Serial killers

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Despite the conventional profile of serial killers as lone nuts driven solely by their own internal demons, there is a compelling case to be made that many of the most prominent serial killers are intelligence assets. Countless serial killers appear to be subjects of mind control programs like those found in Project MKUltra, exhibiting telltale qualities such as early childhood abuse, dissociative disorders, pedophilia, and connections to known or suspected intelligence fronts (like the military, prisons, mental hospitals, and cults). Many of these murders, far from being random killings, are actually targeted assassinations or clean-up operations on behalf of various criminal enterprises (like murder-for-hire, drug trafficking, or sex rings), which the killers are often associated with. Other murders have no political motive, but fit the profile of Satanic cult killings or a domestic version of the Phoenix Program aimed at terrorizing the public into submission. While this is no doubt a controversial position to take on serial killers, there is often an astounding number of common elements in serial killer cases pointing to some kind of government / intelligence involvement. The "serial killer" presented to the public is often a fall-guy taking responsibility for group actions or (on rarer occasions) an entirely innocent patsy.

Contents

Programmed to Kill subjects

Building off the research of Mae Brussell, Maury Terry, and Dave Emory, Programmed to Kill by Dave McGowan was the first major work to explore the idea of mind-controlled serial killers. He chronicled some of the most famous serial killers and grouped them into thematic categories. Below is the evidence of official government complicity and/or mind control for the serial killers profiled in McGowan's book:

Prostitution rings

  • Marc Dutroux - the head of a Belgian child kidnapping ring with elite clients that was partially exposed in the Dutroux affair
  • Emile Louis - apparently framed for the murders of women in the French city of Auxerre who were actually killed by a group of high-ranking local men
  • Patrice Alegre - leader of a drug and prostitution network (that involved minors) with elite clients in the French city of Toulouse
  • Wayne Williams - the designated patsy for the Atlanta child murders, who was involved in the pedophile and Satanic cult operations as a photographer but not the murders, Williams showed tentative signs of being under mind control; a prosecution witness testified under cross examination that he had a "split personality"; Williams' journal from 1992 mentioned he received CIA training at age 18 from a paramilitary camp near Atlanta, and an extremely likely suspect for this training would have been Mitch WerBell III

Mexican cult killers

Commonalities of serial killer cases
Name Abuse and dissociation Pedophilia Government links Satanic/cult links Protection Railroading Parapolitical significance
Henry Lee Lucas
  • Claimed he was trained to kill at a paramilitary camp in the Everglades, which happened to be the location of CIA camps for training anti-Castro Cubans that were operating in the same time period as Lucas claimed
 Worked for the Hand of Death cult
  • Only death row inmate to receive a commutation by Texas governor George W. Bush
Ottis Toole
Rafael Resendez-Ramirez
  • Raised in Matamoros, Mexico by outside his home by non-family members
  • Said at trial ("with all the secrecy that’s in the family") that he was "instructed" to do "anything that can put down Christianity"

Archetypal lone nuts

Commonalities of serial killer cases
Name Abuse and dissociation Pedophilia Government links Satanic/cult links Protection Railroading Parapolitical significance
David Berkowitz
  • Served in the US Army, during which time he took LSD
 Affiliated with a splinter group of the Process Church, likely the same "Four P" cult involved in the Manson murders Some of the Son of Sam murders (Lauria, Denaro, and Freund) may have been retaliation against people who knew too much about a Nugan Hand-connected drug ring importing heroin through blood supplies
Cary Stayner
  • Brother Steven Stayner was kidnapped by a pedophile at age 7 and held as a sex slave for 7 years
  • Cary was molested by his uncle
  • Bartered with his FBI interrogators for child pornography in exchange for a confession
  • Former girlfriends commented that he couldn't get aroused by adult women, only children
  • Numerous viable suspects from a drug trafficking ring with evidence linking them to the Sund and Pelosso murders were found, and then immediately discarded following Stayner's confession
 Paul Candler, the ringleader of the drug group that included the initial suspects as well as Stayner, was a hitman for the corrupt Mariposa County law enforcement apparatus involved in drug importation

Others who are suspected of being in this group, but with less substantial evidence, include:

  • "Monster of Florence" - at various times, these killings have been linked to a Satanic cult led by the wealthy and powerful or Operation Gladio
  • Richard Speck - him single-handedly subduing six women, then cutting a sheet into strips and tying them up one by one while the rest did nothing to resist, is highly implausible, but not totally impossible; until his alibi for the night of the murders is confirmed definitively, it can't be ruled out that Speck was guilty all by himself, even though a fair amount of compelling evidence points to him being a fall-guy
  • Charles Whitman - the "Texas Tower Sniper" behind a mass shooting at the University of Texas in Austin; his note that he left the night before, when he killed his wife and mother, revealed he was facing an urge (of unknown origin) to kill, though later reports would indicate he had a brain tumor

Northern California

Commonalities of serial killer cases
Name Abuse and dissociation Pedophilia Government links Satanic/cult links Protection Railroading Parapolitical significance
Stanley Baker
  • Openly professed his involvement in "Four P" cult, a breakaway from the Process Church led by the "Grand Chingon"
John Linley Frazier
Herb Mullin
  • Diagnosed with MPD, his alters included a Mexican laborer, an Eastern philosopher, and local columnist Herb Caen (whom Dave McGowan labels an "unofficial Anton LaVey publicist")
  • As a young adult, he was institutionalized numerous times, including voluntarily to Mendocino State Hospital (which was overrun by the Peoples Temple) and a stay at a mental hospital (which Ed Sanders claimed was run by the US Army) in Hawaii (where Jim Jones had also spent time at a mental hospital in the 1960s, and where Ed Sanders claimed a mind control project to create serial killers was ongoing)
Edmund Kemper
Richard Chase

