cold case – CrimeFeed

Much praise has been lavished (and rightly so) upon Atlanta Monster, a documentary podcast about the Georgia city’s chilling 1979 – ’81 child murders and the case’s controversial outcome. For true crime devotees, it’s shaping up to be a must-listen.

Over the course of two nightmarish years, more than 28 African-Americans — 22 of whom were male children — fell prey to one or more killers.

Wayne Williams [Fulton County Police]

The FBI teamed with Atlanta police to hunt for suspects. They ultimately arrested Wayne Williams, 23, a local Black man who also happened to be gay, and convicted him for two of the slayings. Eventually, authorities pinned almost all the murders on Williams.

To date, Williams maintains his innocence, and many observers — including numerous members of law enforcement — believe he did not do all the killings. Five of the murders, in fact, remain unsolved.

Now, with Atlanta Monster shining a fresh light on the still heavily debated tragedy, here’s a round-up of past books and movies that addressed this ongoing wound in American justice.

THE ATLANTA CHILD MURDERS (1985)
Director: John Erman
Cast: Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones, Calvin Levels

The high-profile CBS miniseries The Atlanta Child Murders, written by veteran TV scribe Abby Mann, raises serious questions about the investigation and makes bold accusations against the authorities, and strongly suggests the Ku Klux Klan was responsible for the killings.

In its day, the production generated enough controversy to, some say, permanently change how the public has perceived the actual case. In fact, Mann said it was nothing less than “a crusade” against what he perceived to be a miscarriage of justice involving Wayne Williams (played here by Calvin Levels). Not everyone appreciated the broadcast taking so clear a stand.

The Atlanta Child Murders also changed entertainment forever by being the very first film to employ Morgan Freeman as its narrator (he also plays a cop). The rest of the powerhouse cast includes James Earl Jones, Martin Sheen, Ruby Dee, Jason Robards, Rip Torn, Lynne Moody, and Bill Paxton. [New York Times]

The Evidence of Things Not Seen by James Baldwin/Front cover image [Amazon]

2. THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN by JAMES BALDWIN (1985)

The Evidence of Things Not Seen is a non-fiction analysis and meditation on the Atlanta Child Murders by James Baldwin, one of America’s most esteemed novelists, essayists, and social critics (he was profiled in the award-winning 2016 documentary, I Am Not Your Negro).

Baldwin’s takes are, as always, powerful, poignant, thought-provoking. In this case, as Baldwin was both gay and African-American like accused killer Wayne Williams, they’re deeply personal, as well. [Amazon]

The Atlanta Child Murders by Jack Mallard/front cover image [Amazon]

3. THE ATLANTA CHILD MURDERS: THE NIGHT STALKER by JACK MALLARD (2009)

Jack Mallard was the actual District Attorney who prosecuted Wayne Williams and got him convicted. His book about the case, The Atlanta Child Murders: The Night Stalker, lays out the evidence against Williams and works to dispel conspiracy theories that have since emerged regarding the killings, including the often-invoked KKK angle.

Although sometimes criticized as being too clinical, Mallard definitely supplies a decidedly different take on the tragedy than much of the other material that’s available. [Amazon]

Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones/front cover image [Amazon]

4. LEAVING ATLANTA by TAYARI JONES (2002)

For her knockout debut novel Leaving Atlanta, author Tayari Jones tapped her own experiences as a kid who grew up in the city during the terrifying early-’80s killing spree.

The book relates the time and place from the point of view of three African-American fifth-graders, for whom life seems normal until their classmates start to disappear. The details are vivid, and Jones tells the story with heartbreakingly masterful command. [Amazon]

5. WHO KILLED ATLANTA’S CHILDREN? (2000)
Director: Charles Robert Carner
Cast: Gregory Hines, James Belushi, Cle Bennett

The Showtime TV movie Who Killed Atlanta’s Children? stars Gregory Hines as Ron Larson and James Belushi as Pat Laughlin, a pair of Spin magazine reporters who, in 1986, authored “A Question of Justice,” a landmark investigative piece on the case (they’re based on real-life journalists Barry Michael Cooper and Robert Keating).

The article actually convinced authorities to reopen the case against Wayne Williams, although it did not clear his name. Who Killed Atlanta’s Children? chronicles the correspondents pursuing the truth, and seems to, again, imply that the local Ku Klux Klan committed at least some of the atrocities. [Variety]

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Main images: “The Atlanta Child Murders [DVD front cover image]/”Leaving Atlanta” by Tayari Jones [front cover image]/”Who Killed Atlanta’s Children?” [DVD front cover image]

The post The Atlanta Child Murders: The Best Books & Movies About The Still Haunting Case appeared first on CrimeFeed.

OAKLAND COUNTY, MI — Between 1976 and 1977, a serial killer — or killers — stalked the suburbs of Detroit and targeted children.

During a 13-month period, two girls and two boys were kidnapped and murdered in Oakland County, Michigan. The killer took victims for a period ranging from four to 19 days before slaying them and dumping their bodies. Some were shot; others were smothered. The two male victims were raped.

The case made national headlines, and the killer was dubbed the “Oakland Killer” and the “Oakland County Child Killer.” Still, despite some differences in the murderer’s M.O., the nickname that stuck was the “Babysitter Killer” — because of his habit of keeping victims bathed and fed until he ended their lives.

The resulting murder investigation was the largest in United States history up until that time.

Fear and near mass hysteria swept the Detroit area as media and authorities inundated young people with information on “stranger danger,” and parents encouraged children to go to “safe houses” if they felt threatened.

Several people have been named as suspects over the years, and many theories have been developed — but the cases remain unsolved. The killer — or killers — remain at large.

The first victim was 12-year-old Mark Stebbins. He was last seen leaving an American Legion Hall on Sunday afternoon, February 15, 1976. He had been playing pool with his brother, but gotten tired and told his mother that he was heading home to watch TV.

Arch Edward Sloan [Police photo]

His body was found on February 19, fully clothed and neatly laid out in a snowbank in the parking lot of an office building at Ten Mile Road and Greenfield.

Mark had been strangled and sexually assaulted with an object, and had suffered two lacerations to the left rear of his head. Investigators also found rope marks on his wrists and ankles that indicated that he had been bound during his time in captivity.

On December 22, 1976, Jill Robinson, 12, packed a backpack and ran away from her home after an argument with her mother over whether or not to have biscuits for dinner.

The day after her disappearance, her bicycle was found behind a hobby store on Main Street — and on December 26, the girl’s body was found along the side of Interstate 75 near Big Beaver Road in Troy. An investigation revealed that she had been killed by a single 12-gauge shotgun blast to the head.

Sketch of suspected killer [Police photo]

Like Mark, she was fully clothed and the body had been neatly laid out in the snow.

Kristine Mihelich, 10, was last seen Sunday, January 2, 1977, at 3 P.M. at a 7-Eleven store on Twelve Mile Road at Oakshire in Berkley.

She was reported missing by her mother three hours later, and a mail carrier spotted her fully clothed body 19 days later on the side of a rural road in Franklin Village. Kristine had been smothered, and the body was placed with her eyes closed and arms folded across her chest.

The final victim, 11-year-old Timothy King, grabbed his skateboard, borrowed 30 cents from his older sister, and left his home in Birmingham on March 16, 1977, to buy candy at a drugstore on nearby Maple Road at about 8:30 P.M. He left the store by the rear entrance — and disappeared.

In the late evening hours of March 22, 1977, two teenagers in a car found Timothy’s body in a shallow ditch just across the county line in Wayne County.

Police said that he was suffocated and sexually assaulted with an object — and, once again, the body was carefully posed in fresh clothing.

A forensic investigation revealed that Timothy had eaten fried chicken and then been suffocated approximately six hours before his body was found.

The Detroit News offered a $100,000 reward for the killer’s apprehension, and local stations have aggressively covered the case over the years. A presentation on WXYT titled “Winter’s Fear: The Children, the Killer, the Search,” won a 1977 Peabody Award.

After the discovery of Kristine Mihelich’s body, authorities realized they were potentially dealing with a serial killer.

Blue Gremlin [WXYZ-TV Detroit Channel 7 / YouTube (screenshot)]

Soon after Timothy King was abducted, a composite drawing of the suspected kidnapper and his vehicle, a blue AMC Gremlin with a white side stripe, was released.

The suspect was described as a white male with a dark complexion, 25 to 35 years old, with shaggy hair and sideburns.

Michigan State Police led a group of law-enforcement officials to form a task force. The consortium reportedly investigated over 18,000 tips, but disbanded in 1978 after failing to arrest or charge a suspect.

Over the years, some of the victims’ family members have criticized the police investigation. Timothy King’s sister Catherine Broad compiled an archive of investigation material on her blog, and the King family produced a documentary entitled Decades of Deceit.

Christopher Busch [WXYZ (screenshot)]

The documentary claims that investigators and prosecutors conducted a shoddy investigations and dismissed leads that the King family discovered in 2006. Timonthy King’s father, Barry King, posts updates to the case on his blog, A Father’s Story.

In 2016, he wrote that he believed that Christopher Busch, the son of a high-level General Motors executive, who was convicted of multiple sex crimes against children, was involved in the death of his son.

Busch was questioned in connection with the abductions and killings, but released after reportedly passing a polygraph examination. But in 2008, WXYZ reported that three lie-detector experts took another look at the case and determined that Busch was not being truthful, according to a search-warrant affidavit.

Busch committed suicide in 1978 — after which investigators found bloody ropes on the floor and a pencil drawing of a young boy, who reportedly resembled Mark Stebbins, apparently screaming in agony, taped on the wall of his bedroom.

According to the King family, the ligatures found on the scene have gone missing, and there is no sign of them in the case files.

