Wolf Man of Brethren

Oct. 12, 2005

The home of John Patrick Sutherland was quiet after his death in a confrontation with deputies last week.
You can find his place next to the Dam Site Inn, just outside the village of Brethren. Left behind was evidence of his unusual lifestyle. With two tents staked at the center of the lot, a fire pit and a picnic table, it appeared as if John was camping over the warm summer.
The tents were in the center of a network of spacious, tall pens that housed 19 healthy looking dogs, most appearing to be a blend of malamute and wolf (five dogs were just taken by Animal Control after the shooting). One dog, alone in his cage, paced and panted. In another, four black dogs stayed near the back of a pen. In other pens, the dogs wagged their tails and came up to the fence to get petted.
The site was littered with an RV, three old cars, a snowmobile, two boats, a motorcycle outside the house, a motorcycle inside the house along with a lot of other stuff, making the house pretty much unlivable.
Three friends were staying there to watch over the dogs. They were upset that the deputies had padlocked on the cages because they wanted to clean them. And they were grieving and angry.
Sutherland was shot by police on Sept-ember 23 and they wanted to know why.

A STANDOFF
The Muskegon Chronicle reported that Manistee sheriff’s deputies and state Department of Agriculture officials arrived at Sutherland’s home at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, with a search warrant. They intended to examine the animals to determine if they were wolf hybrids. If so, they wanted to insert a microchip under their skin. Under Michigan law, owners of wolf dogs must have a state permit and have their dogs identified with the microchips.
It’s very difficult to determine if a dog is part wolf, even with DNA testing. Measurements of legs and the dog’s skull will indicate the likelihood they came from a wolf bloodline. Enforcement largely depends on the claims an owner has made, said Ray Rustem, supervisor for the DNR’s National Heritage Unit and Wildlife Division.
When the officials arrived at the house, Sutherland reportedly had a handgun and was angry. His experience with law enforcement, thus far, had not been good.
Several years ago, the Manistee Animal Control Unit took away nine wolf dogs and put them down. Over the years, Sutherland has been ticketed, served jail time for letting his wolves escape, and deputies had killed the wolf dogs when they couldn’t be captured, neighbors said.
The officials left and called several other law enforcement departments for help. An estimated 30 officers later arrived at the house, said Michigan State Police Sgt.
John Hansen.
They set up roadblocks at both ends of the road and established a command center at a nearby laundromat. Deputies gave Sutherland a phone for negotiation, and his friends said he used it throughout the day.
The deputies positioned themselves with guns behind their cars. One neighbor said she heard Sutherland scream, “Get the fuck off my property!”
But at 3 p.m., shooting broke out, leaving a Traverse City police officer wounded and Sutherland dead.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE?
“What in the hell happened here? Why is this man dead?” said his friend, Bruce. “Whoever was in charge should get a job as the head of a slaughterhouse, because that’s what this was.”
Bruce, who didn’t want to give his full name, was reluctant to talk until he met with Sutherland’s 19-year-old son.
On the morning of the confrontation, Bruce called the Manistee County Sheriff’s Department to ask that they hold off until he could get there to help mediate, he said. By the time he arrived from his home in Grand Rapids, however, Sutherland had already been shot. He says he saw a couple of deputies laughing near the shooting, and that hurt, he said.
Sutherland’s friends said the dogs were gentle. Over the 10 or so years that John Sutherland had lived here -- just outside the village limits and next door to a bar -- no one had ever been attacked or hurt. When asked about the fact that Sutherland was brandishing a gun, another friend said that Sutherland did have a gun, but was talking on the phone and negotiating when he was shot.
“John has died because of his love for wolves. He really wanted people to understand that these were gentle animals. I can’t imagine John trying to harm another policeman. He used to be a policeman. It didn’t have to be a big thing,” Bruce said.
“He wasn’t facing a felony charge or time in prison. It was a simple situation. What about the man’s constitutional rights? Why is the Manistee prosecutor overseeing this when it involved the Manistee Sheriff’s Department? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
Sgt. Hansen said that the Michigan State Police, who were not involved in the incident, are investigating and expect to issue a report soon. It should answer how the deputy was wounded and what provoked the shoot-out. The autopsy results will be available in about two weeks. The reports will answer some questions, but not the one that most people are asking: How and why did this happen?

