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In late 2016, investigators do track down two of his adult children, including the daughter who was allegedly
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forced to help dispose of the body. >> Mhm. Now, she describes a father who was cruel and abusive, like in every way,
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physically, sexually, psychologically. She says that he was obsessed with Stephanie's case and with like true
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detective magazines. He would make the kids read what he called Root River Killer stories out loud and then tell
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them everything the stories got wrong, which he says he knew because he was the real killer. And his daughter says she
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does have this early childhood memory of being forced to throw heavy, sticky bags
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into Root River. And her father told her to make sure that they sank. Afterwards, she said Wilbert scrubbed
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his car clean. And their family property was overrun with dogs, like more than a
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hundred of them. And when they got sick, Wilbert would kill them, butcher them, and then feed them to the other dogs.
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I'm telling you, like this dude was the stuff nightmares are made of. But as damning as all of this sounds, none of
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it was provable. Investigators nowadays can't even confirm that, you know, he called it the Root River Killer, like
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they don't even know that as a real moniker. Like it was never used by the media, it was never used by law
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enforcement. So, there's a world where Wilbert just invented it to terrorize his kids.