In 2012, Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper held a press conference to announce that Arch “Ed” Sloan, a convicted pedophile and early suspect in the killings, had officially become a person of interest. Cooper says a hair found in Sloan’s 1966 Pontiac Bonneville fits the mitochondrial DNA profile of hairs found on the two male victims.

Sloan is not the donor of the hair, but Cooper’s Chief Assistant Prosecutor Paul Walton says they went public to find out who Sloan used to associate with in hopes of identifying the hair. Sloan was reportedly known to loan his car to pedophile friends.

Several years after the killings, Sloan was sentenced to life in prison for the rape of a young boy in 1983. He remains behind bars.

Other suspects who have been named over the years include James Vincent Gunnels, who was raped by Busch, and whose hair was partially DNA matched with hair found on Kristine Mihelich – meaning that the hair belongs to Gunnels or one of his relatives on his mother’s side. Chris King, Timmy’s brother, has said he believes Gunnels is connected somehow.

At one point, serial killer John Wayne Gacy was named as a potential suspect. Although, according to DNA tests conducted in 2013, Gacy was not involved in the Oakland County killings.

On March 27, 2007, investigators told WXYZ that another convicted pedophile named Theodore Lamborgine was considered the top suspect in this case. Lamborgine pleaded guilty to 15 sex-related counts involving young boys rather than accept a plea bargain that would have required him to take a polygraph test on the Oakland County child killings. In October 2007, the family of Mark Stebbins filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Lamborgine seeking $25,000.

As the investigation continues, families and friends still hope for closure — and police believe that there could be more victims out there.

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Main photo: Four murder victims who may have been victims of the “Babysitter Killer” [WXYZ-TV Detroit Channel 7 / YouTube (screenshot)]

The post Is The “Babysitter Serial Killer” Who Murdered 4 Children Still Out There? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Nearly 20 years after 18-year-old Angie Dodge was brutally murdered in Idaho Falls, Idaho, the case had gone cold.

Investigators discovered that a DNA sample from the crime scene did not match Christopher Tapp, who had been serving a 30-year sentence for participating in the crime. Tapp’s conviction was vacated; he was released — and police had to go back to the drawing board when searching for suspects.

The killer’s DNA was entered into CODIS, the national criminal database, but investigators found no match. In 2014, they decided to start thinking outside of the box.

Using a new — and highly controversial — familial DNA technique, they searched a public DNA database owned by Ancestry.com in hopes of finding a person who was related to Angie’s killer. Finally, they got a hit. It was not an exact match, but DNA expert Greg Hampikian told 48 Hours that the sample had 34 out of 35 markers — which was close enough to make them think that they had found the killer’s family tree.

The sample belonged to Michael Usry, Jr., a filmmaker living in New Orleans. Coincidentally, Usry had made a short film about a woman’s death. “Nobody ever thinks that they’re gonna get picked up by the police and taken into an interrogation room and questioned about a murder,” Michael Usry, Jr., told 48 Hours. “When it happens to you, it’s definitely a game changer.” Luckily for Usry, Jr., investigators later determined that the sample had been a false positive.

Familial DNA database searching was first used in the United Kingdom in 2004, and led to the conviction of Jeffrey Gafoor, who had murdered Lynette White in July 2003, after his brother’s DNA was tested and found to be a partial match.

In the United States, states individually determine how and when to conduct familial searches.

As the technique becomes more widely used, proponents say they believe that this type of DNA search can provide clues and help avoid dead ends when all other investigative leads appear to have been exhausted.

Most famously, familial DNA matching was credited with catching California’s “Grim Sleeper” serial killer Lonnie Franklin, Jr., in 2010 — and also with confirming that “Boston Strangler” Albert DeSalvo was the killer.

But opponents claim that using this type of DNA technology can lead to flawed results — and can also be a serious violation of privacy.

Michael Usry, Jr. [48 Hours (screenshot)]

In one study published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers from the University of California-Berkeley and New York University found that familial DNA searching will often indicate that two people are close relatives, when they are in fact distant relatives.

In some cases, two people can be wrongly identified as siblings, for example, when they are actually distant cousins, according to Pacific One magazine.

The researchers wrote that the greater the number of potential suspects, the more likely that the searches could be seen as “fishing expeditions.”

Also, since the accuracy depends on the number and types of samples that already exist in the database, the accuracy of the matching will vary with ethnicity.

Ancestry.com has published their privacy guidelines, and states that they may share personal information for reasons including legal or regulatory purposes in order to “comply with valid legal process (e.g., subpoenas, warrants).”

In 2016, the company’s Transparency Report stated that Ancestry received nine valid law-enforcement requests concerning users of Ancestry.com and Archives.com in 2016. According to the company, Ancestry.com provided information in response to eight of those nine requests, and all were related to investigations involving credit-card misuse and identity theft. According to the company, “numerous inquiries that were refused because the requestor did not provide the appropriate legal process.”

A statement on Ancestry.com’s website reads:

“If we are compelled to disclose your Personal Information to law enforcement, we will do our best to provide you with advance notice, unless we are prohibited under the law from doing so. In the interest of transparency, Ancestry produces a Transparency Report where we list the number of valid law enforcement requests for user data across all our sites.”

To learn more about the Angie Dodge case, watch Investigation Discovery’s Who Killed Angie Dodge? Keith Morrison Investigates on ID GO now!

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CBS News

CBS News / 48 Hours

Pacific One

Main photo: Angie Dodge [48 Hours / YouTube (screenshot)]

The post Could Using An Online Genetics Test Make You A Murder Suspect? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND — On January 20, 1931, the body of Julia Wallace, a Liverpool housewife, was found dead at her home in Wolverton Street.

She had been brutally murdered, and her husband, 52-year-old insurance investigator William Herbert Wallace, was the prime suspect. This despite the fact that the couple seemed to have been well-matched by all accounts, and there were no rumors of infidelity or any other marital issues.

Raymond Chandler [Fair use/Wikipedia]

The killing has become one of the most notorious and hotly debated murder mysteries in history. Crime fiction writer Raymond Chandler described the case as “the nonpareil of all murder mysteries.”

The story started on January 18 when William Wallace headed out for his weekly meeting at the Liverpool Chess Club. At 7:20 P.M., shortly before Wallace arrived at the club, the club captain took a telephone call from a man identifying himself as “R.M. Qualtrough.” Qualtrough left a message asking for Wallace to come to his house at 25 Menlove Gardens East the following evening concerning some insurance business for his daughter.

When Wallace arrived for his match and was given the message, he said that he did not know anyone by that name and was not familiar with the address.

The next evening, Wallace boarded a tram and headed out for his appointment with Qualtrough. En route, the tram’s conductor would later tell investigators that Wallace repeatedly asked him and the ticket inspector to let him know where the stop was and made the point of telling them that he was a “stranger” to the area.

After asking around widely, he discovered that 25 Menlove Gardens East did not exist. Liverpool has Menlove Gardens North, South, and West, but not East, for some reason. Unable to find the address or anyone nearby who knew a Mr. Qualtrough, Wallace returned home.

Upon arriving, at around 8:45 P.M., Wallace told his next door neighbors that the front and back doors to his house are locked and his keys didn’t seem to be working. The neighbors followed Wallace back to the rear of his house and watched as he tried the back door lock. It worked that time, and they entered the house. Once able to get inside, they found Julia’s body in the front room. She had been violently battered to death, and blood was splashed on the walls.

Apparently in shock at the state of her corpse, Wallace said, “They’ve finished her, look at her brains.”

An investigation determined that she had been beaten on the head 11 times with a blunt object. The motive did not appear to be robbery — Julia’s handbag was still on the kitchen table.

When Julia was found dead, the case baffled investigators. They found no sign of an intruder, no weapon, no witnesses — and the body was found in a locked house where the victim had presumably been alone.

Since Wallace’s death, the case has been hotly debated: Was Wallace, as many suspected, guilty of murder? Or was the mysterious “R.M. Qualtrough” the killer? Incidentally, police searched Liverpool and found five people with the last name Qualtrough, but all denied making the call.

PD James [Public Domain/Wikipedia]

John Edward Whitly MacFall, a lecturer of Forensic Medicine at Liverpool University, was called to act as the police’s forensics expert. Many experts criticized his handling of the case, especially his conclusion that the time of death had been around 8 P.M.

Other evidence appeared to support Wallace’s guilt, including a switchboard supervisor at the Liverpool telephone exchange who said the mysterious call to the chess club the night before the murder came from a phone booth 400 yards from Wallace’s house. Police suspected that Wallace placed the call in order to provide himself with an alibi.

In addition, friends noted that Wallace had a strange demeanor, and appeared to lack emotion.

Despite a lack of physical evidence, the police charged Wallace with the murder, and he was convicted. But his conviction was later overturned by the Court Of Criminal Appeal, and became the first instance in British legal history where an appeal had been allowed after re-examination of evidence.

Wallace walked out of prison a free man. He died two years later, but the mystery continued.

An assortment of authorities and armchair detectives have attempted to crack the case over the years, including famed novelist PD James. Writing in the Sunday Times magazine, James claimed that the murder was misunderstood from the beginning by the police.

Richard Parry’s mug shot for an unrelated arrest in 1934

She concluded that Richard Parry, a 22-year-old local man who was also a suspect, made a prank call to Wallace. She believed that Parry sent Wallace on the fake errand in retaliation for the older man’s decision to turn him in for falsifying accounts at the Prudential, where both men worked. According to James, Parry lost his job as a result.

James believes that Wallace was guilty as charged, but that the case became muddled due to the coincidental prank call. According to James, Wallace was a troubled man whose failures eventually drove him to murder.

Theories abound, but none has been proven, and none really stands out as more likely than any other. As Raymond Chandler said, “The Wallace case is unbeatable; it will always be unbeatable.”

