Teens Who Know Acker Now See Disturbing Habits
By Raquel Rutledge, Dan Egan and Linda Spice
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
March 29, 2009
http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/42065797.html
The expensive shoes and basketball jerseys, meals and miniature golf outings were great, but there were more important things that drew teenage boys to Daniel John Acker.
"When I needed to vent, he would be there to listen," said Travis Rentschler, a 19-year-old who lives around the corner from Acker's former home on W. Rogers St. in West Allis.
Acker, 61, appeared in court on Saturday, shackled at his wrists and ankles, and said little other than that he will comply with court orders not to contact another 19-year-old man who is at the center of charges filed Friday accusing the longtime swimming instructor of sexual abuse. No friends, family or accusers were in the courtroom as the commissioner set Acker's bail at $65,000.
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| Daniel Acker has been charged with second-degree sexual assault of a child. Photo by Benny Sieu |
Police and Acker's temporary public defender said Acker has confessed to having sexual contact with the man. Five other men in their 40s have also come forward and alleged they were assaulted by Acker in the 1970s when they were between the ages of 7 and 18. And more are being interviewed in what Greenfield police describe as the "largest child, sex assault, pedophile sex investigation" in the department's history.
Additional charges could be filed Monday.
As it all unfolds, neighborhood boys and young men such as Rentschler wonder if they should have seen it coming.
Rentschler is among a small, tight-knit group of boys who were friends with Acker's foster children and spent many nights at his home. "I pretty much lived over there," he said.
Rentschler and the other boys said Acker never touched them. But looking back, some things they considered a little strange at the time now seem especially creepy, they said.
Such as the way Acker would strip naked and take showers with the boys after swimming lessons.
David Radionov, a 17-year-old who also spent a lot of time at Acker's house, said he was in the locker room on many occasions when Acker would shower with the boys. "I thought it was weird to have an adult and a bunch of little kids in there," Radionov said. "But he said he was allergic to chlorine."
Then there was the time Acker was out of town and Rentschler and one of Acker's foster children were watching the house.
A package arrived addressed to John Acker. When the boys looked inside, they found books depicting nude men. Acker would later say that someone was sending him harassing mail.
The passion with which Acker hated his mother was especially unusual, Rentschler thought.
"He said he would have killed her if he could have?.?.?.? that she caused him such pain," he said.
Acker's mother, Ardyce Acker, 85, did not answer her door or telephone when a reporter tried to contact her.
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| Daniel Acker stares at his ankle restraints in intake court Saturday at the Criminal Justice Facility in Milwaukee. Bail was set at $65,000. Photo by Benny Sieu |
Other things that now seem suspicious to the boys and others include the backyard of the house on Rogers where Acker lived for more than 17 years. Fenced and about the size of two cars side-by-side, it's covered in concrete.
Greg Tyczkowski bought the house from Acker in May.
"It was something we just kind of joked about. My mom was joking around and was like, 'They found a whole bunch of bodies under something like that back in the day.' I was like, 'Ha, ha, ha.'?"
It's unclear when the pavement was poured.
Police say Acker is obsessed with missing and murdered boys, but he is not a suspect in any killings.
Tyczkowski said the house, even the basement, was spotless. Not a speck of dust anywhere. The replica of a city with police and fire stations was in an upstairs room when Tyczkowski first looked at the house. Police would later discover a dozen pictures of abducted and murdered children pasted to the walls inside the model police station.
A 'neat freak'
The boys who hung around the house on Rogers also describe Acker as a "neat freak."
They talk of witty man who would drop his pen or clipboard into the swimming pool to elicit a laugh but one with a temper who would shout uncontrollably about a potato chip dropped on the floor.
He spent many nights upstairs alone listening to the police scanner.
And nobody could overlook his odd fixation with his model cars, they said.
"He would repaint one car 10 times," Rentschler said, fervently sanding and painting, sanding and painting.
For several boys, Acker was a confidant, providing a safe haven of sorts when things at home got rough.
"If anybody were to be in trouble or get kicked out - which in the group we're in is kind of common - he would offer them a place to sleep and food to eat," Radionov said. "I appreciate the things that he did do for me."
Upon reflection, Radionov wonders if Acker planned it that way.
"Every single one of us that kicked it over at (Dan's) ain't the best," he said.
They said Acker tried to steer them away from drugs, alcohol and cigarettes and would scold his older foster son when the boy got caught with drugs.
Other young men who knew Acker from the swimming pool also found some of Acker's behavior unusual. They, too, commented on his showering with kids or just watching them shower.