YEARS IN THE MAKING
One former friend and neighbor of the man -- Brenda Wiggins -- said she predicted years ago that something bad might happen.
In 2000, Wiggins moved in with her parents, the Smiths, who lived two doors down from Sutherland. Sutherland’s look was as unique as his eccentric lifestyle. A man with the build of a football player, he had a receding hairline and long hair that flowed to his shoulders, an underbite, with bottom teeth that were squared off straight.
Wiggins was intrigued by Sutherland’s love for wolves. She herself had a special passion for wolves and visited Sutherland often, going inside the cages with Sutherland right next to her (it’s important that the owner, the “pack leader” of sorts, is always with visitors). She was able to pet the friendly wolf dogs that Sutherland had given Indian names. Some were timid and wouldn’t come near her.
Sutherland told her the dogs were part wolf, but wasn’t consistent in what he told authorities because of licensing requirements, she said.
During their friendship, Wiggins noticed that Sutherland didn’t work and heard that he lived on disability. He traveled around the country to acquire wolf dogs from families who didn’t know how to handle them. He also bred the wolf dogs. Interestingly, Sutherland moved here 10 years ago from Ohio, which has lax laws for wolf hybrids and is something of a hotbed for buyers.
In addition to wolves, Wiggins said that Sutherland had a taste for exotic animals. She remembers petting a coyote in a pen way back in the woods. During the course of their friendship, he also acquired four black Arctic foxes.
She said that John wasn’t a veterinarian, but was impressively skilled in treating animals. One summer evening, for example, she noticed that Beethoven, her Samoyed (she owned three Samoyeds and bred them), had caught a gash on the back of his leg.
Sutherland drove his truck over and pulled out a well-stocked medical kit.
He injected an anesthetic into a vein in Beethoven’s paw. Once he was asleep, he lifted him onto the tailgate and stitched the paw with dissolvable thread. He prescribed an antibiotic and the dog woke up just fine.
“At first I was freaked out when the dog was falling asleep. When he started to come to, I was really relieved,” Wiggins said.

A FRIENDSHIP ENDS
John Sutherland, 52 at the time, became romantically interested in Wiggins, who was 26 years his junior and invited her out for dinner. Wiggins wasn’t interested, but they maintained their friendship and Sutherland occasionally came over to have dinner with Wiggins and her parents.
Interestingly, Wiggins’ grandfather once owned the bar next door and had sold it along with the property that Sutherland now lived on. The storage building was converted into a home.
“He let a pack of wolves live in the house. One time, I went in with my brother and there was dog poop everywhere. That’s when he started living in the camper,” she said.
Wiggins said she knew that Sutherland was making an honest effort to keep his dogs contained, but she feared for her young children and her dogs. She felt that Sutherland didn’t feed them enough, and they might attack out of hunger. The wolf dogs began escaping by burrowing underneath the fence even though the fence was buried into the ground. She asked him to keep the dogs on leashes, but he refused.
One summer day her fears were confirmed. Wolves are unpredictable and will attack without the typical warning signs seen in a normal dog, such as growling or laying back their ears.
A wolf dog in heat escaped from her pen and came over and mounted one of Wiggins’ dogs. She then walked over to a male Samoyed and touched his noise. Suddenly, the wolf dog grabbed the Samoyed by the throat and pinned him to the ground. Sutherland immediately ran over, picked up the dog by its back, and pulled it off while Wiggins grabbed her dog away. The dog was uninjured, but Wiggins’ anxiety radar was reset to high.
Wiggins’ friendship ended after she began complaining to Sutherland about his wolf dogs constantly getting loose. After the wolf dog attacked her Samoyed, Wiggins said that the she and her mother called Manistee County’s Animal Control unit.

