Mourners, revelers and detectives mingled at the corner of Perry Street and West Second Avenue Friday night.
Outland, the bar where former OSU student Luke Morbitzer was leaving when he was shot Sept. 19, closed its doors Saturday night. The land that Outland sits on has been purchased by Harrison Park Development Ltd. and will soon be leveled to make room for condominiums and apartments. Outland was home to an eclectic mix of clientele, including fans of industrial and dark-wave music on the dance floor and light sadiomasocism on the patio.
Though a candlelight memorial to Morbitzer stood outside the bar, the party inside continued as usual. The only exception was the two Columbus homicide detectives questioning patrons in the early hours. detective. Columbus homicide detectives could not be reached for comment Sunday night.
Patrons remembered Morbitzer, a regular at the bar for at least seven years.
John Heskett of Victorian Village is known as “High John” to frequenters of the bar. When questioned about his nickname he enters into a long soliloquy on anthropology, blues musicians and the day in the ’70s when he first saw the name in “Mad Magazine.” Heskett said Morbitzer was always a friendly man.
“I’d seen him around for years,” Heskett said. “I never talked to him a lot. Now I feel bad that I didn’t know him better.”
Chuck Capuano has owned Outland for 11 years. The broad-shouldered Italian-American is a fixture in the bar on weekends, sitting in a corner near the pool table smoking Ramon Allones cigars and greeting customers.
“Our bar here is known, even by local law enforcement, to be a very non-violent place,” Capuano said. He said he includes Columbus police officers, attorneys and OSU doctors among his regulars. He said the neighborhood still has a bad element that he hopes will one day be pushed out.
Capuano said he has heard rumors that one of his patrons saw what happened last weekend.
“There’s definitely a customer that saw it,” Capuano said. He said he does not know the name, but described the person as a female who saw a male in a hooded sweatshirt and ball cap last weekend.
OSU student Larissa Boiwka, a senior in anthropology, was Morbitzer’s roommate. She said someone knows what happened to her friend as he walked to his car early Sunday. It was near closing time on a busy night for the bar, a night intended to be its last, as Morbitzer left to drive a friend home. Boiwka said patrons of Outland are a close-knit community and would know when someone leaves the bar.
“I’m certain of it,” she said. “I know that someone saw it.”
Boiwka wants facts though, and not rumor, which she says there has been a lot of since her friend’s death eight days ago.
A number of rumors have circulated already, including a post on a local Web site serving the Goth community. On a message board thread removed from the site last week, one anonymous writer claimed to have saw what happened and but would not come forward for fear of the writer’s life.
“They want to help, but they don’t have the information. It pisses me off,” Boiwka said.
Close friends also expressed their disdain for the candlelight vigil for Morbitzer, instead opting to place flowers and candles placed at the site of the shooting. Many of Morbitzer’s friends left the bar during the night to be near the site.
“I know their heart,” Boiwka said of Morbitzer’s acquaintances. “Nobody is trying to be malicious or malignant about it.”
Capuano, a staunch Republican who said he often argued politics with Morbitzer, said there was no real conflict between Morbitzer and anyone at the bar the night he was killed, other than a brief discussion at the pool table that Capuano described as “non-heated.”
“It was just an exchange of words,” Capuano said. “There was no physicality involved. (Luke) was the type of guy who would say, ‘The hell with it. I’m not going to let this develop into anything.'”
Beth Seifert, a restaurant manager in Eugene, Ore. was a former girlfriend of Luke’s. She heard the news shortly after Morbitzer was pronounced dead at OSU hospital.
“When I heard this I quit my job, hopped on a plane and flew out here,” she said.
Seifert, visibly shaken as she spoke, remembered good times with Morbitzer.
“He really did believe he was the protector of everyone,” she said.
She recalled the first time she stayed at Morbitzer’s house during “a low place” in her life.
She slept on his couch under his favorite blanket and made her breakfast the following morning. She spoke of his gifts she still keeps around her house. Wind chimes and the second “fairy” necklace he bought after the first was broken while play fighting in a parking lot.
“It’s just amazing to see what he does to people,” she said.
Boiwka, who went to class for the first time today, said she has seen signs that Morbitzer is still around and feels much more movement in her life now.
“I can feel him on my shoulder pushing me forward,” the 25-year old said of her final year at OSU. “The more I talk about it the stronger I feel.”
Boiwka plastered the area near Perry Street and West Second Avenue with fliers asking for help finding Morbitzer’s killers. She said she plans to change the fliers frequently, adding different pictures. Boiwka said the pictures included one of Morbitzer flipping off the camera.
“There’s so many great pictures; so many silly things that he did,” Boiwka said. “I didn’t censor anything. I think they were all honest. He lived his life very honestly. He was probably the purest person I’ve ever known.”
“It makes me feel good that there was God in his life, as there was God in mine,” Capuano said, lighting up a cigar and looking at the pool table Morbitzer used so frequently. “If they have pool up there, he’s running the table. We’ll see him soon. We’re all but a moment in time.”
“He’s just one of the people that touch your life,” Seifert said. “Once they give you that, they can’t take anything away.”
