Fritz Henrich Schroeder （62） died yesterday from a gunshot wound outside his home in Garden City. A pillar of the community and longtime resident, he was the vice president of development at BeachCo Laboratories. He was known throughout the neighborhood as a committed father and husband who doted on his children and took them to visit his family in Germany every year. He was also a eucharistic minister at Saint Anne’s Church.
Fritz Henrich Schroeder Jr., “FJ,” （19） also died from a gunshot wound. A popular student and “One of the best attackers the Garden City lacrosse team has ever known,” according to Coach Nolan, FJ was scheduled to attend Hofstra University in the fall on an athletic scholarship. The high school has decided to name the annual lacrosse MVP award after him.
Ella Elizabeth Schroeder （9） also died from a gunshot wound. Ella attended Stewart School, where she excelled at reading and mathematics.
Shelly Wyatt Schroeder （13） was discovered dead at the bottom of the Maple Street sinkhole. Authorities had been searching for her for weeks.
Rhea Munsen Schroeder （53） died yesterday by suicide after shooting her husband, daughter, and son.
They are survived by Gretchen Schroeder （20）。
Coverage of the Maple Street tragedy can be found on pages 1–5, 7, 11, 14, 16.
From Newsday, August 4, page 3
Filling of the Maple Street sinkhole was completed today. The task took less time than anticipated, as much of the hole and excavation tunnels used in the search for Shelly Schroeder, whose body was found on Monday morning, collapsed. Likewise, cleanup crews will conduct less tar sand remediation than anticipated, as once those tunnels closed, much of the surrounding bitumen resorbed. Says sinkhole expert from Hofstra University Tom Brymer, “Climate change is happening so fast that it’s beyond our science. Right now, we can only witness what’s happening. We don’t yet understand it.”
For more on the new preponderance of sinkholes, see page 18. For more on the Maple Street tragedy, see pages 2, 3, 6, 8, and 11.
From Believing What You See: Untangling the Maple Street Murders, by Ellis Haverick,
Hofstra University Press, ? 2043
Finally, we can look for evidence in the Wildes.
Gertie Wilde seemingly suffered no ill effects. She carried her third child to term and delivered without complications. Professionally, she continued in real estate, recently earning a Women of the San Fernando Valley Award in 2040.
Arlo’s career was revived by all the attention, particularly after the police department issued a statement in support of his character. He sold a final album, Blood Arrow, and went on to teach songwriting at UCLA. He died of hepatitis in December 2037, an infection he contracted from intravenous drug use.
Gertie continues to live in the house they shared in Van Nuys, California. I visited her there. The house is a split-level ranch. There’s a white picket fence, but the lawn is untended. Squatters occupy many of the surrounding houses, now that temperatures regularly reach 120 degrees.
Gertie sat across from me on an old couch and spoke between her grandchild’s squawks. The child is a two-year-old boy, belonging to Julia Wilde, who lives in nearby Sherman Oaks. Julia works as a social worker for foster children. Larry Wilde dropped out of college to found a video game company in Montreal. Both children declined my requests for an interview, but Larry sent this email:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your interest in my story. It is not mine to tell. It belongs only to a girl who fell a long time ago.
Sincerely,
Larry Wilde
Gertie wore a low-cut shirt and chunky silver necklace with silver eye shadow that matched. Despite all this time on the West Coast, her Brooklyn accent remained thick. I asked her if she believed Arlo had harmed the Maple Street children and she denied it. I asked her how she could be sure.
“You’re the only reporter still schlepping this story of Arlo’s guilt. Nobody else who’s investigated the case agrees with you. But you’re so loud about it that people believe you,” she answered. “You kind of remind me of Rhea.”
I asked her to clarify.
“You know what’s scary? It’s not outside.” Gertie pointed at her heart. “It’s in here. That’s what scared Rhea.
“When I think about Rhea, sometimes I remember this old woman who lived in the apartment next door. She could hardly walk and she was alone most days. One time, I was just too tired. I wasn’t myself and I hadn’t recovered from my breakdown. But Larry didn’t care about that. He was just little. Less than three months. He had spells. And there’d been a snowstorm, so Julia couldn’t get to daycare. We were stuck for the second or third day in a row. Sometimes it’s just like that. A messy scream of a day. And the thing about Julia was that she was always so worried about me, trying to help and scared I’d fall apart. But then, that made her anxious and difficult, too. It’s hard coming from the other side of that, when you’re the mom but you don’t have such great tools to reassure. You feel bad, and that makes you feel ungenerous.