‘THEY WERE HIS FAMILY’
“His dogs were the world. He loved them, they were his family and he would do anything to protect them. When it came to someone messing with his dogs, he would do a 180 on you.”
The dogs were escaping nearly every other day, but Wiggins was getting nowhere. She tried calling Dickson Township officials, the Animal Control unit, and county deputies.
“Every time I called someone, they told me to call someone else,” she said. “It was a problem being passed back and forth between the cops and the township and animal control and nothing ever got done.”
Even more maddening, she said, was that Animal Control told her mom she could never shoot a wolf even if “it was attacking one of her grandbabies.”
“Wolves are protected, and they told her, you’d be looking at charges being brought up against you.”
In July 2000, a new law was passed that gave muscle to enforcement. People who already owned wolf dogs had to get a permit from an animal control officer within four months of the law’s passage. They had to certify that the wolf dog was sterilized. The law also bans wolf dogs from being tied up outdoors. They must be kept within a fenced, locked area and post a sign that says, “A potentially dangerous wolf dog is kept on this property.”
The state Department of Agriculture has jurisdiction over wolf dogs, but Wiggins said they never called her and she was never told to contact them.

CONFLICT WITH NEIGHBORS
The conflict had already been going on for years between Sutherland and his immediate neighbors, George and Bobbi Bosley. Now, Wiggins and her parents had jumped into the fray.
There was a lot of back and forth accusations, Wiggins said. Sutherland, for example, told Animal Control that his dogs howled, but only because Wiggins’ dogs were barking.
“When I told my dogs to shut up, he’d come out and swear at me and my kids. He was a very vulgar person,” she said.
Sutherland complained to Wiggins that her cat was coming onto his property. She told him there was nothing she could do, and soon after she found her cat shot dead with four bullet holes.
Animal Control stepped in at one point and took away nine wolf-dogs, including two full-blooded white wolves and put them down, Wiggins said.
Wiggins’ brother, J.R., was a friend of Sutherland’s teenage son, Matt. J.R. once told Matt that he had baby flying squirrels in the backyard bird house.
“The next day, the box was busted. Matt told my brother that his dad wanted them and took them out of there,” she said.
Another time, a wolf dog got loose in the cemetery and police shot and killed it. Wiggins thinks that Sutherland retaliated because deputies showed up at her family’s door the next day, saying they received a phone call that Wiggins’ father was drunk and abusing his grandchildren in the backyard (he was wrestling with one of the kids, Wiggins said, and he doesn’t drink).

SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS
Wiggins said she was drained from the conflict and decided to move into Traverse City in 2001, but the battle continued with the Bosleys, who had complained to authorities early on.
“John would say that George (Bosley) had cut a hole in the fence, and there were holes cut out of the fence. We didn’t know if George did it, or if the dogs made the holes by pushing through. The next thing you know, John has put surveillance cameras up in the trees. You could see them. We didn’t know whether they were working or not. He also put up a big spotlight that came on at night to shine on the Bosley’s yard,” she said.
She adds that Sutherland had a short fuse and would wave his gun and swear at the Bosleys. The Bosley’s phone number is unlisted and they did not respond to a note left on their door for comment.
Sutherland’s friends said that he had his own heartaches, claiming that someone poisoned and shot at his dogs. Sutherland ended up getting ticketed for owning a dog-at-large several times and even spent time in jail, Wiggins said. He was facing a charge this week again because the Bosleys feared his loose dogs would attack their two horses in the back. To help protect the horses, the Bosleys put up a tall wooden fence up along the property line.

AFTERMATH
After the confrontation and Sutherland’s death, Brenda Wiggins said she felt badly both for John Sutherland and the animals. She called her dad and asked him to make sure he told deputies about the coyote. She feared it would be missed since it was so far back in the woods. The next day its pen was empty, said Brenda’s father, Mitchell Smith.
Even though John had his problems, Brenda feels that the situation could have been resolved peacefully. She wished the proper authorities had required him to move out in the country and/or sterilize his dogs.
“It seemed excessive, so many cops for one man. It thought it was very excessive. When we needed help five years ago, it was incredibly frustrating. It wasn’t like he committed a bank robbery.
“It’s just a shame it had to come to this. I don’t know why someone didn’t do something years ago.”