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Main photos: William Herbert Wallace and Julia Wallace [Wikimedia Commons]

The post The Mystifying & Unsolvable Locked Room Murder Of Julia Wallace appeared first on CrimeFeed.

ST. AUGUSTINE, FL — On January 23, 1973 — 20 years before Nicole Brown-Simpson was murdered in Los Angeles, a very similar brutal killing took place in St. Augustine, Florida.

The body of Athalia Ponsell Lindsley, a former model who had made local enemies due to her barking dogs, was discovered in a pool of blood on the front steps of her home on Marine Street just before 6 P.M. She had been, in the words of an article in The Florida Times-Union, “hacked to death with a machete.”

According to medical examiner Dr. Arthur Schwartz, who performed the autopsy, she was struck nine times by the machete on her hand, arm, and head. One of her fingers was severed and — like Nicole Brown-Simpson — she was nearly decapitated.

The only thing missing from her house after her murder was a pet bird, whose cage was found smashed.

Bloody Sunset in St. Augustine front cover image

It was a brutal end to an extraordinary life. Lindsley was born to a wealthy family in Toledo, Ohio, and later spent 20 years in New York as a model, chorus line dancer, and hostess on the TV game show Winner Take All.

While she lived for a while in Jacksonville, Florida, Lindsley wrote a book on gardening, patented a pot-cleaning device, and became a real estate agent.

She then married a former mayor of St. Augustine, Florida, James “Jinx” Lindsley, just four months prior to her murder. Despite being newlyweds, the couple lived in different homes.

At the time of her murder, Lindsley had been in an ongoing feud with Alan Griffin Stanford, Jr., her neighbor at 126 Marine Street, due to her six dogs, who neighbors complained barked incessantly. On the very day before her murder, she criticized Stanford’s competency at a county commission meeting, and disputed his recent raise in salary. In fact, in a transcript of a county meeting, Lindsley had told the county commissioners that “he [Stanford] threatened my life.”

A witness described the attacker as a middle-aged white man wearing a white shirt and dark pants. A trail of blood led from the body to Stanford’s garage. Stanford was indicted. He went to trial but, after only two hours of jury deliberation, he was acquitted. Stanford has always maintained his innocence, and has since passed away.

Critics accused the police of botching the investigation and tainting evidence and, even today, local residents are still debating who killed Lindsley.

The socialite had no shortage of enemies due to her “obnoxious” behavior.

According to the St. Augustine Record, Lindsley wrote to her sister two weeks before her death, expressing concerns about her new husband. She wrote: “If anything happens to me, my husband owns nothing in my house.”

In 1998, Nancy Powell, a former reporter for The Florida Times-Union, coauthored a book about the slaying called Bloody Sunset in St. Augustine: A True Story, which explores various theories on the murder.

Sheriff Dudley W. Garrett, Jr., who investigated the case and was convinced that Stanford was guilty, has also died. Though the case has gone cold, the Sheriff’s Office still maintains a case file.

On November 3, 1974, Lindsley’s friend and neighbor Frances Bemis went out for her evening walk and never returned. Her body was found the next day in a vacant lot with her skull crushed, and it was rumored that she may have been collecting material for a book on Lindsley’s murder. Like that of her friend, Bernis’ case remains unsolved.

Lindsley was buried beside her parents at Oaklawn Cemetery in Jacksonville.

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Main photo: Athalia Ponsell Lindsley [Wikimedia Commons]

The post Unsolved Murder In St. Augustine: Former Model Hacked To Death With A Machete appeared first on CrimeFeed.

A retired Montana police detective believes that serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards not only murdered Teresa Halbach, but is also responsible for many of the 20th century’s most notorious murders.

Teresa Halbach [Calumet County Sheriff’s Office]

Steven Avery, the subject of the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer, was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal rape and murder of the 25-year-old photographer in Wisconsin in 2005.

John A. Cameron, who worked for the Great Falls police force for 24 years, including 14 years specializing in cold case investigations, says that he has uncovered evidence proving that Edwards killed Halbach.

But Cameron veers into strange territory when he also fingers Edwards for killing victims including Jimmy Hoffa, Chandra Levy, and JonBenét Ramsey. In fact, Cameron blames Edwards for a vast number of headline-grabbing homicides — perhaps any major case you’ve ever heard of, with the possible exception of Tupac’s.

“Every one of his murders was about setting anybody but him up,” Cameron told BuzzFeed. “He did exactly what he did in the Avery case, all over the country.”

Authorities do know that Edwards killed at least five victims, and police believe that there may be many more out there.

Edwards’ first known victims were of Lavaco and Judy Straub, a double murder that took place in Ohio in 1977. He was convicted of these murders in 2010, and received life sentences.

He committed a second double homicide in Wisconsin in 1980, killing Tim Hack and Kelly Drew in a case known as the “Sweetheart Murders.“ Edwards also later confessed to the 1996 murder of Danny Gloeckner, who had changed his last name to Edwards, in Ohio. The victim was a young man who lived with Edwards and his wife for several years, and Edwards killed him in a scheme to collect insurance money.

In his book It’s Me: Edward Wayne Edwards, the Serial Killer You Never Heard Of, Cameron notes several similarities between Edwards’ murders and the Zodiac killings — especially the fact that both killers targeted couples on lovers’ lanes. And Cameron isn’t the only person who thinks Edwards could be responsible for the Zodiac murders.

Edward Wayne Edwards [Metropolitan Department of Corrections]

Edwards was brought to justice after his daughter April Balascio called police to report her suspicions that her father had committed the so-called “Sweetheart Murders” in 2009.

Balascio recalled on the Investigation Discovery show People Magazine Investigates: My Father, the Serial Killer how she tipped off authorities, which led to her father’s arrest and conviction. She also told People that she had suspicions that her father could have been behind some of the Zodiac murders.

She said that Edwards verbally abused her mother, and made the children watch a program about the Zodiac Killer while screaming, “That’s not how it happened!”

Edwards was sentenced to death in March 2011. He died in prison the following month, at 77.

In 2017, Detective Chad Garcia of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office who was in charge of the “Sweetheart Murders” said that he believes that there are at least five to seven more murders that Edwards committed — but said he was less sure that Edwards was specifically involved in the Zodiac killings.

In the 1960s, prior to his murder conviction, Edwards was put on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list for a string of robberies, and then spent five years in jail. He later appeared on the TV show To Tell The Truth claiming to be a reformed criminal.

After reading a memoir written by Edwards in 1972 called Metamorphosis of a Criminal, Cameron said he began to notice that Edwards’ descriptions of his locations seemed to place him near to the scenes of known murders.

He later traded letters with Edwards over a nine-month period until Edwards died in prison in 2011. “What it turns out Edwards would do is he would create horrific murders that were in the press constantly that created terror, and he would set people up,” Cameron said, according to The Independent.

“Starting at a very young age, when he was 12 years old, he was able to set up a guy for a murder he had done. And [for] the rest of his life, he would get off on not only killing people, but then setting up someone close to the victim and then watching the system execute them.”

So what ties Edwards to Halbach’s murder? Cameron claims that Edwards committed multiple murders on Halloween nights. Halbach went missing on October 31.

@DarknessRadio https://t.co/XIjeR166I7 Edward Wayne Edwards #StevenAvery pic.twitter.com/v2ZEJZYiOP

— Joe DeRenzo (@joederenzo) January 6, 2016

Cameron also claims that Edwards lived only an hour away from Avery in 2005 when the murder took place. Somewhat chillingly, Cameron points to a piece of footage shown in the sixth episode of Making a Murderer that shows a heavyset man standing in the background (above, left) — whom he claims could be Edwards. Whether or not it actually is Edwards, of course, is hotly debated.

Chandra Levy [Wikimedia Commons]

Cameron also states that Edwards could be responsible for many other notorious murders. These, according to Cameron, include the Atlanta Child Murders and the murder of Sam Sheppard‘s wife Marilyn, which was fictionalized in the movie The Fugitive.

Edwards, he says, is also the culprit behind the Colonial Parkway killings, and the brutal slayings of three small boys in Arkansas in a case later known to public by the arrest and imprisonment of the suspects known as the West Memphis Three.

Perhaps most outlandishly, he also claims that a 13-year-old Edwards may have committed the murder of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia. And the list goes on: Cameron also believes that Edwards killed Chandra Levy and attempted to frame Gary Condit in a bid to have a higher body count than Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Elizabeth Short [Wikimedia Commons]

Avery’s legal team continues to pursue his appeal.

For more on Edward Wayne Edwards, watch Investigation Discovery’s People Magazine Investigates: My Father, The Serial Killer on ID GO now!

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It’s Me: Edward Wayne Edwards, the Serial Killer You Never Heard Of

Main photo: FBI Ten Most Wanted mug shot of Edward Edwards [Wikimedia Commons]

The post Former Detective Says Serial Killer Murdered Teresa Halbach, JonBenét, Chandra Levy, Jimmy Hoffa & More! appeared first on CrimeFeed.

NEW YORK, NY — In the early morning hours of January 27, 1955, Serge Rubinstein — stock and currency manipulator, socialite, playboy, and draft-dodger — was murdered by a mysterious stranger.

Rubinstein had so many enemies that at his funeral, his own rabbi referred to him as a “psychopath” — and to this day the killing remains unsolved.

The previous evening, Rubinstein had returned from a dinner at Nino’s La Rue supper club with Estelle Gardner to his six-story Fifth Avenue mansion. Gardner left at around 1:45 A.M.

The next morning, Rubinstein’s butler, William Morter, found his body bound, gagged, and dressed in silk pajamas in the third-floor bedroom. Rubinstein’s hands and feet were tied with Venetian blind cords, and his mouth was covered with adhesive tape. The coroner later determined that he had died of manual strangulation.

