NICHOLS HILLS, Okla. — Six years ago, a wealthy doctor bludgeoned his young son to death during a fit of psychosis.
It happened in Nichols Hills, a wealthy suburb of Oklahoma City, in the $500,000 home of Dr. Stephen Wolf.
The first 911 call came in to the neighbor’s house, where Mary Wolf ran for help.
It was a week before Thanksgiving Day, November 16, 2009.
During the second 911 call, you can hear Sergeant Michael Puckett tell Dr. Wolf to put his hands behind his back.
You can also hear Dr. Wolf mutter to his wife some gibberish about the devil.
When police arrived, Sgt. Puckett walked in to see Dr. Wolf on top of his nine-year-old son, Tommy Wolf.
Tommy was no match for his deranged father who was armed with kitchen knives and crippled by hallucinations.
“The only thing he kept repeating over and over is that he’s got the devil inside him. ‘He’s got the devil inside him. I’ve got to get it out.’ That’s all he really said,” Sgt. Puckett remembers.
Dr. Wolf would never walk free again. A short legal battle ensued, but both sides agreed: Wolf was insane.
There was never any question who killed Tommy Wolf.
Deputy Chief Steven Cox was the primary investigator on the Tommy Wolf murder case.
Cox says Dr. Wolf was so obviously out-of-his-mind they didn’t even conduct the customary interrogation.
“The emotions and the tone of his voice was like nothing I’d ever heard before,” said Cox. “I felt sorry for him.”
Nichols Hills Police maintain the evidence file – a gory, sad collection of cardboard boxes – storage for evidence that will never make it to trial.
The kitchen knives are bent by the force of the attack. Mary Wolf’s nightgown is stained with the blood of her only son. Tommy Wolf’s pint-size pajamas were worn on the last night he would ever be tucked into his bed that night by the person he trusted most in the whole wide world.
“I try to look at it through Tommy’s eyes,” said Nichols Hills Police Chief, Richard Mask. “You’re being butchered by the person you love most in the world, and that’s why he was screaming ‘Daddy, Daddy, I’m not the devil.'”
The police narrative details a father who’d come unhinged, wrecked by years of mental illness; he snapped in a final, outrageous psychotic episode.
“It was horrendous,” said Chief Mask. “I’ve not worked anything like it.”
Chief Mask is convinced Dr. Wolf truly had no idea what he was doing to his son that night.
“As our investigation revealed, he had a good close loving relationship with that child,” Mask said. “Talk about the greatest betrayal. What Tommy must have been thinking about while he was being murdered by the person he loved and trusted the most on the planet. Tough to deal with.”
Prosecutors were convinced also. District Attorney David Prater agreed to an acquittal. Judge Don Deason presided over a bench trial which ended in a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Judge Deason sent Dr. Wolf to the state forensic hospital, Oklahoma Forensic Center, in Vinita, Oklahoma.
In the months before that deal was reached, Dr. Wolf was held at the Oklahoma County Jail.
During that time, while Nichols Hills Police were still building the case against Dr. Wolf, they recorded phone conversations between Dr. Wolf and his wife, Mary Wolf.
Sources close to the case tell NewsChannel 4 that Dr. Wolf is effectively medicated now and maintains his sanity.
“He is back to reality and having to deal with that,” said Chief Mask. “To me, that’s much worse than death because there’s no end to it.”
There has been no end for the community of Nichols Hills where Tommy lived, and played sports, where he joined the cub scouts and went to school, either.
“It never goes away,” said Sgt. Puckett. “You don’t think about it as much as you did before, but it’s always kinda there in the back of your mind. I drive down that street everyday. Every time I drive by the house… it pops in. You think about it. You always second guess everything you do. Could I have been there quicker?”
Elmhurst Lane is lined with second-guesses. Neighbors, teachers and loved ones wish they’d seen the signs of mental illness in time to save Tommy’s life.
“It really hit this community. It hit them hard,” said Chief. Mask. “Because this is a place where you don’t expect things like this to happen.”
Dr. Wolf can never again be tried for his son’s murder. He is expected to live most of his life at Oklahoma Forensic Center where he gets weekly treatment, his medication is monitored, and a judge’s order is the only way out.
Statewide Analysis Competency Evaluations document