The way Laurel-Lee Wirtz sees it, she lost her husband of nearly 40 years, the love of her life, to copper wire thieves.

It was just after 8 p.m. on Sunday — Christmas Eve — when Steve and Laurel-Lee Wirtz returned to their home in St. Paul’s North End after a night out with friends. She planned to cook crab legs and put on a Christmas movie. Steve, a former Rock-Tenn printer-pressman turned postal facility worker, took their nearly 2-year-old German Shepherd, Gunther, out of his kennel and told his wife he’d be right back after a walk.

Steven Wirtz and Gunther. (Courtesy of Laurel-Lee Wirtz)

Minutes later came a knock on the door. Laurel-Lee prepared to tease her husband, assuming he had locked himself out. Instead it was their neighbor, Jesus, telling her to come quickly. Steve had been run over in the unlit intersection of Maryland Avenue and Park Street, where he lay unrecognizable, a pool of blood beneath his head.

“All I could do was yell, ‘They killed him, they killed him, oh my God, they killed him,’” recalled Laurel-Lee on Thursday, four days after the fatal crash that claimed the lives of both her husband and Gunther, the couple’s sole pet. Neighbors rushed out to wrap a blanket around her and have been comforting her ever since. At the crash site, even some police officers shed tears, she recalled.

The driver of the Ford Taurus that hit Steve and Gunther remained at the scene and cooperated with authorities, according to St. Paul police. “I’m sure the man who struck and killed Gunther and Steve is totally devastated right now,” said Laurel-Lee, her voice breaking with emotion. “I’m sure his life has changed too.”

New pedestrian improvements — and a dark intersection

Despite recent improvements, the darkened Maryland Avenue intersection where Steve Wirtz died was technically still an active Ramsey County construction site, according to city officials. A new pedestrian median, freshly-painted crosswalk, pedestrian crossing signage and bump-out are all designed to calm traffic as part of the county’s “road diet” conversion of Maryland Avenue from four lanes to three.

A construction contractor installed a new LED cobra-style streetlight — which emits a bright, wide light — at Park and Maryland on Dec. 15, according to St. Paul Public Works, which intended to take over operation of the lighting once it was officially turned over to the city. The light, however, had yet to be turned on when the accident occurred.

“The whole area around here is pitch black,” said Laurel-Lee, noting she had called Public Works and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department with concerns, repeatedly, without receiving calls back. “We were always careful. We had flashlights and looked both ways. We cared about our dog.”

The streetlight problem, according to city officials, is a frustratingly familiar one.

“They weren’t able to connect it because of copper wire theft,” said St. Paul Public Works Director Sean Kershaw on Thursday. “Thieves are targeting construction sites because they’re easier. It’s easier to get into the conduits and it’s less likely to be noticed.”

“The particular tragedy here is that all of the efforts that were taking place were to make this whole corridor safer for pedestrians,” Kershaw added. “If you go out there, it’s phenomenal what an improvement it is. The work that the county is doing in this corridor is going to make this corridor safer. The problem is thieves coming in and stealing the wires.”

Cars pass through the intersection where Steve Wirtz and his German shepherd, Gunther, were killed on Christmas Eve. The intersection recently got some pedestrian safety improvements, but at the time of the accident the street lights were out. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Through November, streetlight repair due to wire theft has cost Public Works more than $777,000 this year, more than seven times the amount for all of 2020. And that sum doesn’t include additional money spent by St. Paul Parks and Recreation and private companies like CenturyLink, who have also suffered phone and Internet outages due to wire theft.

Efforts to deter copper wire thieves run the gamut, said Kershaw, including “day-burning” lights on Park Street west of the construction site. The hope is that by keeping lights on around the clock, thieves will think better of attempting to cut wire from an active streetlight. “Those lights are on and working,” he said.

But thieves sometimes cut hot wires anyway.

As part of the 2024 city budget, the City Council recently approved putting an additional $500,000 toward streetlight repair and theft prevention next year; Kershaw is hoping the state Legislature will take a statewide approach to the issue, as it recently did with catalytic converter thefts.