Superstars

Commonalities of serial killer cases
Name Abuse and dissociation Pedophilia Government links Satanic/cult links Protection Railroading Parapolitical significance
Angelo Buono
  • Was known to be attracted to underage girls, and married at least two of them
  • As the mastermind behind the murders, who exerted a controlling influence on partner Kenneth Bianchi, he may have been a mind control "handler" of sorts
  • Ran a child prostitution ring whose clients included political and business elites such as a city councilman, a police chief, and a chief aide to a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
  • One of his clients included mob figure Joe Bonanno
  • Multiple connections to the Hollywood crowd (he had shared a home with actor Artie Ford and was acquainted with Frank Sinatra), and some Hollywood figures were in turn suspects in the Hillside Strangler murders
Kenneth Bianchi
  • Was diagnosed with MPD by some of the doctors who examined him, although others (most of them connected to the CIA) claimed he was faking it
  • Regularly visited a hospital under the pretense of getting outpatient treatments for cancer, which he didn't have, although he did bring home medical forms and receipts indicating he was getting some type of treatment
John Wayne Gacy
  • A police detective noted that "His personality could change in a split second"
  • In his confession, Gacy attributed the murders to an alter personality named Jack Hanley
 Though Gacy alone was convicted for his crimes, it is apparent that some of his young male employees were complicit in finding victims and disposing of the bodies:
  • It was claimed that Gacy employees Michael Rossi and David Cram had no idea the holes he asked them to dig were graves, even though the stench of decaying flesh in his house was said to be overwhelming
  • Gacy himself acknowledged being a copycat of Dean Corll, who used two younger males to abduct victims for him to torture and murder
  • After Russell Nelson disappeared, his friend Robert Young, who was with Nelson when he disappeared, started phoning his family to extort money from them, and when two family members came down to Chicago, Young offered them jobs with Gacy
  • Rossi moved in with John Mowery days before Mowery disappeared, insisted Mowery meet someone who was about to leave town (Gacy was about to head out of town), and later told Mowery's friends that he knew about a place where a bunch of dead bodies were buried that police didn't know about

Even more disturbingly, there is evidence that some of his employees killed victims on their own without Gacy being involved:
  • Several of Gacy's employees had keys to his home, and at least one of them (Paske) was in a criminal enterprise that likely gave him his own motive to dump bodies there
  • Some of the victims attributed to Gacy were abducted and murdered while plane tickets showed he was not even in Illinois
  • Attained a high-level position in the Chicago Democratic Party, even meeting Rosalynn Carter
  • Gacy claimed to work for the Syndicate
  • One of his employees was Phillip Paske, the business partner of John Norman in a child trafficking ring whose clients likely included nationwide elites such as Alan Baer and Harold Andersen of Omaha
  • Gacy specialized in drugstore and pharmacy remodels, had a steady supply of drugs, and employed victim John Butkovich who was likely part of the drug trade with Puerto Ricans in Chicago
Ted Bundy
  • Acquaintances, an investigator, and the Colorado judge all commented on how Bundy's physical appearance could radically change depending on the situation, to the point where he didn't even look like the same person
  • All of the Seattle victims either never turned up, turned up with certain organs selectively removed, or only turned up as skulls, leading to rumors that the killings were ritualistic
  • Police informants talked of seeing "Ted" leading cult gatherings, and drew connections to other serial killers like Stanley Baker and Thomas Creech with occult overtones
  • Two of the suspects in the Seattle murders who weren't Bundy later turned up in Utah and Colorado at the same time Bundy lived in those states, and were arguably better suspects for the physical murders themselves, raising the possibility that Bundy was leading a cult that traveled interstate
  • Bundy was attributed responsibility for two attacks on the same day, those of Carol DaRonch and Debra Kent, even though the timing would almost certainly preclude his involvement in both, and DaRonch initially failed to identify Bundy while the main witness in the Kent case initially made an adamant ID of a local drug trafficker
  • The star witness in the Caryn Campbell murder trial identified not Bundy, but Pitkin County Undersheriff Ben Meyers, who had previously left his job as police chief of Grand Junction CO in the wake of corruption rumors
  • In the Chi Omega case, semen found in the bed of one of the Chi Omega victims was from a nonsecretor whereas Bundy was proven to be a secretor, and the bite mark evidence against him matched the state of his teeth after the murder which was different from before the murder
  • Bundy's crimes frequently had some tie to law enforcement: one Utah victim was a police chief's daughter; corrupt police chief Meyers was identified instead of Bundy in the Campbell murder; Julie Cunningham was friends with the daughter of the Salem OR chief of detectives who used to work with Meyers; Bundy was seen by one witness at the same place and time of Linda Benson's murder, itself suspected of being linked to Meyers; before attacking Kimberly Leach, Bundy nearly abducted the daughter of prominent Jacksonville FL detective Jim Parmenter

Next generation

Commonalities of serial killer cases
Name Abuse and dissociation Pedophilia Government links Satanic/cult links Protection Railroading Parapolitical significance
Doug Clark
Bobby Joe Long
  • One of his victims, Lana Long, was a former Los Angeles resident who had danced at many nightclubs including that of Eddie Nash, and was raising money before her murder to get out of town, perhaps to escape a local sex ring in Tampa rumored to be recruiting women for snuff films
Richard Ramirez
  • Was mentored by his older cousin Mike, who served in Vietnam as a Phoenix Program assassin

