(Published Wednesday, January 17, 2007 12:36:48 PM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
By Marcia Nelesen Gazette staff
Russ Lucht is letting the police do their jobs.
He's focused on doing his: Burying his daughter and grandchildren.
Last Friday morning, Russ crawled through the window of his daughter's locked trailer home. Inside, he found a bloody scene and the murdered bodies of Danyetta Lentz, 38, and her children Nicole, 17, and Scott, 14.
Tuesday morning, four days after his grisly discovery, Russ sat in a booth at the Wander In Cafe, 1445 Center Ave., Janesville, owned by his longtime girlfriend Fayette Fischer. Russ worked for more than 30 years at Gilman Engineering and today cooks at the diner, as did Danyetta on the weekends.
Father and daughter shared a love of cooking.
Russ Lucht and Kimberly Lucht, father and sister of Danyetta Lentz, sit in a booth at the Wander In Cafe in Janesville and talk about the murders of Danyetta and her children, Nicole and Scott. Russ cooks at the cafe, and Danyetta worked there on weekends.
Al Hoch/Gazette Staff
Fayette said running the diner is kind of a family affair.
"She'll be greatly missed,'' Fayette said of Danyetta.
Russ struggles to push away the horror of Friday morning and is stoic as he concentrates on what needs to be done.
Russ withdrew money from his retirement account to start burial preparations. A fund has been started to help pay expenses.
The bodies will be cremated, and all three wil be buried in one plot.
Russ would have cremated the bodies right away, but he understands that the rest of the family needs closure.
"The reason to see (Danyetta and) the kids is to make sure that they're actually there,'' said Danyetta's sister Kimberly Lucht, 29, Beloit.
"I still think they're in the trailer, living their lives.''
"I just really want to call her,'' Kimberly said.
Lois Gillis, Danyetta's mother, also was at the diner Tuesday.
"I'm to the point where I run out of words,'' Lois said. "I'm still trying to convince myself. Then I get mad.''
Russ can't bring himself to go back into the trailer to get clothes for the burials. He said he'd rather go to Wal-Mart or Goodwill and get something nice.
He is tying up his daughter's loose ends, and he hears people say what a hard worker Danyetta was. How she would do anything for anybody.
Even when Danyetta was down, it didn't take much to put a smile back on her face, Russ recalled.
Danyetta and her four brothers and sisters attended elementary school in Footville. She graduated from Parkview High School in Orfordville.
Danyetta was married a short time to Tom Lentz, who now lives in Texas, but that didn't work out, Russ said. She then lived in Washington and Minneapolis and moved back to Janesville more than 10 years ago.
Here, the single mother struggled to raise her children with pay from her job as a child-care provider for Community Action.
"She'd visit the First National Bank, which was me,'' Russ said with a sad smile.
Car troubles, for instance, would set her back. She recently had to get new tires. Then, the battery went, and then the alternator.
But "we fixed her up,'' Russ said.
He recalled how Danyetta couldn't afford to buy Nicole a birthday gift, but Nicole took it in stride.
"How many kids would be satisfied with a 12-pack of pop wrapped up for a gift?'' her grandfather asked. "That's what Danyetta had on the table for her.''
Danyetta would make up for it, though, when her tax refund arrived. She'd pay back her dad and get the kids some new things.
Things were getting better, Russ said. Danyetta borrowed less over the years.
Kimberly spent a lot of time with her older sister and the kids. She is tortured by imagining the deaths of her loved ones.
She takes pills to fall asleep.
"I'd like to know who got it first,'' she said. "I'd like to know who saw what; if Scottie saw Nicki.
"I'd like to know who died first.''
Scottie, Kimberly said, was protective of his mom.
The autopsies, which were conducted over the weekend, may have answered some questions, Russ said, but he didn't know the results.
If authorities do catch the person or people responsible, Russ knows everything will only get worse. The media will dredge up the details and he'll have to relive them.
The deaths are his last thoughts as he drifts off to sleep and his first thoughts as he wakes.
"I just glanced,'' he said. "But I saw enough … to stay in the back of my mind forever.''
You know how you check for pulses? he asked.
Russ didn't have to.
"I knew just from the expression on Danyetta's face, she was gone,'' he said.
And he knew when he saw Nicole, the front of her body spattered with blood.
"And Scott, laying face-down on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. He wasn't there.''
Russ said he doesn't have the foggiest idea who could have done this, who could have been that mad at the family.
"I've run out of names to turn around in my head,'' he said.
Russ said he talked to Rock County Sheriff Bob Spoden just Monday night and thanked him for the hard work police have put in.
Russ said he told Spoden: "'I don't even need an update until it's completely over with. There's so much for you guys to do.'
