Night of terror in BWCA still haunts family

Emmerich Koller was looking forward to five days of rest and relaxation amid the lakes and scenic pines of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

But what he and his daughter, Marina, 26, and his son Andrew, 11, got instead was a night of terror.

"I thought, 'This is it. We are going to be killed,'" Emmerich Koller said Tuesday, recalling how he and his family hid in the brush, trembling, to avoid being seen by several men who had entered their Basswood Lake campground after dark Aug. 7 shouting profanities and threatening to kill and rape them following a verbal confrontation an hour earlier. "We were very scared."

After weeks of investigation, Lake County authorities filed 79 criminal charges against five men and a teenager from Ely, Minn., last week.

The six are accused of terrorizing and harassing dozens of campers during a night of beer-drinking and gun-shooting in the BWCA.

The charges include terroristic threats, aggravated harassment, criminal damage to property, reckless discharge of firearms, underage possession of firearms and underage alcohol consumption.

Barney J. Lakner, 37, Jay A. Olson, 19, Zachary R. Barton, 19, Travis J. Erzar, 20, and Casey J. Fenske, 19, will make their first court appearance Oct. 1. A complaint also was filed against a 16-year-old juvenile.

Lake County Attorney Russ Conrow declined to discuss the case Tuesday, saying "the complaint speaks for itself." He said federal investigators as well as authorities in Canada could file additional charges.

Terrifying ordeal

Koller, 64, a retired schoolteacher who lives in suburban Chicago, said Tuesday that he and his children are still traumatized by what happened six weeks ago. He said his daughter, also an Illinois schoolteacher, and his son have had recurring nightmares.

"I have difficulty sometimes in public places around other people," Marina Koller said Tuesday. "I also have trouble sometimes being home alone. I can't believe it. I can't believe this is what it's done to me."

According to the Kollers and information -- much of it culled from statements by the defendants -- outlined in the criminal complaint:

The trouble began before dusk on Aug. 7, when the five men and the teenager went to Basswood Lake in two motorboats to "have some fun," according to Barton.

Koller said he and his family heard shooting north of their campsite while they were eating supper about 7:30 p.m. on the first night of their BWCA trip.

"Here I am in this pristine wilderness and you don't expect to hear gunshots," he said. "And it was not just hunting rifles, but repeat rifles, semiautomatic."

About 10 p.m., three men in a motorboat stopped near the Kollers' campsite and began talking loudly and cursing. At the time, Koller didn't think they were involved in the earlier shooting.

He said he turned on his flashlight and asked them to be quiet, but was cursed, ridiculed for his accent -- Koller grew up in Hungary -- and told to shut up.

"They really cussed me out and cursed me out using every imaginable obscenity," Emmerich Koller said. "I was really taken aback. They seemed messed up, either drunk or on drugs, I don't know. They were scaring my family."

In the complaint, Olson told investigators that the men "kind of pushed it, yeah. We should have stopped."

Koller said Tuesday that when the men left, they lifted their motor out of the water and "revved it up." They shot a flare that exploded in the sky before leaving to meet up with their friends in a nearby bay.

While there, the five men and teenager sat in their boats, drank beer and fired off more rounds from several weapons.

Koller said that about 11 p.m. his son woke him to tell him a boat was approaching.

"As they got closer, I got an inkling: 'We've got to get out of here,'" Emmerich Koller said.

Koller and his children fled to the woods, pushing deep into the brush where they "just hunkered down and listened to their ranting and raving."

For the next 45 minutes, the men poked around the campsite, commenting in vulgar terms about the family's sleeping bags and food.

At one point, Marina Koller told authorities, one of the men said, "Maybe if you make us s'mores for an hour, we won't ... kill you!"[The men said] they were going to kill me and rape us all, in very graphic terms," Emmerich Koller said. "We were very scared. My daughter was just trembling behind me, and we were just holding onto each other."

A part-time bartender, Marina Koller said she'd never heard such foul language, even in a bar.

Skinny-dipping, too

About 15 minutes after the men left, Emmerich Koller called 911 and told a Lake County dispatcher what was happening. At the same time, the five men and teenager headed to a nearby beach to swim, where they confronted two adults, their five children and two friends of the children.

Two of the men skinny-dipped. One of the adults told investigators that the men used "a lot of f-words" and threatened a sexual assault.

By then, however, several more campers had called authorities to report men racing around "shooting guns,"terrorizing people" and setting fire to the lake with gasoline.

Within an hour, authorities arrested the men and the teen not far from Basswood Lake. They also confiscated evidence on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.

Over the next several days, officers would talk with more than 80 campers. One family said they were "mooned." Another man said he and his four children weren't threatened, but they were ready to flee. Other adults ordered children in their campground to lie down because they thought the gunshots were aimed in their direction.

Despite the ordeal, the Kollers stayed the night. After authorities showed up in the morning to tell them of the arrests, they stayed four more days.

And Emmerich Koller said Tuesday that he would like to return to the BWCA soon.

"We like it back there very much. It's beautiful up there," he said. "But we will not go back if these guys don't get what they deserve."

Richard Meryhew • 612-673-4425

Richard Meryhew • richm@startribune.com