The murder baffled investigators, who searched for a motive and a suspect. There was no sign of forced entry, and though the room had been ransacked, police were unable to determine if anything of value was missing.

Rubinstein’s mother and an aunt, who lived at the home on the top floors, claimed that they had seen a mysterious “girl [dressed] in brown” on the stairway at about 1 A.M. after hearing an argument. But investigators later determined that the women had been confused about the time, and may have mistaken the ambulance attendant for the mysterious stranger.

The murder made headlines, and numerous theories circulated over the years, including a botched kidnap attempt, involvement of organized crime, revenge by a jilted lover, and revenge by financial victims.

One reporter famously said that, in their search for the consummate con man’s killer, police had “narrowed the list of suspects down to 10,000.”

Just a year after his death, a film was released based on Rubinstein, starring George Sanders as the ill-fated businessman, and beauties Zsa Zsa Gabor and Yvonne DeCarlo. It was entitled Death of a Scoundrel and had the tagline, “He was the most hated man on earth. But he could have been one of the great men in history.”

Rubinstein was born in Russia, where his father was a financial adviser to Grigory Rasputin. The family fled Russia during the Russian Revolution, and eventually settled in Sweden. Rubinstein attended England’s Cambridge University, and later joined the Banque Franco-Asiatique in Paris, France.

By 1932, he was running the bank — but was forced out of France after it was determined that he was manipulating funds. Rubinstein also lived in Shanghai in the 1930s, but he sold off his gold mines and left shortly before the Japanese invaded the country.

He then acquired a fake Portuguese passport in the name of Serge Manual Rubinstein de Rovello and came to the United States in the early 1940s, where he settled in a luxurious mansion at 814 Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Soon he was wining and dining important figures in New York and Washington D.C. In 1941, he married Laurette Kilbourne. The couple had two children, Alexandria and Dianna.

But his legal troubles were far from over. Rubinstein made extensive attempts to avoid the draft during World War II, including claiming that he was the sole support for seven dependents and stating that as a Portuguese citizen, he was required to remain neutral. In 1946, Rubinstein was fined $50,000 and sent to federal prison for two years for draft-dodging.

His wife divorced him in 1949, claiming cruelty. Also that year, Rubinstein was indicted on charges of stock fraud, mail fraud, and violation of the security act. And he was later sued by a New York company, Chosen Corporation, in a complex case of financial fraud after he was accused of smuggling Japanese yen valued at $1.2 million out of Japan.

After the divorce and getting out of prison, Rubinstein became noted for his social life, being seen out on the town with numerous women, many actresses and models, at extravagant nightclubs. He was also simultaneously managing to repeatedly thwart the U.S. government’s attempts to deport him.

Rubinstein even got taken to court by his own sister-in-law in 1951. She claimed that he cheated his late brother Andre out of $1.5 million in the Chosen Corporation swindle. She lost her case.

In 1954, Rubinstein was sued by Blair Holdings for $5 million, alleging conspiracy to defraud. That same year, three men, including Emanuel Lester, were arrested for trying to extort $535,000 from Rubinstein.

It’s easy to see how this life riddled with multiple romantic partners, lawsuits, financial scams, cons, jail time, and family intrigue could lead to multiple enemies.

At his funeral, rabbi Dr. Julius Mark stated that Rubinstein was a “complex, ambiguous, and unquestioned psychopathic personality” who “possessed a brilliant mind, but was utterly lacking in wisdom.”

After his death, it was revealed that his assets totaled $1,281,668, which was far less than estimates of up to $10,000,000 when he was alive.

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Main photo: Serge Rubinstein, the late draft dodging financier, at Nino’s LaRue with Pat Wray (left) and Pat Sinnot [Getty Images]

The post Death Of A Scoundrel: Who Killed Con Man, Playboy & Draft-Dodger Serge Rubinstein? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

GLEN ELLYN, IL — It was over 30 years ago when 15-year-old Kristy Wesselman left her suburban home to pick up a candy bar and some soda from a nearby grocery store. She was never seen alive again.

This week, the man accused of raping and murdering Wesselman was sentenced to 80 years in prison. Michael Jones, 64, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting and killing the teen on July 21, 1985.

Michael Jones [DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office]

Wesselman was last seen walking to the grocery store from her Glen Ellyn home. Her body was found the next day along the path she had taken. Investigators determined that she had been stabbed multiple times and sexually assaulted.

Jones has been living in Champaign for the past 30 years — and has been assaulting other women. But now he has finally been caught due to DNA linking him to Wesselman’s death. The DNA was collected from a sexual assault kit taken during Wesselman’s autopsy, and was submitted to a national database in 2000.

The DNA sample came up as a match to Jones in September of 2015, when he pleaded guilty to an aggravated domestic battery charge.

At the time of Wesselman’s murder, Jones had already been sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting 18-year-old Geri Michael at gunpoint in 1977. He only served six years of that 10-year sentence.

In a victim-impact statement, Wesselman’s mother, Sandy Wesselman, talked about the positive things that her daughter had done in life before sentencing — and referred to her daughter’s life as “an unfinished book.”

And as Geri Michael pointed out, “Had he served at least the 10 years, we wouldn’t be here today for this.” DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin said that there is now a Sexually Violent Person’s Act, that enables prosecutors to fight to keep men like Jones in prison longer than their sentences.

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Main photo: Kristy Wesselman [WGN TV (screenshot)]

The post 30-Year-Old Cold Case Rape & Murder Of Kristy Wesselman Solved! appeared first on CrimeFeed.

ASHEVILLE, NC — A North Carolina man accused of raping, beating, and burning a woman while he held her captive for three days has been linked to two cases of missing women, according to a news report.

Clarence Octetree, 55, has connections to two local women, one his wife, who have been reported missing, according to News 13.

Octetree’s wife, 61-year-old Alma Octetree, was last seen in the summer of 2012. Alma, who was homeless, was only reported missing in 2014, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

The TV station reports that Octetree also may have been the last known person to see Regenia Hendrix, 55, before she went missing in April 2014.

Octetree was an acquaintance of Hendrix’s, and was named in her missing persons report. Her mother Patricia Rice told WLOS in March 2017 that Hendrix was last seen cashing her disability check at a pawn shop in downtown Asheville.

Hendrix then reportedly went to look at a mobile home with a man who has been named as being Octetree by a relative of Hendrix.

Asheville police arrested Octetree on January 12 after his victim called 911 using his cell phone. She told police that he had beaten her, raped her, and burned her with cigarettes during her time in captivity. Authorities report that the woman had multiple bruises on her face and body.

According to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety records, Octetree has a long criminal history, including a prison escape and a conviction for assault.

Octetree has been charged with felony assault and kidnapping. He is in custody at the Buncombe County Detention Center on $105,000 bond.

The investigation continues.

If you are in search of a missing person, make sure to enter their information into the database of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

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Main photo: Clarence Octetree [Buncombe County Detention Center]

The post Is This Kidnap & Rape Suspect Also Linked To 2 Other Missing Women? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

MARION, IL — Just before 3 A.M. on March 24, 2012, 21-year-old Molly Young received a text from her boyfriend, Richie Minton, simply stating, “Help me.” Molly rushed to Minton’s apartment and, several hours later, was discovered dead from a single gunshot wound to the left side of her head.

At 9:02 A.M., Minton’s roommate found her body, woke the sleeping Richie, who called 911. Minton, a 21-year-old Carbondale Police Dispatcher, recognized the voice on the other end as a coworker named Amber and said, “My girlfriend just committed suicide.” Initially, Minton said Young had overdosed on drugs. He soon called 911 back and said:

“Hey, Amber… can you send the sergeant? She didn’t O.D. I just found my gun laying underneath her.”

Minton, who had twice previously been arrested for DUI, said he passed out drunk the night before and must have slept through the gun going off just a few feet away from him.

Richie Minton, 2013 DUI arrest mug shot [Illinois State Police]

He also explained away the two six-inch scratches on the side of his head as a result of attempting CPR.

Illinois State Police took over the investigation and, immediately, Minton lawyered up and would not cooperate. He allowed no searches, and refused to provide samples of his DNA, blood, urine, or fingernail clippings. The following day, the coroner called off any need for a homicide investigation by declaring that Young had committed suicide.

Six years later, Young’s loved ones and numerous other observers question that ruling. They also continue to ask whether or not some kind of cover-up got Minton off the hook and kept him there … so far.

Those who contend that Molly Young did not commit suicide cite the following facts as evidence:

• The gunshot entered the left side of Young’s head from a downward angle, indicating it was fired from a left hand. Molly was right-handed.

• No fingerprints from Young appeared on the gun, nor was any gunpowder residue detected on her hands.

• Young had no experience with firearms and frequently expressed disdain for them.

• Fresh bruises covered Young’s body, indicating a struggle and/or that her remains had been moved.

• Minton’s DNA turned up under Young’s fingernails. Again, he had long, fresh scratches on his head.

• Before police took Minton to the station, they allowed him to wash his hands and change his clothes.

• 50 “individual drops” of Young’s blood — some smaller than a single millimeter — were “spattered” all over Minton’s pajama pants. Investigators said they “could not determine” how they got there.

• Since Young’s death, Minton’s attorney has relentlessly battled every undertaking by Illinois State Police to extract information from his client, forcing a warrant process to precede each step of the investigation.

Regardless of all listed above, Molly Young’s official cause of death went down as suicide, while Richie Minton has continually worked as a dispatcher for the St. Louis Fire Department.

