Every person I talked to had the same sorts of stories to tell about Lanie Buhrman. One girl claimed that Lanie had spit on her in the hallway, one boy told me that Lanie had stolen his mother’s prescription drugs during a party at his house. It’s safe to say that Lanie Buhrman did not have the best reputation.
But back in 2002, Lanie Buhrman was just a wide-eyed girl, and Warren Cave was the one with a bad reputation. Based on appearance alone, it was easy to think that he was a bad guy. I thought the same thing when I saw pictures of Warren from the early 2000s. When I first began speaking with his mother, I assumed fond remembrances of her son were outdated or wishful thinking. Then I met Warren and found him to be polite and articulate. I initially assumed that he was just putting on a good face to meet me, but I learned from prison guards that Warren is generally regarded as one of the best-behaved prisoners on the block.
Since arriving in Elm Park, I have encountered more people who are willing to vouch for Warren Cave’s personality than Lanie’s—even from the 2000s. Earlier this week, for example, I was getting coffee at the local coffee shop when a woman approached me and identified herself as Jeanette Ragnorak, Warren Cave’s high school math teacher. She told me she was glad I’m on the case because she’s certain that Warren isn’t guilty.
JEANETTE:
You’ll never convince me that Warren Cave killed anyone. He was in my Algebra II class the year before all this happened, and he was much more of a softie than he wanted anyone to believe. Sure, he dressed like the Grim Reaper, but he was as tough as a gerbil. One afternoon, I noticed he wasn’t paying attention in class—he was nudging a piece of paper along the back of the chair in front of him. I was about to reprimand him, but then I realized he was trying to catch a spider. So many other students—particularly the boys—would’ve smashed the spider, but Warren coaxed it into his hands and gently released it on the window ledge. I recall that so clearly because it was so unexpected. He didn’t look like the gentle soul who would do that. But appearances can be deceiving. And it was the first thing I thought of when I later heard they’d arrested him for murder. He couldn’t even hurt a spider, I thought—there’s no way he murdered a man in cold blood.
Warren’s former math teacher wasn’t the only person who reached out to me to defend Warren. A woman who described herself as a high school friend of Melanie’s told me how Warren used to babysit her child.
MONICA WOOLEY:
Sure, Warren could look a little off-putting with that hair and those clothes and, well, that sneer, but he was the only one my Danny tolerated. Warren’s biggest secret was that he had a heart of gold.
I heard from several other Elm Park citizens who had redeeming things to say about Warren, but who didn’t want to end up on the podcast. But you know what they say: the plural of anecdote is not data. That’s all that these stories are: anecdotes.
Yet, it’s important to note that, while people have approached me to relate nice things about Warren, I’ve heard only the opposite about Lanie Buhrman. Jeanette Ragnorak, for one, also had some choice things to say about Lanie:
JEANETTE:
I had Lanie Buhrman in class two years after I had Warren. I’m a math teacher, so I’m used to children hating my class, but Lanie was something else altogether. If I wasn’t directly interacting with her, she’d put her head down on her desk. On multiple occasions, she just got up and left. And, in all my years of teaching, I have never had to charge a student for a textbook, but Lanie Buhrman used a marker to black out entire pages.
I heard from many other people who had stories of Lanie cutting class, smoking in the bathroom, and stealing from the cafeteria.
Again, though: anecdotes. Still, all these anecdotes are interesting because together they provide some context for the mind-sets of the major players. But without a doubt, the most interesting interview I had this week was about more than context—it was about fact.
As you undoubtedly recall, Warren Cave had no alibi for the night Chuck Buhrman was killed. His story has always been that he was getting high off cough syrup in the local cemetery, and that he then got in a fight with some kids in the park. These unidentified kids are the only ones who could verify that Warren was somewhere else at the exact moment that Chuck Buhrman was getting killed, and they have, for the last thirteen years, remained unidentified. Even though Warren’s attorney put out a call for these individuals to come forward, no one did.
Until last week.
I received a call from a woman named Maggie Kallas. In October 2002, Maggie was a senior honors student at Elm Park High School, and she claims that she was at the park the same night Chuck Buhrman was murdered—and that she saw Warren there.
MAGGIE:
Warren Cave was telling the truth about getting thrown in the lake that night. I was there.
POPPY:
Tell me what happened.
MAGGIE:
Some of us were drinking at the park. It wasn’t the kind of thing we normally did, you have to understand, but it was the fall of our senior year, and we were feeling invincible. There were five of us, I think. Maybe six. Me and Keith and . . . Oh, never mind that. It’s hard to remember at this point. We were all pretty drunk, and Warren Cave came riding his bicycle through the park. And he just looked ridiculous. I mean, he was this goth kid, all gangly with this bad dye job, riding a bicycle, for heaven’s sake, and he was weaving all over the place. And the guys . . . well, they were wasted and started throwing things at him. And that made him mad, and they got to pushing and shoving, and next thing you know, Warren was in the water.
POPPY:
Warren has said that he was held underwater until he passed out.
MAGGIE:
Well, I don’t know about that. Like I said, we were all drinking, and we girls stayed back. I just know that at some point the boys came running back from the lake, and we all ran away.
POPPY:
Were you aware that a request had been issued for information about Warren Cave’s whereabouts that evening?
MAGGIE:
Yeah.
POPPY:
Why didn’t you come forward?
MAGGIE:
We were scared. You’re not supposed to be in the park after dark, you know, and you’re definitely not supposed to be drinking there. We knew that we’d be in trouble if we admitted anything. We were all, for lack of a better description, good kids. We were on the student council and sports teams, and we were scared that something like that would ruin our futures. We thought we’d never get into college. And so we decided to stick together and stay quiet. You have to believe me, though: we didn’t think it would have any impact. We assumed that if Warren was innocent, that would be evident in court no matter what we said. We were so stupid. I’m so ashamed. I was worried about ruining my life, but instead I helped ruin someone else’s.
POPPY:
Why are you coming forward now? Warren has been in prison for more than twelve years.