St. Paul Police arrested five suspects in two separate copper wire thefts in the week or so leading up to the Christmas holiday, the first on Dec. 16 at St. Anthony Avenue and Chatsworth Street and the second on Dec. 19 at 60 Kellogg Boulevard E.

Nevertheless, as a result of copper wire theft, street lights are also out along Maryland Avenue in the block between Park Street and Sylvan Street, Kershaw confirmed.

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While walking Gunther in recent weeks, Laurel-Lee noticed the street light installation at Maryland and Park, as well as the freshly-painted crosswalk by the new median. “It’s well marked,” she said. “I said, ‘Oh look at that, Gunther!,’ talking to my dog. But they never turned it on.”

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Ramsey County officials issued written statements of condolences this week, with Carter calling for “state policy to help prevent tragedies like this in the future.”

“Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Steven Wirtz and Gunther as they navigate this devastating loss,” said Ramsey County Board Chair Trista Martinson, in a statement on Thursday. “Ramsey County is committed to supporting St. Paul and other partners in addressing these issues to prevent such tragedies from happening again.”

Fur babies and decades of love

Laurel-Lee said she met her husband at the old Toners Pub at Dale Street and Minnehaha Avenue on an April Fool’s Day in the late 1980s, connecting with him instantly.

Steven Wirtz and Gunther as a puppy. (Courtesy of Laurel-Lee Wirtz)

Steve Wirtz, a lifelong St. Paul resident, grew up off Raymond Avenue and worked as a printer-pressman for the Rock-Tenn plant in St. Paul’s Midway for 25 years, she said, before trying different jobs and landing at the central post office sorting facility in Minneapolis about 10 years ago.

Wirtz came from a large family, but the couple was never able to have kids. Instead, they raised “fur babies,” she said. Gunther, who would have turned 2 in March, was the latest of four large German shepherds and small Shih Tzus they’d raised together. “I saw an ad in the paper that somebody had Shih Tzu puppies and I said no, I can’t do that yet,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever have dogs again.”

It’s slim consolation, but one of her last memories of Gunther involved him quietly thwarting a copper wire theft. While walking him around 5 a.m. on a workday this summer, she came across a young man prone on the ground by a streetlight near the playing field along Park Street.

At first, she assumed he was exercising because of the motion of his arm. Then a car pulled up near him and as she got closer, he stood up, dragging a blanket connected to a rope over his shoulder. When he spotted Laurel-Lee with her pooch, he dropped the rope and ran to the car, which then sped away.

She lifted the blanket to discover a large bale of copper wire. She has no doubt the thief was unnerved at the site of Gunther.

“He helped deter that theft,” she said. “He’s a good dog. … I should have let him go and chase him and take a bite out of that jerk.”

Instead, she went home to report the latest in a string of copper wire thefts that have left long swathes of the city in darkness after sundown. “I called the cops,” Laurel-Lee said. “They said it was happening all over.”

Streetlight now shines

Since Steve’s death, an attorney has come by repeatedly — including on Christmas Day — apparently attempting to drum up business. He’s been given short-shrift by her protective neighbors.

“I’m thinking, go away, leave me alone, I can’t process this right now,” Laurel-Lee said.

And since her husband’s death, friends, neighbors, co-workers and extended family have come to pay their more welcome respects and spend time with Laurel-Lee on the family’s deck, one of Steve’s favorite hangouts. His nieces and nephews plan a candlelight vigil at the intersection of Park and Maryland at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

If there’s a postscript to the tragedy that has upended her life, it’s that following a news segment this week on KSTP News, crews came out to fast-track the work on the one streetlight. As of Wednesday night, a light now shines brightly over the spot where Steve and Gunther died.

It’s a welcome improvement, but also cause for sadness and reflection.

On the night of the crash, “an officer came up to me to make sure I would be OK in the house alone, ‘that you won’t hurt yourself. I don’t mean to be so forward,’” Laurel-Lee recalled them saying. “I said no, I just need to go in the house and have quiet.”

Report copper wire thefts

To report a broken street light or traffic signal: Call the city’s street lighting division at 651-266-9777.
Urgent after-hours repairs: Call 651-266-9700 for emergencies such as a downed pole.
Online: Access an online reporting form and more information at stpaul.gov/streetlights.

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