As for how the Carbondale Police Department came to close the case so quickly, officials claimed to have found searches on Young’s computer for “suicide” and “how to kill yourself.” Police also said that Minton’s roommate got a text at 4:40 A.M. from Young’s phone that read:

“I think I’m gonna shoot myself in the head. I’m really sorry if you come home to that.“

Young’s family says that the computer searches occurred on nights when Molly was out with friends and could easily have been hacks. They also point out that there’s no way to know who exactly sent the final text, as Minton certainly would have had access to the dead woman’s phone.

Larry Young, the deceased’s father, has continually pursued the truth regarding his daughter’s demise. He has taken the Carbondale Police to task for, at best, botching the investigation and perhaps even “looking out” for one of their own. Not only does Minton work as a dispatcher, but both of his parents work in law enforcement as well.

Larry Young told the press:

“[Molly] knows that I will never give up on this, and I will never give up. I have seen too much evidence of homicide, and the lack of ignoring a homicide. I will never give up. I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that my daughter was murdered. The only way to get justice now is to get publicity. It’s a sad state of affairs.”

To that end, Larry Young says he is grateful for media attention to the case, and the resulting public pressure that got Molly’s death certificate reclassified from “suicide” to “undetermined.”

Still, Larry Young’s quest has come up against multiple roadblocks. In 2015, a judge dismissed the family’s wrongful-death lawsuit, stating that it had been filed three months past the date the statute of limitations expired.

To date, the case remains open, with the State Attorney’s Appellate holding the official line by stating: “Although this was a tragic end to a young lady’s life, there is simply insufficient evidence at this time to charge anyone as accountable for murder.”

Undaunted in his efforts, Larry Young presses on, saying: “We believe it’s a big travesty of justice that the investigators aren’t investigating a murder.”

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Main photo: Molly Young [courtesy the Young Family/Investigation Discovery]

The post Was Molly Young’s “Suicide” Actually Murder — & Did Cops Cover For Her Killer? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Natalee Holloway’s mother is suing Oxygen Media, and claims that they misled her into believing that they had discovered what could be her daughter’s remains, and duped her into provided a sample of her DNA.

Beth Holloway filed the lawsuit on February 2 in federal court in Birmingham, according to AL.com. She is asking for $35 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

In the lawsuit, Holloway states that when the network approached her about doing a series related to Natalee’s 2005 disappearance, they claimed that they had found human female remains that could be her daughter’s. She also claims that she was duped into giving them a DNA sample that was later used without her permission on the show “under the guise of conducting a legitimate search for Natalee.” But Holloway now says that no such remains were ever found, and that the show was “a farce.”

Oxygen aired the six-part series The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway in late summer 2017. In the show, Natalee’s father, Dave Holloway, and private investigator T.J. Ward traveled to Aruba and described the discovery of bone fragments. Dave Holloway called the alleged discovery his most credible lead in more than 12 years.

In the 44-page suit, Beth Holloway claims that the defendants — Oxygen Media and Brian Graden Media — knowingly made false declarations that they had discovered that Natalee was raped, how Natalee died, where she was buried — and that her remains had been “doused in gasoline in a pit fire” and her crushed bones were mixed with a dog’s bones before being “cremated.” Holloway was made to listen to horrific and gruesome descriptions of what the network was claiming happened to her daughter, and “all the while, defendants knew that their gruesome depictions of Natalee’s death and desecration were lies,” the suit reads.

The suit reads:

“Rather than being an unscripted and true-crime documentary as defendants portrayed to Beth and their viewers, defendants’ series was preconceived and written in advance…the series was not a real-time or legitimate investigation into new leads…the series was a pre-planned farce and its publication was outrageous.”

In October 2017, it was announced that the remains weren’t Natalee’s — and, in fact, out of the four individual bone samples tested, only one was found to even be human. According to the claims in the lawsuit, “defendants knew at the outset that they had not discovered, and would not, discover, Natalee’s remains.” However, Beth Holloway was not informed of the lack of success of the investigation at the outset, and had to follow along, watching the show along with the viewers, to find out the result.

Joran Van der Sloot and Surinamese brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe were reportedly the last people to see Natalee alive. The Kalpoes continue to live and work in Aruba, and Van der Sloot is serving a 28-year sentence for murdering Stephanie Flores. He also faces charges in Alabama for extorting $25,000 from Holloway.

No one has ever been charged with Natalie’s murder.

Watch the “Natalee Holloway: Lost in Paradise” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Vanity Fair Confidential on ID GO now!

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Main photo: Natalee Holloway [Wikimedia Commons]

The post Natalee Holloway’s Mother Hits Oxygen Media With $35 Million Lawsuit Over Documentary appeared first on CrimeFeed.

On February 9, 2004, University of Massachusetts student Maura Murray crashed her car on Route 112, an icy road in Woodsville, New Hampshire. She was never seen again.

Fourteen years later, and Murray’s case has turned cold, and her disappearance continues to be a mystery. Facebook was only five days old when Murray went missing — and yet the case has been called “the first crime mystery of the social-media age.”

Below, the top five questions that continue to baffle investigators — and true crime aficionados, websleuths, and ID Addicts.

1. What was going on in Murray’s life at the time?

Murray’s friends and family have described the UMass junior as an “All-American Girl” and a model student, athlete, and daughter.

Murray had attended West Point before transferring to UMass Amherst to study nursing, and was planning to marry her high school sweetheart, Billy Rausch, who was stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. But other parts of Maura’s life remain a mystery. It does seem clear, however, that Murray’s life wasn’t as picture-perfect as it seemed on the outside.

It remains unclear why she left West Point – some investigation has suggested that she may have been asked to leave for an Honor Code violation, possibly related to a shoplifting incident. Her troubles continued during her time at UMass, as just a few months before her disappearance, Murray was charged with improper use of a credit card for possessing and using stolen credit card numbers.

In the days before she disappeared, Murray reportedly emailed professors and her job to tell them that she would not be attending class or work due to a death in the family — which was not true. Why did she lie, and why was she leaving town?

2. How could Murray have vanished without a trace?

The night of her disappearance, Murray drove her Saturn up Route 112. The car had been having problems, and the road was icy and bordered by snowbanks.

Local school bus driver Butch Atwood was on his way home when he came across the wrecked Saturn and a woman matching Murray’s description, shortly after 7 P.M. He offered to help, but she insisted that she had already called AAA, and would wait for them in her car. Atwood, skeptical of her claim, as he was aware of the spotty cell phone reception in the area, called the police after he got home.

Police arrived at 7:46 P.M. They found the Saturn, but Murray was gone.

There were no sightings of any other vehicles, and no footprints in the fresh snow. The area has been searched many times over the years, but no trace of Maura has ever been found.

3. What do we know about her last hours?

The night before her disappearance, she had dinner with her father Fred Murray, and, by all accounts, was behaving normally. After dinner, Murray dropped her father at his motel room and borrowed his Toyota Corolla to attend a dorm party.

She left the party at around 2:30 A.M. on Sunday, February 8, and, on her way home, got into a car accident, running into a guardrail.

Her father said that she was distressed by the accident, but said he told her not to worry about it and assured her that insurance would cover the damage. He told her to get accident forms to fill out — and according to reports, she stopped at some point during the day to pick up accident report forms from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.

The first reported contact Murray had with anyone on February 9 was at 1 P.M., when she emailed her boyfriend, Billy. She wrote: “I got your messages, but honestly, I didn’t feel like talking to much of anyone, I promise to call today though.”

That afternoon, she withdrew $280 out of an ATM, then went to a liquor store and bought Bailey’s, Kahlua, a box of red wine, and vodka. The receipt was later found in her wrecked car.

During the investigation of the abandoned car, police also found a coke bottle that smelled as if it had contained an alcoholic beverage, and noticed red stains in the car that appeared to be red wine. Investigators found many personal items belonging to Murray inside the car, but her debit card, credit cards, and cell phone were missing — and none of them have been used since.

At 4:37 P.M. that afternoon, the last known phone call was made from Murphy’s cell phone, and was used to access her voicemail.

True Crime Addict cover art [promotional]

4. Could Murray still be alive?

Murray’s father maintains that he believes Murray was abducted, and he has not given up his search for his daughter.

James Renner, who wrote True Crime Addict about his obsession with Murray’s disappearance, and has maintained a comprehensive blog tracking his investigation, posits at the end of his book that Murray may have willfully disappeared and is still out there somewhere, alive.

Police later searched Murray’s belongings, and stated that they found searches on her computer related to finding directions between Amherst, Massachusetts, and Burlington, Vermont.

According to her father, one of her last phone calls was to the owner of a condominium for rent in Bartlett, which he says is an area she was very familiar with. Friends and family stated that she was an accomplished athlete and hiker.

Over the years, there have been several reported sightings of her, including one in Montreal and a possible picture of Murray pulled from Facebook (above). But none of the sightings have ever been verified.

5. If Maura was murdered, could there be other victims out there?

Although investigators have never been able to detect any pattern between Murray’s disappearance and that of other women who have gone missing in similar circumstances, there have been cases that might indicate the possibility of a connection.

Four years before Murray’s disappearance, 16-year-old Molly Bish seemingly vanished from her lifeguard post in Warren, Massachusetts. Her remains were found three years later in a wooded area only miles from her home. Her murder is still unsolved.

One month after Murray disappeared, an abandoned car was discovered belonging to a woman named Brianna Maitland. The vehicle was found approximately 100 miles from where Murray’s was located. No trace of Maitland has ever been found.

New Hampshire and Vermont police have repeatedly dismissed any connection between Murray’s case and the disappearance of Maitland.

On Friday night, the Missing Maura Murray remembrance group will be holding a Facebook Live chat and encourage people to join to share personal stories and memories about Murray.

Anyone with information about Murray is urged to call the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit on (603) 223-3856.

Did deeper into the Maura Murray case with the “Miles to Nowhere” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared on ID GO now!

