Police searching the home of a deceased St. Francis barber who claimed he was involved in murders of two boys 50 years ago found child pornography, newspaper clippings and fliers on missing children, bondage devices and paintings depicting child torture.

However, no physical evidence connecting the man to any murders was discovered during the search of the Bay View home, and Milwaukee police said they cannot prove Vernon Seitz was involved in any child homicides or missing children cases.

"We've exhausted all the leads in this case. This is not an active investigation," Milwaukee police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said Tuesday.

"If we receive information from someone that gives us a concrete lead to follow, we certainly will, but at this point, there is no such information that has been shared with us."

Still, news of the search results traveled quickly to the Twin Cities, after several of the items in Seitz's Bay View home and St. Francis barbershop were linked to the name of a boy missing from there since 1989.

The search of Seitz's home in mid-December yielded a number of disturbing discoveries, including books on how to perform cannibalism, bondage devices, newly poured cement in the basement and elevated piles of dirt in the yard, according to a police affidavit used to obtain a search warrant.

According to the affidavit, Milwaukee police found Seitz, 62, dead of apparent natural causes in his home in the 900 block of E. Conway St. on Dec. 15. A detective had been sent to interview Seitz after being told by Milwaukee psychiatrist Victoria Fetter that he wanted to confess to his involvement in the boys' murders in 1958. (Fetter said Seitz told her the killings happened in 1959.)

Police findings

While investigating Seitz's death, police found the newspaper clippings and fliers, photographs of boys posing nude in a sexually suggestive manner and a painting of two small, nude boys being tortured by adults.

A handgun was recovered and the books on cannibalism also included a copy of one entitled, "Eat Thy Neighbor: A History of Cannibalism," according to a police inventory report.

Police jack-hammered the basement and also searched Seitz's business, Vern's Barber Shop, 4243 S. Packard Ave., where they found a poster of Jacob Wetterling, a Minnesota boy abducted in 1989.

Videotapes of Jacob were found at Seitz's residence.

The boy's mother, Patty Wetterling, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that Seitz came to visit her twice soon after the abduction. He claimed to be a psychic wanting to help and had even given her a painting of Jacob.

"He seemed to care, and he shared that he had his own personal reason to care," she said, noting that Seitz had had an abusive incident happen to him in the past, which she declined to speak of further.

"That's really not uncommon for people who came forward to talk to us. We heard that a lot," Wetterling said.

Wetterling stressed she did not want to jump to conclusions and noted that many people like Seitz had come to visit her after the abduction received national attention.

Accounts differ

Fetter's account of Seitz's claims differed slightly from the account in the police affidavit.

In an interview, Fetter said she treated Seitz for 11 years.

During that time, he told her of an incident in 1959 in which he was abducted while at a zoo in Racine with his family. Seitz said he had been abducted, put into a vehicle and blindfolded before being sodomized and beaten.

He also told her that he shot and killed a 14-year-old boy because his abductors threatened to kill him if he did not carry out the shooting and that he saw his abductors shoot and kill another boy.

Seitz told Fetter that his abductors released him the same day, and he told her that the entire incident lasted seven or eight hours.

Fetter said she "tended to" believe Seitz's story, "largely because he never contradicted himself. These things do happen. I mean, they're not unheard of. . . . He was always very consistent in his story, which sort of gave it credence."

Fetter said doctor-patient confidentiality rules prevented her from contacting authorities about Seitz's claims that he had killed the 14-year-old boy in Racine.

But in November, Seitz asked Fetter to contact Racine police and set up a meeting with them so he could confess to the shooting that he said he was forced to commit.

After Seitz's death, Milwaukee police contacted Racine police, but Racine police did not find any evidence that the killings or abductions that Seitz had described had taken place, Schwartz said.

Milwaukee police also interviewed some of Seitz's relatives, who said they knew nothing about the abduction and killings that Seitz had described.

Seitz had a fascination with missing children and young boys, Fetter said.

"He told me that although he liked little boys, he knew that you can't touch little boys, so what he did was paint them nude," Fetter said. "He didn't tell me about kiddie porn or anything. . . . If my patient lusts for boys but knows that he would get in boiling hot water if he did anything, then he can paint the pictures. That won't hurt anybody."

Seitz also claimed to be a psychic and traveled throughout the Midwest offering his services to the families of missing children, Fetter said.

Seitz was friendly - almost too polite, Fetter said - but she also said he "was no angel."

Fetter said she was appalled by the items that were found in Seitz's house.

House boarded

At Seitz's home Tuesday, many windows were boarded up. A hand-printed sign in faded ink on the front door stated, "You have just been photographed by an infrared camera. Photos go to police, since recent robbery invasion. Call first before coming here."

A neighbor who refused to identify herself said the windows were being boarded up because Seitz had planned to move to Racine. Neighbors said he owned the house and had lived there for a long time.

"He was nice enough, that's all I'm going to say," the woman said.

Near Vern's Barber Shop in St. Francis, Lynne Bartholomew, owner of Lynne's Scizzory, a hair salon next door, said she knew Seitz for nine years.

"He would come in and ask for a cup of coffee and tell me about his life, which was pretty scary, actually," Bartholomew said.

She said Seitz told her he was abducted from the Racine zoo as a boy by men who molested him and forced him to shoot and kill another boy.

Bartholomew said Seitz also claimed to have shot and killed a man who robbed him in his home three years ago and that he had killed two men in Chicago some years ago.

Bartholomew said Seitz had a particular interest in boys that made her and some of her customers "uncomfortable."

She also said he had a strong interest in Jacob Wetterling and had a laminated poster of Jacob in his barbershop.

The poster was seized by police after Seitz's death, she said.

Bartholomew said Seitz told her that he had seen a psychiatrist regularly since his alleged abduction, which, he told her, "ruined my life," she said.

Asked whether she believed that Seitz had committed any crimes, she said: "I don't know. I'm real torn. I knew this nice person who was very weird."