Collectors

Commonalities of serial killer cases
Name Abuse and dissociation Pedophilia Government links Satanic/cult links Protection Railroading Parapolitical significance
Leonard Lake
Charles Ng
Bob Berdella
  • Appeared to have an interest in Satanism, though investigators disputed it
  • The lead investigator, Troy Cole, was a "former" employee of the CIA
  • Based on an FBI tip, Berdella was briefly a suspect in the Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin abductions in the Des Moines IA area
  • One entry in his torture log mentions Oliver North, and he felt compelled to explain it away as innocuous
Gary Heidnik
  • Entering the US Army with the intent of becoming a military policeman, they instead (likely as a form of "blooding") trained him as a medic and sent him to be an orderly at an Army hospital in West Germany, where he was experimented on with hallucinogenic drugs
Jeffrey Dahmer
Herb Baumeister
  • Virgil Vandagriff, a private investigator hired by the missing victims' families, seems to have delayed the identification of Baumeister. In August 1994, he was the first one to speak with a witness who had survived a visit to Fox Hollow Farm. One of Vandagriff's investigators tracked down the farm, but inexplicably showed the witness an aerial photograph, leaving him unable to identify the property. Vandagriff's secretary Connie Pierce, who had worked closely with the witness, died suddenly at age 46 in November 1997. As an Indianapolis law enforcement officer, Vandagriff was a strange character. He learned hypnosis in the mid 1970s from the LAPD and employed it in hundreds of cases throughout his career, including that of "Speedway Bomber" Brett Kimberlin.

Patsies and assassins

Commonalities of serial killer cases
Name Abuse and dissociation Pedophilia Government links Satanic/cult links Protection Railroading Parapolitical significance
Albert DeSalvo
  • F. Lee Bailey, purportedly DeSalvo's defense attorney, has a record of being a legal fixer for intelligence operations
  • The confessions made by DeSalvo were extracted under hypnosis by William Joseph Bryan, a CIA-connected hypnotist who was likely involved in programming Sirhan Sirhan
  • Nearly everyone on the task force initially believed multiple perpetrators were involved, something that was forgotten after DeSalvo confessed
  • Many of the details given in DeSalvo's confessions were inaccurate, but nevertheless accepted by police
  • DeSalvo was never tried for the murders, but "defense" attorney Bailey decided to defend him from sexual assault charges by essentially putting his own client on trial for murder
  • Two DNA samples collected from Mary Sullivan, one from a semen stain in her pubic hair, did not match DeSalvo's DNA according to a 2001 test; yet in 2013, there was suddenly a brand-new test confirming that DNA had matched to DeSalvo
  • The more likely suspect in Patricia Bissette's murder was defense contractor Jules Rothman
Arthur Shawcross
Danny Rolling
William Heirens

Other likely subjects

After Programmed to Kill was published, researchers have discovered other serial killers who fit the same profile described in McGowan's book:

  • Ed Gein
  • Patrick Kearney (the Freeway Killer)
  • Gerard John Schaefer Jr.
  • Kenneth McKenna a.k.a. "Mad Dog"
  • Robert Charles Browne
  • Philip Arthur Thompson
  • Dean Corll
  • Randy Kraft (the Scorecard Killer and the Freeway Killer)
  • Thomas Creech
  • Gary Addison Taylor
  • Bernard Hunwick
  • Golden State Killer (i.e. the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker)
  • Oakland County Child Killer, abbv. "OCCK"
  • Rodney Alcala (the Dating Game Killer)
  • William Bonin (the Freeway Killer)
  • Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris (the Toolbox Killers)
  • Dennis Rader (the BTK Killer)
  • Andre Rand (the "Cropsey" killer)
  • Larry Eyler (the Highway Murderer)
  • John Joubert - abductor and murderer of boys in Maine and Nebraska; radar technician at Offutt AFB, which is a key center for government mind control programs and the Franklin child sex ring; made possibly ritualistic carvings on both of his Nebraska victims
  • David Parker Ray (the Toy Box Killer)
  • Gary Ridgway (the Green River Killer)
  • Robert Pickton
  • Joel Rifkin
  • Aileen Wuornos
  • Derrick Todd Lee
  • Long Island Serial Killer
  • Miranda Barbour (the Craigslist Killer)

References

External links

Books and resources

Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole

  • Hand of Death: The Henry Lee Lucas Story by Max Call (1985)
  • Third Coast, "The Life and Deaths of Henry Lee Lucas" by Nan Cuba, 1985/07
  • Attorney General of Texas (Jim Mattox), "LUCAS REPORT", 1986/04
  • The Confessions of Henry Lee Lucas by Mike Cox (1991)
  • Henry Lee Lucas: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Notorious Serial Killer by Joel Norris (1991)
  • They Call Me Sister Clemmie: The Henry Lee Lucas Story by Clementine Schroeder (1993)
  • Crime Library, "Henry Lee Lucas: Deadly Drifter" by Patrick Bellamy: chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ..., 17
    • "[After killing his mother] Henry was later picked up by police in Toledo, Ohio and returned to Michigan and charged with second-degree murder. Despite assuring police that he had acted in self-defence, he later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20-40 years in the State Prison of Southern Michigan."
    • "Henry’s would later describe his time in South Michigan as a "nightmare that would not end." Almost from the time he was imprisoned, he complained of hearing "voices" in his head that taunted him day and night. The prison's psychologists interviewed him in an attempt to settle him down. Lucas talked freely about the voices inside his head, including his mother’s. "She wanted me to commit suicide for what I done to her," he told them. He blamed his destructive and undisciplined behaviour on her influence. Weeks later, Henry wrote a letter to his sister telling her that he couldn’t stand it any more and was going to kill himself.

