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Murder of Glenn Kopitske

On July 31st, 2003, 37-year-old Glenn Kopitske was shot and stabbed in his Winnebago County home in Wisconsin.

On August 2nd, Kopitske’s mother visited her son’s residence to check on him. She walked in and found her dead son’s naked body and contacted authorities.

When police arrived, they thought Kopitske had died of natural causes because the hot weather so severely decomposed the body.

A pathologist later determined that he was shot and then stabbed several times after he died.

There wasn’t much evidence pointing to the killer. Police knew Kopitske’s car keys were missing, but didn’t have much else.

Clout Chasing Leads Police To The Killer

Two weeks after Kopitske was killed, 17-year-old Gary Hirte called one of his friends, Eric, out of the blue and confessed to Killing Kopiske.

Eric didn’t take him seriously, but the next time they saw each other, Hirte pulled out an 8-inch-long hunting knife he said was the murder weapon and some car keys he claimed he’d stolen from the home.

In August 2003, Hirte met Olivia at a local fair. The two became friends, and eventually, Hirte told her he was the person who killed Kopitske.

The more he talked about it, the more she started to believe him, and in January 2004, she went to the cops.

Police wanted her to contact him while they were listening in. She did, and Hirte confessed to the murder and said he did it to “see if he could get away with it.”

Police obtained a warrant for his arrest. The next day at school, the straight-A student was called to the principal’s office and arrested.

He was charged with murder.

Legal Proceedings

In October 2004, he pleaded guilty to intentional homicide, but later, he claimed to be insane at the time of the crime.

At a sanity trial in 2005, he used a gay panic defense. He claimed he acted out a gay fantasy with Kopitske on August 31st, 2003.

After he sobered up, he claimed he regretted being with a man, so he returned to Kopitske’s home and killed him.

Prosecutors claimed there was no evidence the encounter had ever occurred. On February 4th, 2005, a jury rejected Hurt’s temporary insanity claims. A judge later sentenced him to 32 years to life in prison.

The psycho later told ABC, “There’s no reason I should be held accountable for this. That’s just the way I feel. I can’t change that”.