The three-state manhunt for a missing murder suspect is over. Police found the body of 30-year-old Douglas Maring early Saturday morning in a farm building just across the border in Illinois, outside the town of Galena. Maring, who worked in Dubuque, was wanted for first degree murder for stabbing his eight-year-old step-son Anthony to death last week.
Heidi Maring, Anthony’s mother, is burying the boy today (Monday). She says her son was wise beyond his years. “A brilliant child that could have been our first great president, our first real president that cared about everybody,” she says. Authorities say Doug Maring hung himself. His wife had hoped he would be sent to prison.
“I was hoping he was just running, I mean I didn’t want him to do this. I wanted him to go through the courts and come to justice that way,” Heidi Maring says. Heidi says she recently told her husband she wanted a divorce and he sent her a text message via cell phone, telling her he would kill their son and himself in retaliation.
Heidi says she was afraid her husband would kill her, too. “If I was to have met him anywhere, I wouldn’t be here either,” she says. Heidi doesn’t buy the argument that her husband was mentally ill. “People are making comments that they think he wasn’t there but I honestly think he knew what he was doing,” Heidi says.
Doug Maring led Galena police on a high-speed chase that ended at about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday morning when he crashed his truck into a utility pole. Maring fled, leaving his step-son in the vehicle, bleeding from a stab wound to the chest. The boy was rushed to the hospital in Dubuque, but he died at about 5:30 Wednesday morning during surgery. Maring stole a car, and a farmer called authorities this weekend to say that car was on his property.