      Some time later he made good on his threats and slashed his wrists and stomach with a razor blade on two separate occasions. Jail staff thwarted both attempts and he was transferred to Iona State Mental hospital for treatment. What followed were four-and-a-half years of drug and shock therapy, both of which only succeeded in making Henry meaner and more prone to violence. At one stage he told the doctors that if he were released he would definitely kill again." - it is actually Ionia State Hospital
    • "After a brief stop over in Virginia, to visit his half-brother Harry Waugh, Lucas arrived at his destination. While in Shreveport, Henry was offered the job of driving a car to Los Angeles but declined after he became convinced that he would be working for the Mafia. [...]"
    • "What disturbed the investigators most was that Lucas told the story without any emotion or remorse, as though he were describing an incident that someone else was responsible for."
  • Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton entry for Lucas
  • Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton entry for Toole
  • Fort Worth Star-Telegram (from Associated Press), "Lucas' murder convictions", 1998/06/16
  • The Pylon, "True Crime Blacksburg: The Henry Lee Lucas Story", 2016/10/31 - cross-checks claims in Max Call's book
  • Robert Kenner, The Confession Killer, 2019
  • FBI documents on Henry Lee Lucas
  • Lucas task force documents sent by Bob Prince in 2021
  • Contemporaneous news articles
  • Early life of Lucas
    • From p.257 of Serial Killers: Up Close and Personal: Inside the World of Torturers, Psychopaths and Mass Murderers by Christopher Berry-Dee, it's said that Lucas was incarcerated at Chillicothe prison in Ohio, just as Charles Manson was and Thomas Creech later would be: "On May 28, 1956, with the very real chance of being brought down by dogs, or a bullet in the back, Lucas and a fellow convict escaped from an outside road repair detail. They stole a car and sped off for Ohio. When they ran out of gas, they stole another vehicle and crossed the state line into Michigan. Interstate flight and auto theft across a State line are federal offences, and State Troopers arrested them in Toledo in July, after which, Henry started a 13-month term at the Ohio Federal State Reformatory at Chillicothe. After his federal term had expired, he was returned in shackles to the Virginia State Penitentiary to complete his original sentence. He was back on the streets in September 1959."
  • Mental institutions that Lucas had stayed in
    • UPI, "A man charged in the death of an 80-year-old...", 1983/06/21: "According to the weapons indictment, Lucas was convicted in March 1960 of stabbing his mother to death in Lenawee County, Mich. McGaugaty said Lucas, who received a 20-years sentence for the murder of his mother, spent part of his sentence in a Michigan mental institution before he was returned to prison and released in 1975. [...] Lucas, who has a fifth grade education, said he had been held in Ionia Michicagn State Hospital for the criminally insane for six years. He also said he spent three weeks in a Princeton, W. Va. mental institution. 'They turned me lose and told me to go back home. They said, 'you are all right,'' he said."
    • Ionia State Hospital
      • As first observed by Jimmy Falun Gong of the Programmed to Chill podcast, an MKUltra subproject was run on "sexual psychopaths" at Ionia, possibly overlapping the time that Lucas was there
      • Detroit Free Press, "CIA Drug Subjects At Ionia Hunted", 1977/08/06 (OCR): "The CIA is attempting to locate 142 mental patients from the former Ionia State Hospital who were the subjects of experimentation with LSD and marijuana derivatives in a CIA-sponsored program. The experiments, revealed in documents released this week by the CIA, were conducted from 1957 to 1960 on patients classified as sexual psychopaths under a now-repealed law. Patients at the hospital never were told of the experiments, in which the subjects were given the drugs while being interrogated by doctors. "We're trying to locate the victims to inform them and advise them of their rights and possibly make restitution," a CIA spokesman said Friday. All those judged criminally insane were once sent to the Ionia State Hospital, which was run by the Department of Corrections. The program under which sexual psychopaths were committed without trial ended in the late 1960s, and the hospital was closed in 1975. One of the drug program researchers, Dr. John G. Haarer, said Friday that the CIA had not told him it was about to release information on the experiments. Dr. Haarer, now a general practitioner in Sarasota, Fla., said the victims of the experiments were committed and selected "through legal channels." He identified Dr. Perry Robertson, now deceased, as the chief researcher. [...] RECORDS OF the Department of Mental Health show that Haarer was medical superintendent of the hospital during two years when the experiments were conducted. CIA documents indicate that subjects were selected from those committed through the Detroit Recorder's Court psychiatric clinic and that some state judges may have been informed of the program."
    • Mental hospital in Princeton WV or Bluefield WV
      • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Lucas tale is gory whodunit on grand scale", 1985/08/25 (pages 1, 15): "JOHN NOYES JR., a student at Jackson State University, was vacuuming his car on the morning of March 25, 1979, at a carwash alongside Interstate 20 in Jackson, Miss. He was shot to death, apparently by someone traveling the interstate [...] now the case is off the cleared list — as it turns out Lucas was been in a Bluefield, W.Va., mental hospital when the killing took place."
  • Early life of Toole
  • Hand of Death cult allegations
    • FD-302 of the 1984/03/27 FBI interview of Ottis Toole about the cult
    • Brownsville Herald, "Killer Lucas claims he's member of a death cult", 1984/04/23: "Skeptical investigators are checking mass murderer Henry Lee Lucas’s claim that he killed some of his victims because he belonged to a cult that required human sacrifice. In an interview published in Sunday’s editions of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the 47-year-old drifter, who contends he killed 360 people, said the organization — called “The Hands of Death” — has hundreds of members roaming the country. “I belonged to a cult,” Lucas said. “It was a devil’s organization. For initiation you would have to go out and kill a person.” [...] Sister Clemmie, a Catholic lay worker who asked that her last name not be used, said she had heard from two prisoners in the Williamson County Jail in Georgetown about the cult before she met Lucas. She said in both cases, the prisoners told her they could not convert to Christianity because they feared reprisals from the cult. [...] [Lucas] said the cult killed on contract and performed ritual crucifixions of animals and humans. “They were supposed to bring the devil back to life,” Lucas said. Lucas said he was first approached by the cult in Shreveport, La., after learning that a “companion” already belonged, and later joined the cult after a failed attempt to reunite with his family. Lucas did not name his companion, but said he “participated in it worse than I did. He would eat human flesh and drink human blood.” However, Lucas was known to have traveled with Ottis Elwood Toole, who was scheduled to go on trial today in Jacksonville, Fla., on homicide charges, and who investigators said has also mentioned a cult. Boutwell said Toole has told authorities of eating human flesh on more than one occasion. Texas Ranger Sgt. Bob Prince, who is involved in the investigation, said authorities were skeptical of the cult claims but were investigating nonetheless."