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Maura Murray Official – Facebook

Main photo: Maura Murray [Wikimedia Commons]

The post 14 Years Later: 5 Things That Still Bother Us About The Maura Murray Case appeared first on CrimeFeed.

SHELBY, NC — Sometime in the early morning hours of February 14, 2000, nine-year-old Asha Degree disappeared from her family home on Oakcrest Drive near Fallston. The young girl was never seen again.

Asha’s parents told police that they last checked on Asha at 2:30 A.M. — and that by 6:30 A.M., she was gone. Sometime during the very early morning hours, for reasons unknown, Asha reportedly packed her bookbag, left her family home and set out on her own along North Carolina Highway 18.

It was raining heavily, and between 3:45 and 4:15 A.M., two drivers saw her walking south along the road, wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt and white pants. They reported the sighting to police after seeing a TV report about her disappearance.

One person who claimed to see Asha told police that they approached her, but she turned and ran into a wooded area.

Police launched a massive search of the area, and on February 17, candy wrappers, a pencil, a marker, and a Mickey Mouse–shaped hair bow that were identified as belonging to her were found in bushes off of the highway.

A year and a half later, her book bag, still packed, was unearthed from a construction site along Highway 18 north of Shelby.

Investigators first theorized that Asha may have been trying to run away from home, but others have suggested that she may have been abducted, or lured out of the house by someone with plans to kidnap her.

The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office is still investigating Asha’s disappearance, and Sheriff Alan Norman said that the case was still “extremely active.”

In February 2015, the FBI announced that FBI agents, Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office investigators, and State Bureau of Investigation agents were re-examining the case and re-interviewing witnesses. They also announced a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest or conviction of a suspect in Asha’s case.

Every year, her family now hosts an annual walk from their home to the billboard advertising her disappearance to draw attention to the case.

In January of last year, law-enforcement officials believed they might have found a lead in the case when Donald Preston Ferguson, 52, was arrested in South Carolina and charged in connection with the death of seven-year-old Shalonda S. Poole, whose body was found in 1990 behind an elementary school. Officials said that they were investigating the possibility that Poole could have been involved in Asha’s disappearance.

In May 2016, the FBI announced that their reinvestigation of the case had turned up another possible new lead — and said that Asha had been seen getting into a dark green early 1970s Lincoln Continental Mark IV, or possibly a Ford Thunderbird, along Route 18 near where she was last seen.

Asha’s mother, Iquilla Degree, told the Shelby Star that the family believes that Asha is still alive.

She keeps hope alive, she says, by hearing stories of women and children being found after being missing for long periods of time, and with her faith in God.

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Main photo: Asha Degree [Wikimedia Commons]

The post Where Is Asha Degree? 9-Year-Old Girl Disappeared On Valentine’s Day In 2000 appeared first on CrimeFeed.

DELPHI, IN — On February 14, 2017, best friends Liberty “Libby” German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, were found dead under a train bridge in Delphi, Indiana.

The two eighth graders had set off on a hike from Delphi Community Middle School on February 13, 2017. Libby’s older sister Kelso dropped them off at the start of the trail, which they both knew well, at about 1:30 P.M.

Soon, like many teens, they were posting pictures to social media. Libby uploaded a picture of Abby walking on the Monon High Bridge to her Snapchat at 2:09 P.M. The haunting image, which showed a man walking toward them, would be widely circulated around the globe after the girls disappeared.

Composite sketch of a man believed to be connected to the deaths of Abby Williams and Libby German [Indiana State Police]

Libby’s grandfather called her cell phone just after 3 P.M., but was unable to reach her.

At 5:30 P.M., the girls were reported missing, and within the hour the local police and hundreds of volunteers were scouring the area in groups. The girls’ bodies were found the next day on the banks of Deer Creek — and police have never released details of how they were killed.

The next day, February 15, police released a blurry photo taken from Libby’s mobile phone that showed a man walking along the tracks. A week later, the FBI released a short audio clip of a man saying “down the hill.” According to the FBI, the audio came from a video recording on Libby’s phone of a man who was following them.

Investigators are looking for this man in connection with the murders of the two teens [Indiana State Police]

Based on a witness who came forward, who had been in the Monon High Bridge Trail area that day, authorities released a sketch of the man.

Police have indicated Libby’s phone contains more evidence relating to the suspect, but it will not be released so as not to “compromise any future trial.”

The crime shocked the close knit community and its 300 residents.

In September 2017, a sex offender named Daniel Nations was arrested in Colorado after he allegedly threatened several people with a hatchet near a trail where a man was murdered. Nations had also lived in Indiana at some point.

The Indiana State Police Department said it was investigating to see if Nations could be a suspect in the Delphi investigation, but also revealed at the time that the department had “over 1,000 photographs of people who look like the guy in the sketch.”

Nations was transferred to Indiana custody on an unrelated charge on January 24, 2018. In February, police announced that Nations was no longer considered an active person of interest in the Delphi murders.

Some family members and locals turned to armchair sleuthing, which prompted police to appeal to them to stop posting photos on social media of people who resembled the alleged suspect.

“As we continue the investigation into the deaths of Abby and Libby, please refrain from posting pictures on social media sites of innocent people set side-by-side with the sketch and picture of the alleged suspect,” the Indiana State Police posted on Twitter. “By doing so, you take away from the investigation by slandering and possibly hurting those people and their families”.

Police set up a special force to investigate the killings, and to date have received more than 20,000 tips. So far, no one has been arrested or charged in connection with the double homicide.

But multiple agencies continue to work the case, and Sheriff Leazenby has emphasized that it’s “not a cold case.”

Libby’s mother, Carrie, shares that she keeps an orange bulb in her house’s lamp post, as she’d bought the bulb thinking that Libby would like it. She now says that she will keep that orange light shining until her daughter’s killer is found. Supporters across the country have also put orange bulbs outside their houses. “I want to shut it off so bad. I just want to turn it off,” said Carrie. “Find the killer and then everybody turn their lights off.”

Carrie appeals to the public for help, in obtaining justice for her daughter and for Abigail, and to make sure the perpetrator doesn’t hurt anyone else.

“I worry about this happening to somebody else. I worry about him getting someone else’s child and destroying another family. Please don’t let that happen. If you think you know something, turn it in. Even if it’s nothing, it’ll still be checked out. Maybe it will stop another mother from going through what I’ve been through.”

People with information can call the Delphi Homicide Investigation Tip Line — (844) 459-5786 — or send an email to the Sheriff’s Office at abbyandlibbytip@cacoshrf.com. There is a reward of up to $216,165 for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the homicides of Liberty German and Abigail Williams.

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Main photo: Liberty St. Germain (left) and Abigail Williams (right)

The post The Delphi Snapchat Murders: One Year Later, Still Unsolved, Still Haunting appeared first on CrimeFeed.

HENDERSON, NV — On November 8, 2010, a jogger on a roadside near Las Vegas stumbled across the dead body of Josh Dufort — beaten, strangled, and ditched in the dirt.

The 23-year-old Dansville, Michigan, native had relocated to Vegas in order to pursue his dream of acting. Once there, Dufort discovered a second passion — boxing — and he threw himself into both endeavors with the joy, ambitions, and fearlessness of youth.

The gregarious and easy-going Dufort quickly developed a full life in Las Vegas. He embarked on a romance with local beauty Shannon Lutz. In acting class, Dufort developed a tight friendship with Nikolaos Gaitanos, a fellow student.

At the boxing gym, Dufort fell in fast with Don Juan Futrell, a former light welter-weight champion who took Josh under his wing and offered him guidance both in and out of the ring. Some observers, however, have voiced suspicions that Futrell may have been something far more concerning than just a large-hearted mentor.

On November 7, Josh Dufort was alive and vibrant. He told Shannon Lutz he planned to jog to Don Juan Futrell’s gated community home for a workout and to discuss the fighter’s business idea about selling T-shirts on the Vegas strip.

Dufort never got there. In the last hours of his life, a panicked Dufort called his girlfriend three times from a roadside trail. As Lutz herself recalls:

“There’s three messages from Josh. And he said ‘These guys are here, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to get into the gate, they’re following me.’ He’s on the corner of Eastern and Pecos Ridge, and that he’s just frantic. And he’s like ‘You need to come get me right now, these guys are following me,’ and he repeats it several times and the phone cuts out.”

From there, one or more assailants attacked Dufort and murdered him. Futrell told police he had no idea who could have done it.

Shortly after shrugging for the cops, Futrell promptly got in touch with whomever he needed to in order to cash in the two life insurance policies he’d taken out on Dufort. No one else seemed to know about these policies including, some of those close to the case say, Josh Dufort himself. Regardless, now that Dufort was dead, Don Juan Futrell stood to collect $1.75 million.

Getting that cash proved daunting, though. Both companies denied Futrell’s claims and sued him, pointing out the suspicious nature of Dufort’s demise. But the boxer countersued, and thereby brought to light bizarre new details in a tragedy that already seemed strange enough.

First off, Futrell had apparently been paying for Dufort’s health insurance. That came as a surprise to everyone. More stunningly, on the life insurance paperwork, Dufort and Futrell are listed as “domestic partners.” Despite what that term usually implies, everyone close to Dufort maintains that the two men were never involved beyond just friendship.

A deposition regarding the claim quotes an exchange between an attorney and Futrell on this topic. It reads:

“Attorney: If I say the words ‘domestic partner,’ what does that mean to you?

Futrell: ‘Domestic partner’ means like married or something. I don’t know.

Attorney: Do you think domestic partners could be gay or straight?

Futrell: I think if you live together, it’s domestic.”

That may or may not be true. One indisputable fact, according to Shannon Lutz, is that Dufort and Futrell never lived together.

