MAZOMANIE, Wis. — Matthew Graville couldn’t read well or remember numbers. He could drive his friends crazy with his incessant talking. But all he really wanted, by all accounts, was to fit in.
When detectives found the 27-year-old autistic man’s body buried in the woods months after he disappeared, they uncovered what investigators say was a horrific story of family violence.
His half brother, Jeffrey Vogelsberg, had repeatedly tortured and abused Graville, prosecutors allege, and the beatings finally went too far.
Vogelsberg, the husband of a Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier, was arrested Nov. 5 at the main gate of the base, where he moved last summer after his wife was assigned there.
He remains in custody with no bail on a charge of first-degree intentional homicide. An extradition hearing in Pierce County Superior Court is scheduled for today.
Vogelsberg’s attorney, Lisa Contris, didn’t return several messages, and Vogelsberg didn’t respond to a letter requesting an interview.
Another man who owned the house where Vogelsberg and Graville lived is accused of helping hide Graville’s body. Robert McCumber told investigators he went to bed listening to Vogelsberg beat Graville in the bathroom, but he also said the beatings were nothing new. When he woke up July 1, Graville was dead on his couch; Vogelsberg was gone – on his way to Missouri to see his wife graduate from U.S. Army basic training at Fort Leonard Wood.
Graville was born with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism marked by an inability to read social cues and by repetitive routines and clumsiness.
His case left Wisconsin investigators shocked.
“In 33 years, 25 as a detective, I find it difficult to find another case where an individual took advantage of a developmentally disabled male for their own entertainment,” Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney said. “Matthew lived a living hell.”
Graville’s early life is murky. At some point he ended up foster care. Those records are confidential, and his biological mother, Vicki Graville, declined to comment, saying she doesn’t want to jeopardize the investigation into her son’s death.
When he was 16 or 17, Graville moved into a foster home, where he roomed with Richard Swangstu.
At first Graville drove him “up the wall” with his incessant talking, Swangstu said, but as he learned more about Asperger’s, he took Graville under his wing. They went to high school together, and they worked at the local McDonald’s.
Graville was happy, Swangstu said. He loved listening to rap music, watching funny movies, whittling walking sticks or sitting outside.
“Enjoying the simplicities of life,” Swangstu said of the time they spent together. “Sitting around a bonfire. Drinking soda. Watching fireworks go off. Playing catch in our yard. … Matt was a loving, kind, gentle soul.”
“Matt was a brother to me,” he added. “I didn’t lose a friend. I lost family.”
Eventually Graville moved out of the foster home and somehow connected with Vogelsberg, his 28-year-old half-brother. Vogelsberg and Graville went on to rent McCumber’s house in Mazomanie, a village of about 1,650 people 25 miles west of Madison, Wis.
Court records show Vogelsberg had been in trouble with the law before. He had been convicted of siphoning gas from vehicles, shooting a man with a BB gun and throwing his dog down his apartment stairs. A former landlord accused him of blowing up her chicken with a bottle rocket.
Vogelsberg’s grandfather reported Graville missing in July. Weeks went by with no sight of him.
In September, investigators caught a break when county workers notified them someone had used Graville’s food stamp card at a Madison grocery store two weeks after he disappeared. According to the criminal complaint, store surveillance video identified the card user as Vogelsberg’s mother, Laura Robar, who has since been charged with identity theft.
She led investigators to McCumber, who told them that Vogelsberg regularly abused Graville, beating him and shooting him with a BB gun repeatedly, according to the complaint. Finally, Vogelsberg became convinced Graville was poisoning Vogelsberg’s children and started beating him in the bathroom.
McCumber said he didn’t interfere because Robar was there, and he thought she wouldn’t let things get out of hand.
When he found Graville’s body the next day, he called Vogelsberg, who told him to wrap the body in plastic and place it in a chest freezer in the garage, according to the criminal complaint.
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