    • Shreveport Journal, "'Hands of Death': Organized satanic killers of 8,000? Or the product of a vivid imagination?", 1984/04/27: "Most local lawmen say they have no reason to believe such an organization exists and generally discount the Lucas account. But a federal agent formerly stationed in Shreveport says the FBI is investigating claims the “Hands of Death” may be responsible for as many as 8,000 homicides in the United States. The agent, who demanded strict anonymity in return for his comments, said the agency was investigating reports of the cult’s activities. But he admitted, “The whole thing could turn out to be a total hoax.” [...] Lucas told Gail Reeves, a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that he was approached by a man while he was waiting to cross a bridge in Shreveport and was asked to join the cult. “He told me he had been ‘screened’ by the cult, that Ottis was already a member and that they had been watching him (Lucas).” [...] Bossier Parish lawmen have said Lucas is a “solid suspect” in the January 1981 slaying of a still unidentified girl whose body was found in north Bossier Parish, and Bossier City police “have not ruled out” Lucas and/or Toole as possible suspects in several killings. [...] The 36-year-old Toole is scheduled to go on trial Monday for the arson-murder of a man in Florida. In October 1983, Toole reportedly told Calcasieu Parish sheriff’s deputies interviewing him in connection with the stabbing death of Katherine Corbello Martin that he was a member of a satanic cult that had trained with other cult members in the Florida Everglades. Both Lucas and Toole have been indicted in the slaying of 19-year-old Northeast Louisiana co-ed Kathy Whorton of Bastrop. In addition to the Corbello Martin slaying, Toole has been charged in Ouachita Parish with the slaying of 17-year-old Sherry Alford of Swartz. Bossier Parish Chief Deputy Larry Deen said investigators had turned up no evidence of the cult other than in Lucas and Toole’s statements. Shreveport Chief of Detectives Maj. Robert Merolla said, “We investigated the story and we could find no evidence of the cult here.”"
    • Austin American-Statesman, "Lucas can't promise he won't kill again", 1984/05/01 (pages 1, 7): "He told of a devil-worshiping Cult that he said inspired him to commit many of his murders, [...] He says the cult is called the Hands of Death and has "hundreds" of members across the United States. He says the cult has met in the Everglades and on beaches. He says it kills animals and humans in order to reincarnate the devil. He said cult members wear tattoos: a scorpion for kidnappers, a snake for members who have done crucifixions, and a flame, cross and hand design for "pure killers." LUCAS SAID he once had all three types of tattoos on his hand, but they have since worn off. Rangers said authorities are investigating Lucas' statements about the cult, but declined to say whether they have found evidence to verify it exists."
    • FD-302 of the 1984/05/14 FBI interview of Henry Lee Lucas about the cult
      • p.2: "LUCAS recalled that the warehouse was in the warehouse district of Miami and could be found by following the road which goes to the pier area of Miami. At a point where this road crosses a beach, the warehouse could be found by following the beach south to the third warehouse on the right-hand side. LUCAS stated that there are two roads going to the pier area in Miami, one going to an island and the other not going to an island. LUCAS stated that the road which does not go to an island is the road that crosses the beach described above. LUCAS described the warehouse as an old one which stores different types of equipment to be shipped over seas. LUCAS said that some stolen merchandise is also handled by [METERIC]. LUCAS added that he believes that the road going to the pier area that he described above is the first road that crosses the Everglades once you arrive in Miami but that it should be followed east towards the ocean."
      • p.4: "LUCAS advised that he was given specific assignments by [TOOLE] on behalf of the cult on occasion. Once [TOOLE] called LUCAS from San Antonio, Texas and asked LUCAS to travel from Maryland to San Antonio since he had an assignment to kill two millionaires in Bastrop, Texas. LUCAS traveled to San Antonio and met [TOOLE] and they traveled to the home of the two millionaires. LUCAS said that he waited outside while [TOOLE] killed the man and his wife after which they loaded their bodies in a van and LUCAS and [TOOLE] drove to Reno, Nevada where they dumped the bodies in the desert nearby. LUCAS advised that an unknown lady in Houston, Texas had hired the "Hands of Death" to commit the killings and the assignment had been given to [TOOLE]. LUCAS said that he and [TOOLE] got $5,000 each for the murder. LUCAS used his $5,000 to purchase a travel trailer."
        • Probably refers to the 1976/01/27 disappearance of John Whatley and Faye Whatley
      • p.5: "LUCAS also stated that he received an assignment once from [METERIC] to kill President CARTER. This assignment was given in 1979 and LUCAS followed CARTER to several different locations in Washington, D.C. and once to Palm Springs, California but did not kill CARTER although he had several opportunities to shoot him. LUCAS understood that he was given the assignment because of various laws that were being passed that the "Hands of Death" organization did not want passed."
        • See the alleged May 5, 1979 plot to assassinate Jimmy Carter during a speech in Los Angeles, attested to by a drifter named Raymond Lee Harvey who implicated three Latino men, one of whom went by "Julio" but turned out to be an illegal Mexican immigrant named Osvaldo Espinoza Ortiz and another one of whom indeed rented a hotel at the claimed location under the claimed name of Umberto Camacho
          • Cincinnati Enquirer, "Sanity Test Given To Suspect Held In Carter Death Plot", 1979/05/17: "A court-appointed psychiatrist has examined Raymond L. Harvey to determine whether the former mental patient is competent to stand trial on charges of scheming to kill President Carter 11 days ago. Federal authorities would not disclose results of the examination by Dr. Seymour Pollack, but they must choose between indicting Harvey by today, proceeding with a preliminary hearing or dismissing charges against him. The 35-year-old transient, who claims to have spent half his life in mental institutions and attempted suicide 10 to 12 times, was arrested holding a starter's pistol and 70 rounds of blank ammunition just before the President was to speak at a Cinco de Mayo gathering here. Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Etra requested appointment of Pollack after Harvey told the Federal Bureau of Investigation of his mental history."
          • Miami Herald, "Long Probe Into Plot To Assassinate Carter Ends With 2 Released", 1979/05/31: "Harvey, 35, a native of Ohio who was declared mentally deranged at the age of 6 and was institutionalized for 20 years, has lived for several years in the Skid Row section of downtown Los Angeles."
          • Given that Harvey was an Ohio native and spent over half of his life in mental institutions, it is worth asking if he ever spent time at Chillicothe (where Charles Manson, Henry Lee Lucas, and Thomas Creech all spent time) or other Ohio mental institutions that possibly ran parallel programs
      • p.5: "LUCAS also said that the death squads in El Salvador are being set up by the "Hands of Death" organization out of Miami. When asked how he knew this, LUCAS replied that he knows because they are being set up out of Miami and guns are being sent to the death squads from Miami. LUCAS said that the death squads have been in existence long before the United States was aware of it and that he once was even asked to go to El Salvador to join the squads and kill people. LUCAS said that he refused but did take assignments to go to Spain and Canada where he committed some killings."
        • Presence in Canada
          • On 1982/01/02, police in British Columbia ran a NCIC inquiry on Lucas (p.205 of the Mattox report)
          • On 1982/10/02, police in Sussex, New Brunswick ran a NCIC inquiry on Toole (p.218 of the Mattox report)
          • On 1983/02/04, police in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan ran a NCIC inquiry on Lucas (p.222 of the Mattox report)
      • p.5-6: "LUCAS added that he has also been involved in a lot of kidnappings in which he has kidnapped people "to order." LUCAS explained that he was told by [METERIC] to kidnap a person of a specific age, height, weight, hair color and take them through El Paso to a location outside of Monterey, Mexico. LUCAS said that children were sometimes kidnapped and taken to Mexico for adoption purposes and older women were kidnapped and taken to Mexico for prostitution purposes. LUCAS said that [METERIC] normally gives him his assignments and he last saw [METERIC] in 1981 in Miami. LUCAS said that [METERIC] used to live in Shreveport, Louisiana but he has since disappeared from the area. LUCAS explained that he was recently taken by the Shreveport Police Department around Shreveport and he pointed out the house where [METERIC] had lived but they determined that [METERIC] had left the area."
      • p.6: "[MEMBER 1]
        Hemet, California
        Race: White
        Sex: Male
        Height: 6'2"
        Weight: 170-180
        Age: Late 40s
        Miscellaneous: Sells antique furniture and is married to [REDACTED]

