HURLEY (WI)
Ironwood Daily Globe
Published Friday, December 30, 2005 11:55:14 AM Central Time
By MARGARET LEVRA
Globe Staff Writer
HURLEY -- Parishioners from St. Mary's Catholic Church in Hurley and area residents had a lot to digest this year about a man considered to be almost saint-like by many, but who later was ruled to be a murderer.
People struggled to accept the ruling that the late Rev. Ryan Erickson shot and killed funeral home director Dan O'Connell, 39, and his 22-year-old intern, James Ellison, at the O'Connell Funeral Home in Hudson, Wis., in February, 2002.
An October John Doe hearing determined Erickson committed the murders.
Erickson, 31, committed suicide on Dec. 19, 2004, in the midst of the double-murder investigation that would later determine Erickson shot and killed O'Connell and Ellison.
Erickson was found hanged outside the hallway between the rectory and St. Mary's Church by friends Rick Reams and Tom Burns, both of Hudson. He left two suicide notes.
The murder investigation by Hudson Police had been quiet for some time, until detectives traveled to Hurley in the fall of 2004 and questioned Erickson in a separate investigation of an allegation that Erickson was involved in a possible crime involving a child or children.