Wisconsin crime and its aftermath illustrates many issues arising in rural settings

This story out of Barron, Wisconsin has been in the news for weeks.  The New York Times headline sums up a lot:  "Mystery in a Small Town:  A Quiet Couple Shot Dead, their Daughter Missing." 

Cows and corn and silence stretch out on either side of Highway 8, beyond the Jennie-O turkey plant and 10 churches that serve this town of just over 3,400. So when James and Denise Closs, a quiet couple who had lived in town for decades, were found shot to death in their taupe house last month, residents were stunned. It was an agonizing loss of two lives, but also of a way of life. 

Front doors are being locked. F.B.I. agents have descended. Yet after three weeks, residents are left with a terrifying mystery that goes beyond the shocking deaths: Not only have the authorities publicly identified no suspect, no murder weapon and no motive, but the Closses’ 13-year-old daughter, Jayme, has been missing ever since.

The 78-member strong sheriff's department at one point ballooned to 200, including state and federal law enforcement officials, in the immediate aftermath of the crime.  The number of tips received exceeds 2100, but they have turned up nothing.  Barron's population is 3,423, and it is the county seat of Cumberland County in northwest Wisconsin. 

Another law-enforcement angle on the story that grabbed my attention was the quick work of the 911 dispatcher and the extraordinary response time to a home that appeared not to be in town: 

At just past 1 a.m. local time on Oct. 15, a 911 call came in to the sheriff’s office. No one spoke, but muffled shouting could be heard. The police traced the call to Denise Closs’s cellphone, and arrived at the house on Highway 8 four minutes later. They found the front door open and the couple dead.

Loss of innocence is another theme of the story, with families reporting investments in alarm systems and children sleeping together. 

In the past decade, there have been a total of four killings in Barron County, according to the sheriff. Barron is the kind of town where screen doors are left unlatched in summer; in winter, few lock their front doors. Those days are over, several residents said.

And then there is this regarding the sense of community, even in a place that's recently seen an influx of immigrants from Africa; 20% of town's residents are of Somali heritage:

Not long after the killings and Jayme’s disappearance, members of the Somali community delivered trays of East African food to the sheriff’s office; the food was part of a flood of meals donated by residents and businesses to the officials working on the case.

"When we see in the U.S.A. the same things that we had back in our home, you fear,” said Kaltuma Hassan, 44, who was born in Somalia.