        LUCAS stated that [MEMBER 1] asked LUCAS in late 1979 to transport marijuana for the organization and LUCAS did so. Later on, he also transported "Angel dust" and cocaine. LUCAS advised that [MEMBER 1] has assisted him in killings in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, California as well as in the desert near Palm Springs on an Indian reservation near Beaumont, California. LUCAS has provided all of this information to California authorities but they have been unable to find any bodies. [...]"
        • It's clear that "[MEMBER 1]" is Jack Smart, husband to one of Kate Rich's daughters Obera Smart, who gave Lucas a place to stay in Hemet CA for several months at the start of 1982. Smart and his wife would claim that Lucas stayed with them this entire time, though Lucas is tied to multiple murders during that period including one (that of Barbara Begley) where multiple eyewitnesses implicate him. As such, the Smarts are clearly giving Lucas a fake alibi for murder, which strongly supports his claim of Jack Smart (as well as Kate Rich and some of her family members) being in the cult.
        • TODO: Could Philip Arthur Thompson be a member of the cult? Lucas places cult members in Riverside County CA (including on Indian reservations there) smuggling drugs and performing contract murders, which PAT did on the Cabazon reservation. Lucas claims that the cult ran El Salvador's death squads, for whom PAT was "attempting to get together a million-dollar bankroll for a shipment of automatic weapons". And PAT was, per a statement Valerie McDonald made to a close friend, involved in "Satanistic" activities with his friends at a San Francisco apartment he managed in 1980.
      • p.6-7: "[MEMBER 2]
        San Jacinto, California
        Race: White
        Sex: Male
        Occupation: Retired - following an injury he sustained after a fall while working as a sand blaster

