Fire Chief Rob Schultz

I was contacted by our police chief to give him a call immediately that he had something very important, sensitive to talk about.

One of our firefighters was being investigated and a suspect in a murder that occurred about two hours from our fire district's boundaries.

I was, you know, there's no way this could be Matt. They have something wrong.

Not in my stomach. Like, literally wanted to throw up.

We had placed Matt immediately on paid administrative leave. When I called Matt in to tell him, I just said, I'm being told that you're under investigation for a murder of your estranged girlfriend and the baby that you're a father of.

Didn't feel that it was something that he wanted to talk about, and he felt it was personal matter and didn't want to disclose it.

When Brian asks this of me, I'm pretty taken back. And initially I had said no way. And I did some thinking about it and called him back and said yes.

No. I don't freely talk about it. It's not something that I'm proud of. It was something that needed to be done in the hopes of helping the investigation. There's a grieving family out there that's looking for answers.

And he agreed. He says, I'd like to come talk to you.

I remember saying, fill in all the blanks for me. And isn't it odd that no one here knows that you're going to be a father? Like, that's something we celebrate here.

Nothing. Head was down a lot of the conversation.

He did not.

Matt Ploede was a firefighter paramedic. He was a good firefighter. Matt was somebody that was dependable on the fire scene. He was just one of the guys.

There was a huge closure here when Pat was found guilty. You still have the family out there that lost a daughter or lost a grandson. You're never going to change that.

Denial that it wasn't one of our people. It doesn't chime with what a firefighter is. We put fires out, we don't start fires. We help people, we don't hurt people. It is unthinkable.

We're here 24 hours a day, and it's just a normal course of being a firefighter in that you talk about your family, your personal life, and what's going on, good, bad, or indifferent. I knew Matt as a single guy that didn't have any kids.