Man tracked down, charged with running over boy, 11

A 37-year-old man accused of running over and critically injuring a boy on a bicycle last week at a Town of Grafton mobile home park, then handing the bloody 11-year-old to his father before fleeing the area, faces multiple felonies in Ozaukee County Circuit Court. 

David J. Sitar, who according to his address lives at the trailer park but also stays at a hotel in Kenosha, is charged with first-degree injury, knowingly operating a vehicle without a driver’s license causing great bodily harm and hit and run causing great bodily harm. 

Sitar, who was convicted of hit and run causing great bodily harm in 2011 in Kenosha County and physically abusing an elderly person in 2024 in Ozaukee County, is charged as a repeat offender, which means he would face enhanced penalties if convicted.

The boy, according to a criminal complaint, was in critical condition when he arrived at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton and was put into an induced coma. 

The boy’s name is Logan Reifenstuhl, and Kris Hoff, owner of Championship Martial Arts in Port Washington, who knows Logan and his family because the boy has attended classes there, said Tuesday that while Logan is awake, he has a long recovery ahead of him.

“I know he’s making progress, but it’s going to be a really long road for him. He has some massive skull fractures,” Hoff, who has started a GoFundMe page for the family, said. “He’s a good boy, a really motivated little boy who’s in tough shape right now.”

According to the complaint, At 6:36 p.m. Friday, Sept. 2, Sgt. Justin DeSmidt of the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office was responding to the report of a child being run over by a van when he saw the boy’s father carrying him into the Grafton hospital. The father’s sweatshirt was covered in the boy’s blood.

When DeSmidt asked the boy’s mother and father what happened, his father said Sitar, who used to live next to the family, ran the boy over with his work van at the Osprey Mobile Home Community off North Port Washington Road. The man said Sitar carried the boy, who was vomiting blood and bleeding from his head, to him, handed him the child and left, according to the complaint.

The man said Sitar told him he ran his son over, apologized and asked him not to call authorities because he would end up going to jail, the complaint states.

A witness told authorities that he was leaving the trailer park when he saw a work van stopped on a road in the park and saw a bicycle underneath the van between the wheels. The witness said he saw a man walk around the front of the van carrying a child with a bloody nose who he “tossed  ... into the van just past the driver’s seat,” adding it was not a gentle toss, which led him to believe the boy was being kidnapped, according to the complaint.

The witness said that when he asked the man what he was doing, he said he had to take the boy and his bike to his mother, then removed the bike from under the van, tossed it onto the roof rack of his van and drove away, the complaint states.

Deputies found a scuff mark on the trailer park driveway consistent with a bicycle being hit and dragged, as well as broken bike and vehicle parts and a license plate from a 2013 Ford Econoline van registered to a Pleasant Prairie carpentry company where Sitar worked, according to the complaint.

Flock automated license plate reader cameras indicated the van was driven to Kenosha County after the crash. Authorities noted that Sitar is known to stay at the Oasis Hotel in Kenosha, and at 9:30 p.m. on the day of crash Kenosha County sheriff’s deputies found the van at the BP Travel Plaza near the hotel. Surveillance video showed Sitar getting out of the van and walking across the street to a Kwik Trip, where he bought alcohol before walking away, the complaint states.

Ozaukee County deputies recovered the van, which had bloody clothing on the driver’s seat.

Authorities learned that a room at the Oasis hotel had been rented by Elice Schraeder, who is connected with Sitar, but officers could not find him at the hotel.

Ozaukee County Detective Jacob Buscher then interviewed the adult daughter of Sitar, who said she picked her father up at the Oasis Hotel and drove him and Schraeder to a motel in Winthrop Harbor, Ill., on Oct. 2, where Sitar and Schraeder were later arrested, according to the complaint.

As of earlier this week, Schraeder had not been charged in connection with the case.

Wisconsin Department of Transportation records indicate Sitar’s driver’s license was both expired and suspended at the time of the crash.

In 2011, Sitar pleaded guilty in Kenosha County Circuit Court to a felony count of hit and run causing great bodily harm and was sentenced to four years in prison and four years of extended supervision, according to court records. 

In 2024, Sitar pleaded guilty in Ozaukee County Circuit Court to physically abusing an elderly person, a felony, and misdemeanor counts of criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct.

According to the complaint filed in that case, the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call on Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023, and before the caller hung up a dispatcher heard screaming in the background. 

The call was traced to a home on North Port Washington Road in the Town of Grafton, where a deputy spoke to a woman who said Sitar came home around 6 p.m. and “had just gone nuts,” tearing the house apart looking for car keys, flipping furniture and threatening to “beat the (expletive) out of everyone,” the complaint states.

At one point, the woman said, Sitar grabbed her 79-year-old mother by the wrist and began hitting her. The woman said when she intervened, Sitar hit her.

The 79-year-old woman told deputies that Sitar was angry because she would not give him the keys to their shared vehicle because she felt he was in no condition to drive. She said Sitar was staying with them because he was homeless and was receiving treatment at a methadone clinic.

Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Steve Cain withheld a sentence and placed Sitar on probation.

Sitar has been extradited from Illinois and was scheduled to make his initial appearance in Ozaukee County Circuit Court on Wednesday.

The GoFundMe page raising money to support Logan and his family during his recovery can be found at www.gofundme.com/f/support-logan-and-his-family-through-recovery?cp_src=m.