        [MEMBER 2] has accompanied [REDACTED - MEMBER 1?] and LUCAS on several killings in California as well. LUCAS stated that [MEMBER 2's] residence can be located by traveling on Interstate 10 to the Hemet exit and follow the road towards Hemet until you arrive at a blinking light. From there go left to a stop sign and take a right until you come to a four way stop. At the four way stop go straight through and the first trailer park on the right-hand side of the road is the one where [MEMBER 2] has his trailer. The trailer park is run by [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] [REDACTED] hand side as you go in the first entrance. LUCAS described [MEMBER 2's] trailer as being gold and yellow in color. LUCAS was last there on September 30, 1982."
      • p.7: "[MEMBER 4]
        Suburbs near Washington, D.C.
        Race: White
        Sex: Male
        Height: 6'
        Weight: 190-200
        Age: Late 40s
        Hair: Blondish gray

        LUCAS last saw [MEMBER 4] five years ago and stated that he has no job but merely roams around the country. According to LUCAS, [MEMBER 4] works for some government organization. LUCAS stated that he has seen [MEMBER 4] at some of the "Hands of Death" meetings. LUCAS described [MEMBER 4] as being some kind of an overseer in the organization."
    • Cult recruiter Don Meteric (TODO find real name)
    • Everglades paramilitary camps
      • Anti-Castro Cuban groups with CIA connections (such as Alpha 66) trained at paramilitary camps in the Everglades throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s to prepare for an invasion of Cuba
        • The Independent, "Florida's Cuban exiles have mixed emotions over US rapprochement", 2014/12/21: "For so long, many of the exiles believed they would go back to Cuba in battle gear. They would vanquish Fidel Castro by any means necessary. “Next year in Cuba!” they would say when making a toast. Some trained in the Florida Everglades for the invasion that would surely liberate their homeland from the Communists. “Unfortunately, those who trained in the Seventies and Eighties for an invasion, now they have to use a walker,” Tomas Regalado Jnr said. He is the Mayor of Miami and 67 years old, one of the many Cuban Americans for whom Mr Castro’s revolution has been a multigenerational existential crisis."
        • Newsweek, "Fidel Castro, Polarizing Cuban Revolutionary, Dies At 90", 2016/11/26: "“Fidel Castro is a demon,” says Ernesto Díaz, head of Alpha 66, an anti-Castro group that once ran a paramilitary training camp in the Everglades."
      • The CIA-funded Contras trained at similar camps in the Everglades during the 80s
        • New York Times, "LATIN EXILES FOCUS ON NICARAGUA AS THEY TRAIN URGENTLY IN FLORIDA", 1981/12/23: "In a camp near the Florida Everglades, the military training of exiles to infiltrate and overthrow the Government of Nicaragua has taken on a special urgency. Within three months the situation in Nicaragua will blow up, Hector Fabian, one of the Cuban leaders of the exile group, the Inter-American Defense Force, said. The force, which says it is financed by Panamanian and Cuban exile groups and fund-raising efforts by Nicaraguans, has been training for months. It says it is dedicated to the armed overthrow of the Governments of Nicaragua, Cuba and Panama."
        • Douglas Valentine, "Creating a Crime: How the CIA Commandeered the DEA", 2015/09/11: "The CIA’s use of the DEA to employ terrorists would continue apace. For example, in 1981, DEA Agent Dick Salmi recruited Roberto Cabrillo, a drug smuggling member of CORU, an organization of murderous Cuban exiles formed by drug smuggler Frank Castro and Luis Posada while George Bush was DCI. The DEA arrested Castro in 1981, but the CIA engineered his release and hired him to establish a Contra training camp in the Florida Everglades. Posada reportedly managed resupply and drug shipments for the Contras in El Salvador, in cahoots with Felix Rodriguez. Charged in Venezuela with blowing up a Cuban airliner and killing 73 people in 1976, Posada was shielded from extradition by George W. Bush in the mid-2000s." - note that Luis Posada Carriles was friends with fellow CIA asset Philip Arthur Thompson
    • From p.276-277 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016):

          No law enforcement agent seems to have believed that the cult actually existed. Although Lucas often spoke in detail about it, and even gave the FBI a few names of other members, nothing apparently checked out. But the best reason to think it wasn't just Lucas's imagination was that Toole, separately, also gave the FBI a lot of essentially overlapping details about it while adding some and contradicting others. Could these two blockheads have made it all up?
          One overlap was the tattoos. In the report of Toole's March 1984 interview, an FBI agent wrote that Toole said "Lucas had a tattoo of a cross with hands at the base and flames of fire in the web of his right hand and that this is a sign of the members of the Hand of Death." Toole said he didn't have a tattoo but he'd worn a ring with a devil's head, as did others in the cult. In the report of Lucas's FBI interview in May 1984, another agent wrote, "Lucas stated that members can also recognize one another by a tattoo they should have on their right hand in the webbing between the thumb and forefinger. Lucas stated that tattoo is of a cross, flames, and hands."
          Lucas showed the agent what he said was his tattoo, although he admitted it had nearly worn off. The agent reported he could only see some "very faint dark lines whose shape could not be discerned." (A 1998 AP story reported that Lucas's arms had tattoos of a naked woman, a sinking ship, the comic strip character Blondie, and a Boy Scout fleur-de-lis.)
          Lucas added that some members had tattoos signifying additional things. Those with snakes were kidnappers, and those with scorpions were "ritual killers who kill for the ceremonies the cult engages in."
       