An even bolder point of contention: Futrell wrote on the insurance papers that, in the previous year, Dufort’s T-shirt enterprise earned the young actor a cool $180,000. By any standard, it’s a stretch to imagine any Vegas strip sidewalk peddler making that kind of money. In Dufort’s case, friends say it’s impossible. As Isaac Rhino, another pal, put it:

“For him to make $180,000, that would change his zip code.”

On top of Futrell producing no paperwork to prove the existence of a T-shirt business, friends say Dufort lived modestly in a tiny apartment — by himself. He also hustled to make cash, taking bar jobs and one-off gigs whenever he could.

Acting coach Sharry Flaherty added, “The kid had one pair of jeans and maybe three shirts.”

So how did Josh Dufort’s signature end up on the life insurance policies? Dufort did submit to the necessary medical exams, and attorneys for the Dufort family have theorized — but no one has established — that he perhaps misunderstood, thinking that it was all part of acquiring health insurance.

Still, police to date have filed no charges against Don Juan Futrell, and he is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law. Understandably, Futrell refuses to talk to the press.

Authorities ask anyone with information about Joshua Dufort’s murder to call Henderson Police at (702) 267-4750 or, to remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers at (702) 385-5555.

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Main photo: Josh Dufort/YouTube video [screenshot]

The post Was The 2010 Murder Of Actor Josh Dufort An Insurance Hit — & Can You Help Solve It? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Police in Minnesota hope that DNA test results will help them find a clue that could crack the unsolved murder of a woman in Minneapolis 44 years ago.

Mary Schlais’ body was found along a rural road over a snow bank near her home in Spring Brook Township in 1974. Schlais, a master’s student at the University of Minnesota, had planned to hitchhike to Chicago to attend an art show — but she was found dead three hours later.

Sergeant Scott McRoberts of the Dunn County Sheriff’s Office said that Schlais had been stabbed at least 15 times.

A witness reported that he saw a man in a compact car throw a body in the ditch, and helped police create a sketch of the suspect later.

In 2009, the Sheriff’s Office exhumed Schlais’ body for DNA testing. They are now finally ready to reveal some of the results. “There’s different types of DNA that can be tested for, and all I’m going to say is we got two profiles,” McRoberts said. Neither of the DNA profiles are a match to Schlais.

McRoberts also said that they have not ruled out a link to Randall Woodfield, the former Green Bay Packers draft pick who would later be known as the I-5 killer. Investigators have determined that Woodfield was traveling from Portland to Green Bay at the time that Schlais was killed. And all of his victims were — like Schlais — petite white women in their 20s.

Randall Woodfield [Marion County Sheriff’s Office]

Randall Woodfield is currently serving a 90-year prison sentence. Though he was charged with only one murder, investigators have linked him to 44 other killings — many of the discoveries were made years after Woodfield was incarcerated. He continues to maintain his innocence in connection with the murders.

Police have asked anyone with information about the case to contact the Dunn County Sheriff’s office at (715) 231-2917. They can also go to DunnCountyCrimeStoppersWeb.com to anonymously report a tip.

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Main photo: Mary Schlais [CBS (screenshot)]

The post Is Randall Woodfield, The I-5 Killer, Responsible For This 1974 Minnesota Cold Case Murder? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

WOODBINE, MD — It’s been over six months since 28-year-old David Gipson Smith disappeared without a trace.

At around 8:30 A.M. on August 5, 2017, David left his parents’ home in Pilesgrove, New Jersey, to visit a female friend in Maryland. He never came back.

His parents, Doug and Julie Smith, are desperate for answers. On the morning he left, David told his parents that he was planning to move in with a coworker. They later discovered that he had gone to visit Bridgett Toulan, a woman he had met during a stint in rehab in 2016.

“He’s thoughtful, intelligent, and has a really terrific sense of humor,” Doug told CrimeFeed.

“He was not the perfect child, but he was someone you felt compelled to be around because of his kindness and gentle leadership.”

David’s parents are candid about the fact that their son has struggled with drug addiction in the past, and may have recently relapsed after breaking up with his girlfriend. But they insist that he never would have voluntarily vanished for this long.

Bridgett told David’s parents that after he arrived at her home in Catonsville on Saturday, David told her that he wanted to “detox.” But she said she told him that she had already made plans to attend a Roger Waters concert in Washington, D.C. that night — so she put David in touch with another friend, Nichole Kojzar. David had chatted with Nichole on Facebook, but never met her in person before that night.

Nichole would later tell Doug and Julie that her parents, who lived on the same property in a separate residence, decided that they did not want David to stay with them after all. So she claims that she drove him to a secluded wooded area near 2000 Woodbine Road on a piece of property owned by her uncle — and dropped him off.

David’s father tried texting him at 7:55 A.M. on Sunday morning. By then, the phone was dead — and, according to phone records, it has never been turned on again.

Over the next few days, David’s family grew increasingly alarmed. They began calling the last numbers on his phone records and went into his social-media accounts, where they saw the exchanges between David and the two women.

Cell phone records showed that a text was sent from David’s phone to Bridgett’s phone at 12:19 A.M. on August 6, and a text was returned from Bridgett’s phone at 12:21 A.M. At 12:36 A.M. a phone call — which lasted five minutes — was made to David’s phone from Bridgett’s phone. Bridgett would later tell David’s family via text that she called David after the concert to ask if he wanted her to pick him up, but that he declined. She said that after she left for the concert, she never saw him again.

At 4:10 A.M. David’s phone received a two-minute call from Nichole’s phone. This was the last time records show it having been used.

Eventually, Doug and Julie got in touch with Bridgett and Nichole to try to understand what had happened, and on Saturday, August 12, Nichole met them at the Woodbine Road property. She told Doug and Julie that she had spent time with David there on Sunday and dropped David off there on Monday, August 7.

Aerial map of Woodbine Road in Lisbon, Maryland [Google Maps]

Julie said that she and her husband were immediately confused by Nichole’s story, especially once they saw the property. “There was no structure on the property — just a few abandoned cars and junk,” she said. They also pointed out that David’s car was still parked at Nichole’s house. Why would their son leave his car at the home of someone he had met only once, and go to a remote area with no transportation, food, or water?

According to Julie, Nichole told them that David left his car at her house rather than parking it at the Woodbine property because the uncle “would be mad if he knew someone was staying there.” Nichole also claimed that when she came back to the piece of land on Wednesday, August 9, with a tub of supplies for David, she could not find him.

While Doug and Julie scoured the 22-acre grounds, Nichole called police. David was placed on the National Missing Person’s Website, and authorities began calling hospitals, morgues, and jails. They later flew in a helicopter with an infrared camera over the pond and property, brought in a boat, and scoured the area with a cadaver dog. David’s family and friends began a massive social-media blitz, and handed out thousands of flyers. But no trace of David has been found.

Doug and Julie Smith [Provided]

David’s parents told CrimeFeed that they wonder if the police may have been focusing on the wrong location all this time, since no hard evidence has ever surfaced that indicates David was ever there.

Another opportunity for finding evidence may have been lost when the officers who responded to the scene asked Doug and Julie to take David’s car, which was still parked in Nichole’s driveway, home. Later, troopers from the couple’s community in Woodstown came to process David’s car but, according to Doug and Julie, they found no evidence of value.

Increasingly frustrated by the police response and what Julie referred to as the “blue wall of silence,” Doug and Julie did some of their own investigating. They were able to access car-insurance records, which showed that David’s car had been turned on — and moved — several times since he went missing.

David’s parents also believe that their son’s past drug use may have made police less likely to immediately investigate the possibility of foul play. “We are not naive,” Julie told CrimeFeed. “We know that he had his issues. But he knew he had a loving family to come back to. We’re very afraid of what could have happened to him.”

One painful possibility that his parents have considered is that David could have died of an accidental overdose. But his father Doug pointed out that David is six foot four and weighs 230 pounds, so if someone did panic and decide to get rid of his remains, that person “would have had to have help moving him.”

Howard County Police Department Spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn told CrimeFeed that there have been no new updates on the case. “We have found no evidence indicating foul play,” she wrote in an email.

“David’s known friends, associates and family have been interviewed multiple times. There is no anticipated release of new information. The case file remains open.”

Police have stated that they are concerned for David’s well-being because of the length of his absence and his past history of drug and alcohol use. They have asked anyone with information about David to contact Howard County police at (410) 313-STOP or email HCPDcrimetips@howardcountymd.gov.

David’s family has set up a $10,000 reward for any information that will help lead to him. David’s parents have encouraged anyone who sees him to take a picture of him.

If you are in search of a missing person, make sure to enter their information into the database of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

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Howard County Police News Release

David Gipson Smith Research / Facebook

Main image: David Gipson Smith Missing Person poster [Provided]

The post Where Is David Gipson Smith? NJ Man Vanished Without A Trace 6 Months Ago appeared first on CrimeFeed.

A Texas woman has revealed that she became a private investigator in order to help solve the murder of her best friend in 1984.

Sheila Wysocki said that after her roommate, 20-year-old Angela Samota, was raped and murdered, her life changed forever. The two women were paired up as roommates during their freshman year at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1982, according to Inside Edition.

They became close friends — but on October 12, 1984, Angie was found raped and stabbed 18 times in their home. She was so brutally attacked that her heart was practically outside of her body.

Wysocki learned of her best friend’s killing by a phone call. “The murder happened, and my entire life and security crumbled,” Wysocki told Inside Edition.

She said that she helped police with the investigation, agreeing to talk to a suspect about his alibi. She wanted to do everything she could to bring justice to her friend, but was terrified at the idea she might be going to speak with her murderer. The suspect’s alibi checked out — he wasn’t the killer.