Yet some saw only his outgoing and helpful side.
Jeff Malinowski worked as a swim instructor with Acker in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Malinowski, a college student and a new swim instructor at the time, said Acker was a role model for new instructors. "I was in my early 20s and I really didn't know how to deal with children, and Dan was very good with them," Malinowski said.
Some instructors would wear out from the daily pool lessons. Acker always seemed enthusiastic, Malinowski said.
"Sometimes you know when a coach is just there for the money. I always thought Dan truly cared about the kids in class," he said.
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Details about Acker's early childhood are sketchy. He spent his middle and high school days in the family's modest ranch home near W. Lincoln Ave. and S. 86th St. He has three sisters, according to his father's 2003 obituary.
He graduated from eighth grade at St. Rita School, 6021 W. Lincoln Ave., in 1962. A classmate at the time remembers him well.
"I had a huge crush on him," said the woman, who did not want her name published because she is active in St. Rita's Parish. She said Acker was not enrolled at the school in the earlier elementary years.
Acker attended St. Rita at the same time that George Nuedling was associate pastor at the church. Nuedling died in 1994. Eight years later, 10 people alleged Nuedling had abused them as children in the 1960s and 1970s.
Peter Isely, Midwest director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he had seen dozens of names of those who reported being abused by Nuedling and that Acker's was not one of them. But, he said, Nuedling is suspected of sexually abusing more than 100 children, so it is possible. Even so, Isely cautioned against connecting sexual abuse as a child to becoming an abuser as an adult.
"The science just doesn't support it," he said.
Police say paperwork gleaned from Acker's house shows he served in the U.S. Air Force from 1969 to 1971; worked at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex from 1971 to 1995; and the West Allis Recreation Department since 1971.
On Saturday, police in several jurisdictions continued to receive calls from people who said they, too, had been sexually molested by Acker. In some cases the people who came forward revealed other names to police, as well.
With 11 to 12 police investigators on the case nearly 18 hours a day, they estimate they have interviewed as many as 50 men suspected of being victimized by Acker.
"We talked to them. They either don't recall details of assaults or don't want to cooperate in coming forward at this time," said Bradley Wentlandt, deputy inspector with the Greenfield Police Department.
Police consider some cases to be "high-level sexual assaults," Wentlandt said. "Not fondling. It went far beyond that.?.?.?.? The assaults generally started with taking pictures of them and graduated to more serious things."
Wentlandt said Acker made confessions during three days of interviews but that he didn't offer anything else.
"He did not seem remorseful. He didn't want to provide us with any additional information that we didn't already know," Wentlandt said.
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On Saturday, parents kept a watchful eye on their children in the swimming pool at Frank Lloyd Wright Middle School, where Acker taught, feeling helpless and uneasy even as Acker remained behind bars.
Sandy Bark made a point of telling her 6-year-old not to trust strangers. Acker, the guy the family knows simply as Mr. Dan, wasn't one of those people.
"The sad thing is, this man wasn't a stranger to these kids," she said. "He was someone they cared about."
Bark said the children in the swim class would unleash ear-piercing screams when Mr. Dan burst through the metal door of the boys locker room to teach the 11 a.m. beginners class.
He'd walk like a penguin. He'd spit water through the neon-colored swim noodles. He'd flop into the pool.
"He related to kids on a kid's level. He was kind of goofy," Bark said. "He got their attention by his goofiness."
Bark said she picked this class because her sister recommended Acker.
Swim class parent Dave Cooklock said his 5-year-old son was equally captivated by a teacher he and his wife thought looked and behaved like the actor Rowan Atkinson, the title character in the British television series "Mr. Bean" - an adult who acted like a child.
"Looking back at how good he was with kids, you could see how he could use that as a tool," Cooklock said.
Cooklock said he had no concerns that Acker did anything inappropriate in this swim class; parents are perched on bleachers, and a lifeguard sits at the poolside.
But he said it was difficult to explain to his son why his teacher was missing on the last day of class.
"He asked where the funny guy was," Cooklock said. "We said, 'He's not here today.' What else can you say to a 5-year-old?"
Bark had the same problem explaining Acker's absence to her daughter.
"I told him he wouldn't be teaching her class today," he said. "I told her he did something that was inappropriate."
She said it was hard to tell her daughter that. This, after all, wasn't some stranger.
This was Mr. Dan.
This was a guy she taught her daughter to trust when she was in water over her head.
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