Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney said he thought Charles Witzel Jr. was headed west of Missouri when he allegedly turned up at the Iowa County home of his former girlfriend on Nov. 6, the night he is accused of shooting and wounding her current boyfriend and killing his brother.

"That was our best information," Mahoney said of the leads culled from people associated with Witzel, who now faces homicide and attempted homicide charges in both Dane and Iowa counties.

Law enforcement agencies across the country had been alerted to be on the lookout for Witzel and the silver Toyota truck he was driving just hours after he allegedly killed Craig Severson, 45, and wounded his fiance, Lisa Morgan, 27, in their Cross Plains apartment Oct. 31 after learning that Severson had an affair with Witzel's former girlfriend, Joan Haglund.

Still, Mahoney said, Witzel was able to drive some 2,000 miles, making stops in Missouri and Arkansas before showing up at the rural Mineral Point home Haglund shared with boyfriend Casey Finley the night of Nov. 6. Iowa County Sheriff Steve Michek said Witzel parked the truck in an open field on nearby Farrell Road and walked a half mile to the house, where he waited in the basement for two hours before he allegedly shot and wounded Casey Finley, 32, and killed his brother, Craig Finley, 37, before surrendering.

"It doesn't really surprise me," said Michael Scott, director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing at UW-Madison. "Of course, it's tragic."

Mahoney, Michek and Cross Plains Police Chief Tom Janssen say their departments did all they could to find Witzel after the first shootings.

Scott, a former Madison police officer, said it doesn't appear law enforcement agencies dropped the ball in searching for Witzel. "It would be a pretty heavy ball to carry for a long time," he said.

"It does kind of point out the limited resources police, under the best of circumstances, have," Scott said. "We sometimes get a false sense of security about what the police can do to protect us."

Scott said people are apt to question why deputies didn't keep constant watch outside the home Haglund and Finley shared, one of the most likely places for Witzel to show up in an attempt to carry out what Mahoney described as his plan to kill Haglund.

But staking out a residence for a week — which would require 24 consecutive shifts — is something even a police department in a major city would unlikely be able to do, Scott said, adding, "That's a near impossibility for a rural community."

"We wouldn't do that on any case," Mahoney said.

Michek said he typically has between two and four deputies on duty to cover the whole county on any given night. For a few nights after the Cross Plains shootings, deputies were posted near the house where the Finleys were shot, until Casey Finley said its wasn't necessary, he said, adding that even then, deputies maintained an increased presence in the area.

Deputies had maintained close contact with Haglund and continued night watches outside the Dodgeville residence where she had been staying since the Cross Plains shootings. Just 45 minutes later, Witzel showed up at a BP gas station in Mineral Point where Haglund worked, but she wasn't there at the time, according to court documents.

Mahoney said his department would provide 24-hour surveillance "if we expected there would be a great likelihood of a crime." But Mahoney said he did not believe Casey Finley to be a primary target of Witzel, and Haglund was no longer staying at the house with him.

Mahoney said deputies were sent to North Carolina and Atlanta to talk with family members and associates of Witzel, as well as to Missouri to confirm he had been there.

Michek said information that Witzel was in Missouri didn't make him any less vigilant. "I'd rather think that he could be here yet, or back anytime."

Still, after allegedly committing one murder, there was good reason to believe that Witzel had fled, Scott said. Knowing that he had gone as far as Missouri, it's reasonable to think he wouldn't turn around and come back, he added. "Rationally, you would think that's a foolish thing to do."

And after a week had passed since the Cross Plains shootings, Scott said, "It's only human nature" that police and the public would "not be as vigilant."

Michek said it's not unusual for two hours to go by without any vehicles traveling on the little town road with a sprinkling of homes near the Lafayette County line where Witzel left the truck he was driving. "You had to be looking for the vehicle," he said. "It was not along side of the road."

When the alert went out hours after the Cross Plains shooting, Police Chief Janssen said, "I thought, 'We're going to have this guy by morning.' "

"Honestly, I don't know how he avoided having that vehicle seen," Janssen said. "More than baffling, it was frustrating."

"Even with a national search, it's still needles in haystacks," Scott said. "It's remarkable how often it really does work.