small hills. There's a rifle lying on the kitchen table where the interview takes place. But there are no other guns visible.
Van Meter openly admits to carrying loaded guns with him while driving to the woods - “Gun ain't loaded ain't worth a damn” - a quote he attributes to John Wayne.
Indeed as the interview progressed, he loaded two clips with .223 bullets and inserted one of them into the AR-15 lying on the table. It sat on his lap during the last 20 minutes of the interview. At the end he took the weapon into a bedroom and leaned it against the wall. He moved slowly under a housecoat that draped his tall and lanky frame. It's a testimony to the fact that the belly wound bothers him a lot. Though he takes note of it, he didn't grimace or complain of the pain.
He's been an independent logger for 32 years. “It's an awful lot of work for the pay,” he said, adding it's the outdoors and independence - “not having to answer to anyone” that he enjoys. “It's the only occupation left in this country that if someone (offends you), you can bop him on the nose and send them on their way and there's nothing they can do about it.” One does have to be on good terms with foresters and wood buyers, he added.
April 19 was a “typical logging day,” he said. “A (time) we loggers call breakup.” Road limits were on and he got a late start to the woods where he was going to work on his skidder in the tract located in the Spirit Falls area near Tomahawk.
He says he saw his assailants twice that morning, both times driving by his house. The first time, at about 7:30-7:35 a.m., he thought it might have been a neighbor. The vehicle (the same black SUV he said his assailants drove into the woods) stopped, and the driver turned around a short distance away. He didn't think much of it as lots of people drive slowly past their house because their dogs are penned outside. Even when the vehicle returned about 9:30 a.m., he “wasn't overly suspicious.”
That changed when he drove through Tomahawk, stopped to gas up his pickup truck and saw the same individuals. “These are the sons of bitches that passed by the house,” he recalls telling his dog. “Well, pup, we'll take them to the swamp and see what they are made of.”
He had a .45 caliber revolver tucked into his bib overalls - “It saved my life, no way around it.” He didn't see them again until he was working on the skidder. Riley jumped up, growled and barked. Both occupants got out; the passenger said, “He's mine.”
Van Meter says although he did not recognize either man, he's sure he saw them 18 months ago under circumstances that he was not willing to share, but did allow that the men were engaged in illegal activity then.
The logger said he ducked behind a wheel of the skidder and drew that “life-saving” .45 and thumbed the hammer to cock it. By then the driver had gotten off several shots. Riley had already run into the woods when the passenger - it looked as if the man had one arm, Van Meter says - came around the skidder with his own pistol in the air. As he brought it down to bear on him, Van Meter said he shot and hit him in the right side, knocking him down immediately.
(The man later got up, as did the other man who was shot at least twice with the .45 and slugs from a .12 gauge shotgun during the gunbattle. Van Meter says both men must have been wearing high-quality body armor to have survived.)
In the meantime, Van Meter said he dove for the front seat of the pickup truck to pick up more ammo. He also grabbed his 30.06 rifle, a high-velocity weapon that can penetrate body armor. As he slammed the bolt home on a round, gunfire from one of the assailants hit the rifle barrel, rendering it useless.
When he reached for the shotgun that was also behind the front seat, a second volley of rounds went into the pickup truck, hitting him. He says he was grazed on the forehead and had trouble staying conscious. Under the pickup truck by then, he shot at the legs of an assailant. “I saw the fabric fly off the pants leg. He wheeled around and fled.” Van Meter shot again and hit him in the back and knocked him down.
Van Meter said he got off all five rounds of birdshot in his shotgun, hitting one attacker in the face as he hid behind a tree. He reloaded with buckshot and slugs.
At one point Riley came back into the fray and was knocked down. Van Meter said he feared Riley had been killed, but now thinks a concussion from a round put him down temporarily.
The next few hours - the shooting started about noon - saw Van Meter exchanging gunfire with the original driver of the black SUV. The other individual fled with the vehicle, Van Meter said. During one of those exchanges, Van Meter said he jumped on a pile of logs and shot at the assailant waist-deep in the beaver pond. The man went down, but came back up. Van Meter says the chase was over four miles in the woods.
Heading to safety with his pickup wasn't an option, he said. The tires were shot out.
Sometime during that chase, he yelled at the attacker, “Give it up, I'll just arrest you and take you in. If you don't, I'll have to kill you.”
The other replied, “You are not going to catch me old man.”
Later, Van Meter who had three graze wounds on his forehead and torso, “got a little careless.” He says he was shot through the belly with either a 9 mm or a 380 caliber pistol.
The bullet entered the right side, and moved across to the left side.
Shortly afterward the chase ended. The man exited on a road. Van Meter said he heard a car door slam and the vehicle sped away. He didn't see enough of the vehicle to even see what color it was. Van Meter was picked up by a motorist who took him to a nearby home where a 9-1-1 call was made. He was taken to Sacred Heart Hospital in Tomahawk and then to Aspirus.
The doctors who operated on him removed 4-5 inches of his small intestines, removed the pancreas and repaired holes in the colon. In addition to the other graze wounds, he suffered a superficial wound to the calf of his right leg.
He said he's grateful for the cards, letters and phone calls from well-wishers. He also complimented both sheriff's departments for their work.
Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Koth said Van Meter is “a very private individual.” Van Meter mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the 34th Assembly District seat in 2000. He's authored and published the book: “Days of the Little Guy” and followed it up with � Days,” a sequel to Little Guy.
Jeff Simon, a sergeant investigator from Lincoln County's department, heads up the investigation. Two other sergeant investigators from Lincoln and at least one detective sergeant from the Oneida County Sheriff's Department are also working the case, as are the State Patrol and wardens. A composite sketch has been released based on a description of one of the men that Van Meter provided. It is of a white male in his early to mid 20's with blond hair.
Investigators are tracking down tips offered by the public and have conducted interviews with those who have had contact with Van Meter to see if past disputes may have led someone to attack him. They have recovered dozens of shell casings, all of a .223 caliber, from the scene.
Nothing has been ruled out, according to informed sources. Authorities are mystified about the bizarre nature of events that was told them. They are sure he didn't stumbled upon a meth lab, nor was there any marijuana cultivation going on.
Van Meter bristles at any suggestion that events were fabricated, the wounds self-inflicted. “Preposterous,” he says.
Sheriff Tom Koth of Lincoln says, “Preliminary evidence does not point to self-infliction. We have not come up anything that would be in conflict with what he's saying. We are treating him with the respect that a victim should have.”
Much of the evidence that was collected at the scene is still at the State Crime Lab awaiting analysis. Koth says there's no clear direction where their investigating is taking them.
“Nothing seems to be adding up,” he said. “We are keeping all our options on the table.”
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