“I was fearful because you know, at the very beginning, you didn’t know who killed her. You didn’t know if it was her boyfriend. You didn’t know if it was an acquaintance that we all ran around with. So going out was off the table,” she said. Eventually, Wysocki said she left school and moved back home. And over the years, the case went cold.

Angela Samota [Dallas Police Department]

Wysocki was able to move on with her life, and got married, moved to Nashville, and started a family. But she never forgot Samota — and in 1995, while watching the O.J. Simpson trial, she began to wonder if the new DNA technology could help in her friend’s case. She knew that semen and blood had been found at the crime scene, so Wysocki reached out to a New York–based organization that deals with cold cases.

Donald Andrew Bess [Dallas Police Department]

But she says that cold case organizations and police were reluctant to work with her because she did not work in law enforcement. So, in 2005, she decided to become a private investigator.

In 2006, Dallas police tasked a detective named Linda Crumb with reinvestigation the case, so she sent off the DNA found at the scene for analysis. It took two more years, but they got a hit. DNA found at the scene came back a match with Donald Andrew Bess, a convicted rapist serving a life sentence at Huntsville Prison in Texas.

Bess was convicted in 2010 of Samota’s murder, and sentenced to death. Wysocki founded her own private investigation agency in 2011, and today, she focuses on cold cases.

Wysocki said she still thinks often of the friend who had such a profound affect on her life. “I hope she’s resting in peace now,” Wysocki said.

To learn more about the Angela Samota case, watch the “Designing Murder” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Suspicion on ID GO now!

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Main photo: Sheila Wysocki [Investigation Discovery (screenshot)]

The post I Became A Private Investigator To Solve My Best Friend’s Murder appeared first on CrimeFeed.

It’s been over 20 years since his murder, but Christopher Wallace — who is better known by his stage names The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie, or Biggie Smalls — continues to be hugely influential in music and pop culture.

On March 9, 1997, Wallace was killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles — and the identity of the gunman is still considered to be one of rap’s biggest unsolved mysteries.

Wallace was born and raised in Brooklyn, and when he released his debut album, Ready to Die, in 1994 he immediately became a central figure in the East Coast hip-hop scene during a time when West Coast hip-hop was dominant in the mainstream.

While recording his second album, Wallace became heavily involved in the increasingly ugly East Coast vs. West Coast hip-hop battles.

Notorious B.I.G. with former friend Tupac Shakur [Photo: lyovlyov777/YouTube (screenshot)]

Notorious B.I.G. with former friend Tupac Shakur [lyovlyov777/YouTube (screenshot)]

The beef between opposing sides — with major players including Sean “Diddy” Combs and Bad Boy Records on one side, and Suge Knight and Death Row Records on the other — would eventually come to pit Wallace against his former friend Tupac Shakur.

In a 1995 prison interview with Vibe, Shakur accused Uptown Records’ founder Andre Harrell, Sean Combs, and Wallace of having prior knowledge of a robbery that resulted in him being shot five times and losing thousands of dollars worth of jewelry on the night of November 30, 1994.

Wallace and his entourage denied the accusation, calling it a “coincidence” that he had been at the studio at the same time as Shakur.

Following his release from prison, Shakur signed to Death Row Records, and the insults and violence on both sides continued to mount.

Sketch of the suspect in Wallace's shooting [Photo: Wikimedia Commons]

Sketch of the suspect in Wallace’s shooting [Wikimedia Commons]

Wallace married R&B singer Faith Evans in August 1994, just weeks after meeting at a Bad Boy photo shoot. Their turbulent marriage would be cut short when Wallace was gunned down.

Evans later recalled Wallace’s reaction the night that Shakur was shot. She said:

“I remember Big calling me and crying. I know for a fact he was in Jersey. He called me crying because he was in shock. I think it’s fair to say he was probably afraid, given everything that was going on at that time and all the hype that was put on this so-called beef that he didn’t really have in his heart against anyone.”

The night he was shot, Wallace attended an afterparty hosted by Vibe magazine and Qwest records at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Fellow guests included Faith Evans, Aaliyah, Sean Combs, and members of the rival Bloods and Crips gangs.

In the early morning hours of March 9, Wallace left in a GMC Suburban SUV and, while the SUV was stopped at a red light at the corner of Wilshire Blvd and South Fairfax, a dark-colored Chevrolet Impala SS pulled up alongside Wallace’s car. The driver, a black male, rolled down his window, drew a 9mm blue-steel pistol, and fired at the SUV.

Wallace was hit with four bullets, and his entourage rushed him to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 1:15 A.M. — six months after Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting.

Wallace’s autopsy was released to the public in December 2012, over a decade after his death. According to the report, three of the four shots were not fatal, but the fourth struck his right hip and hit several vital organs before stopping in his left shoulder.

Wallace’s murder remains unsolved, and there are many theories regarding the identities and motives of the murderers.

In Murder Rap: Inside The Biggie & Tupac Murders, former LAPD detective Greg Kading concluded that Wallace’s murder was orchestrated in retaliation for the killing of Tupac Shakur. According to Kading, Combs hired Crips gang member Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis to kill Shakur and Suge Knight for $1 million. He alleges that on September 7, 1996, Keffe D’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, shot Tupac in Las Vegas.

Kading believes that Knight hired gang member Wardell “Poochie” Fouse to kill Wallace in retaliation.

Life After Death was released 16 days after Wallace’s death and immediately shot to number one on the charts. He has certified sales of 17 million units in the United States

A tribute single called “I’ll Be Missing You” – released in 1997 by Puff Daddy, 112, and Faith – won a Grammy award.

For more on Tupac Shakur, watch the “Death of a Warrior Poet” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Vanity Fair Confidential on ID GO now!

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The post Who Shot Ya? Over 20 Years Later, Biggie Smalls Murder Still A B.I.G. Mystery appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Michelle McNamara was a true crime fan and writer who channeled her obsession with an unsolved California crime spree into a years-long project and a career. Today sees the release of her book about the case and the serial rapist and murderer, that in a way, took her own life as well —I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer.

In 2010, McNamara read about the elusive serial killer who had raped an estimated 50 victims and killed 10 more throughout the state of California from 1976 to 1986. The murderer, who was described as a 20-something male, wore a ski mask and stalked sleeping women and couples while they slept. Sometimes he would rob his victims; sometimes he would force the women to tie their partners up so that they were helpless as he brutally raped them.

In an article for Vulture, McNamara’s friend Kera Bolonik wrote that McNamara spent the next six years researching and tracking the killer. She turned her findings into a 2013 piece for Los Angeles Magazine — which she she later began developing into her book.

In 2016, when the book was two-thirds complete, McNamara died unexpectedly in her sleep of a prescription drug overdose. She was only 46 years old.

“I was supposed to be writing a different profile of my friend Michelle McNamara, an introduction to a brilliant new true-crime writer who, at 46, put her MFA to excellent use and published our generation’s In Cold Blood,” Bolonik wrote. Instead, Bolonik says that McNamara wrote a “breathtaking, ambitious, and exquisitely written work that comes to an abrupt halt, as if she herself had become an indirect casualty of the man she’d been chasing.”

I’ll Be Gone In The Dark cover art [Amazon]

The last third of the book was completed by McNamara’s lead researcher, Paul Haynes, and her friend, investigative journalist Billy Jensen. Her husband, comedian Patton Oswalt, wrote the afterward.

The Golden State killer was previously known as the East Area Rapist (EAR), and the Original Night Stalker. The attacks took place in Northern California, and moved south to Santa Barbara, Irvine, and Ventura. Eventually, the rapist escalated to murder — and McNamara estimated that he killed 10 victims. In 1986, he struck for a final time, and then the attacks stopped.

In 2001, several of the Northern California rapes were linked by DNA to the murders in Southern California. It was McNamara who came up with the idea of “rebranding” the murderer as the “Golden State Killer.”

Police investigated thousands of suspects and collected DNA from hundreds of them, but the killer has still never been identified or found.

The case did inspire California Proposition 69, passed in 2004, which mandated DNA collection from all felons, and from anyone charged with crimes like sex offenses and murder.

Sketches of the suspect [FBI]

The research took a heavy toll on McNamara’s personal life, according to friends and family. On April 20, 2016, McNamara, who had not been getting enough sleep, took a Xanax and went to bed.

The next morning, Oswalt said that he took their daughter to school, then checked on his wife and put a Starbucks he had bought for her on the bedside table. Later, he discovered that she was not breathing.

Several months later, Oswalt revealed that McNamara had an undiagnosed heart condition that caused blockages in her arteries. Her death was also attributed to an accidental overdose due to the combination of the prescription medications Adderall, Xanax, and Fentanyl.

Oswalt hadn’t even been aware of all the prescriptions she’d been taking. He believes that the nature of her project, and the responsibility she felt to the victims, combined with her frustration at not being able to identify a suspect took its toll. “It’s so clear that the stress led her to make some bad choices in terms of the pharmaceuticals she was using,” he said. “She just took this stuff on, and she didn’t have the years of being a hardened detective to compartmentalize it.”

McNamara and her research assistant believed that they made a breakthrough in the case in January 2016, when they found a room full of files at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office that had been sitting there for years. Criminalist Paul Holes from the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office, who has worked on the case for 20 years, said McNamara had helped make other major breakthroughs on the case.

While McNamara does not identify the killer in her book, critics have said her story — and obsession — is a compelling narrative.

To learn more about this case, watch the “Golden State Killer” episode of Investigation Discovery’s People Magazine Investigates on ID GO now!

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“In the Footsteps of a Killer” – Los Angeles Magazine

Main photos: Michelle McNamara and Patton Oswalt [Getty Images] I’ll Be Gone In The Dark book cover [Amazon]

The post New Book Follows The Life & Death Of A True Crime Writer Obsessed With A Serial Killer appeared first on CrimeFeed.