Dad: Son forever changed by scoutmaster murder

KOKOMO, Ind. (WISH/AP) - New details are emerging about what led up to the fatal stabbing of a Boy Scout leader in Miami County on Sunday. The father of one of the two scouts who witnessed the attack tells 24-Hour News 8 that his son has been forever changed by what he saw.

The attack Sunday afternoon on the Nickel Plate Trail in Bunker Hill, 60 miles north of Indianapolis, killed Arthur Anderson, 76, a scouting volunteer for 50 years who also mentored young computer whizzes at Kokomo High School and held a patent for an electrical device.

Authorities say the scoutmaster was leading two scouts on a nature hike when they stopped to identify a pine tree. That’s when Shane Golitko, 22, is accused of approaching the group and stabbing Anderson without provocation. Police say Golitko then returned to the home where he had earlier assaulted his mother, breaking her arm, and stabbed his two dogs, killing one of them. He fled in his mother's Jeep, leading police on an 8-mile chase before he was arrested.

Detectives said it wasn't clear what set Golitko off, and neither drugs nor alcohol were involved.

Those weren’t the only questions that remained unanswered two days later, as friends and family worked to close in on what happened on what was supposed to be a quiet, educational hike.

“We had just dropped off my son at Bennett Switch and he rode with Art up to Bunker Hill,” Kokomo resident Jason Nielander told 24-Hour News 8’s Troy Kehoe. “We turned around and headed back, and we hadn't been home 10 minutes when somebody called. And, all I could get out of it was — somebody had been stabbed or something. It was my son that had called.”

Nielander described the conversation he had with his 11-year-old son as “frantic” but said the pieces of what was happening began falling into place. Still, with each new bit of information, the moments leading up to the attack became more and more confusing.

“They had just started the hike and they were identifying some needles, when [Golitko] came up and said, ‘Hey, what are you guys out doing today?’ [He was] perfectly nice — no problem at all.  He said he was nice and didn't yell or anything. When he turned around, my son said he saw the guy start to pull the knife out. The guy just slashed at Art and missed. He said he heard him say, ‘Whoa!’ And, he watched him, and said he just stuck him in the neck, real fast, in and out. He stuck the knife in his pocket and started to walk off. [He] didn't run or anything,” Nielander said.

Asked if he found that strange, Nielander didn’t hesitate.

“It struck me as very, very odd,” he said.

It's also struck a devastating blow through communities across Miami and Howard counties.

Anderson, assistant scoutmaster of a troop based at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Kokomo, helped shape the lives of hundreds — perhaps thousands — of young scouts, including two generations of Nielanders.

“Mr. Anderson was my scoutmaster when I was a kid. I've known him since I was 12 years old. And, to see someone who was my mentor and my friend and see him lying under a sheet — and then to stand there and watch my son doing the same thing — it's just horrendous,” Nielander said.

Anderson was also a mentor to students at Kokomo High School, home of the Wildcats, playing the role of grandfather figure, science teacher and engineer as he volunteered with the school’s robotics team, the TechnoKats.

“The TechnoKats, especially, it was hard on them. They had a true relationship with Art Anderson,” said David Barnes, spokesman for Kokomo-Center schools.

Grief counselors were on hand at the school Monday to help students cope.

Still, for some life will never quite be the same.

“He has been fundamentally changed by this,” Nielander said. “He is very distraught. He'll just kind of picture something that happened and just start crying out of the blue. He'll say, ‘This was the last thing Art said to me,’ or, ‘We were just standing there and we weren't doing anything wrong.’ It’s just so hard to make sense of any of this.”

Golitko, who is charged with murder and two felony counts of battery, is being held without bond in the Miami County Jail in Peru pending a Thursday court appearance in Miami Circuit Court. The prosecutor's office did not yet know of an attorney representing Golitko, and no one responded to a call to his home.

According to an obituary posted in the Kokomo Tribune, funeral services are set for 11 a.m. Wednesday at Aaron-Ruben-Nelson Mortuary, 11411 N. Michigan Road in Kokomo. Burial will follow in Indianapolis Hebrew Cemetery North.