    • Mexican cult confirmations
      • Following the 1989 discovery of the Matamoros cult in Mexico, some Texas law enforcement officials found it so eerily similar to Lucas's earlier "Hand of Death" story that they reinvestigated his allegations. According to p.17 of Carl Raschke's Painted Black, Williamson County sheriff Jim Boutwell later told a reporter that they verified Lucas was involved in cult activities: "Finally, the Texas attorney general's office decided to take a second look at earlier statements by convicted mass killer Henry Lee Lucas, waiting on death row, that he had been connected with a satanic cult operating along the border of Texas and Mexico. Lucas had called the cult the "Hand of Death." Lucas's credibility had been in serious doubt because he had first "confessed" to the murder of 600 persons all around the United States, then withdrew his statements and said he was responsible for the deaths of only three victims, including his own mother. Three years earlier Lucas had drawn a map of cult killing sites for a Catholic lay worker from Georgetown named "Sister" Clemmie Schroeder, who had served as his spiritual advisor. Jim Boutwell, the sheriff of Texas' Williamson County who aided in a Texas Rangers task force that gathered the Lucas confessions, told a valley newspaper that investigators had verified Lucas was involved in cult activities. He also noted that he had seen a map similar to the one supplied by Sister Clemmie." (full Ch.1 text) The newspaper article is likely: Brownsville Herald, "Lucas Map Said to Show Border Cult Activities", 1989/04/21, p.8A
      • Texas Monthly, "The Work of The Devil" by Gary Cartwright, 1989/06: "When lawmen finally began to sort things out, the ritual killings seemed almost predestined. A map drawn two years ago by confessed mass-killer Henry Lee Lucas had predicted with inexplicable accuracy that the bodies of victims of satanic rituals would be found about where Kilroy and others were found."
      • Russ Winter, "The Use of Cultists and Serial Killers in Death Squad Hits", 2017/07/03: "In one of his interviews, Lucas said that was a neighboring cult ranch but that “we had the same thing going on.”"
    • From p.295-296 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016): "[...] Further, Lucas and Toole apparently had told others at the time of doing Satanic things in South Florida. In 1996, Phil Mundy asked Frieda and Frank's older sister Sarah Patterson if she knew whether Ottis had taken trips to Dade or Broward. Yes, she said, "They was talking about that they was having some worshipping thing, devil worshipping groups down in that area." She said Lucas spoke about it too."
    • Jack Smart background
    • JFK assassination overlap
      • From p.131 of Hand of Death: "He'd been told that Lee Harvey Oswald had been a cult member and he'd been shot while being moved by the Dallas police. Don Meteric had offered Henry a contract calling for the murder of President Jimmy Carter and in his mind this seemed to confirm what he'd heard about Oswald."
      • From p.215-216 of Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald by Judyth Vary Baker (2010):

            [...] Dave also brought out three rings: an aquamarine ring that he said belonged to his mother, a small ruby ring that glowed purple under the light, and one carved with an ugly mythological creature.
            “This is my priestly ring,” he said. “I use it for black magic. And Satanic rituals.”
            “Are you serious?” I said, taking up the exotic ring.
            “Of course note,” Dave replied. “When I say a Mass, and sometimes I do say Mass, it isn't a Black Mass. I'm not a son of Satan, so I wouldn't wear that thing. I love God. But I use things like this to penetrate religious cults. I can go into certain places around here with that ring on, and they think I'm one of them.”
         
    • Son of Sam cult overlap
      • From p.175 of Raising Hell by Michael Newton (1993): "[In a 1991 interview with Sondra London] Toole not only described his late grandmother as a “devil-worshiper,” but he also spoke of personal visits to the New Orleans headquarters of the satanic Process Church of Final Judgment, elsewhere linked to such diverse killers as the Charles Manson “family” and New York's “Son of Sam.”"
      • In p.421-422 of Sinister Forces—The Manson Secret by Peter Levenda, there's evidence that the Hand of Death and Process Church spinoffs might be connected: "Another mound site, of possibly less importance, lies in Beaumont, Texas – a site that shows up in both the Son of Sam case, as well as in the Henry Lee Lucas case. According to Lucas, the 'Hand of Death' cult that he insisted existed in Texas, and was responsible for murders throughout the United States, was based in or around Beaumont at one point, and was responsible for the murder of a lawyer there. Beaumont, a suburb of Houston, and is where Sam cultist John Carr's ex-wife lived with her daughter. Berkowitz visited Beaumont when he obtained the famous .44 Charter Arms Bulldog revolver that was used in the Sam killings. Houston has been identified in the same literature is a cult center for the group rivaling Los Angeles; Minot, North Dakota; and New York City."
      • One rumored Hand of Death member is Jeffrey Dahmer, who was associated in Wisconsin with former New York cult member John Paul Ranieri. The recruitment by Don Meteric that Lucas describes is also eerily similar to the alleged cult recruitment of Thomas Creech, and Creech was reportedly (TODO source) linked to the Process cult by Maury Terry in his subsequent investigation.
    • (Now no longer works) "Henry Lee Lucas and The Hand of Death: Interview with Max Call" - discussed in a Rigorous Intuition comment by robotilt: "Henry Lee Lucas and The Hand of Death: Interview with Max Call http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6029101858123509319 In 1990 I conducted an interview with Max Call, author of The Hand of Death, a book detailing Henry Lee Lucas’ involvement with an alleged satanic cult of that name. (The video was part of preproduction work on an aborted documentary about Henry Lee Lucas and part of our information gathering. It was never intended for public consumption, hence the production values are crude to nonexistent.)"
    • Interview with Max Call from sometime after 1992 in p.55-66 of SERIAL KILLER MAGAZINE ISSUE 18, Issue 18 by James Gilks (webpage) - says that the cult tried to kill Henry twice while he was in prison: one by poisoning his food and once by shooting him through the window of his prison cell (which led to a man getting arrested and incarcerated in the Georgetown jail pending trial); claims the FBI flew over the Everglades to look for the Hand of Death training camp but was unwilling to search on the ground, even though Henry told them why they couldn't spot it from the air; offers his personal belief that the FBI did find traces of the camp, but since it was a mobile installation, it was moved; mentions that Henry told the authorities about a ranch in Mexico, explaining how it operated and pointing out the location on a map, but the authorities refused to do anything because it would require going through the State Department; claims that Attorney General Jim Mattox told Henry that if he recanted all of his confessions to Waco murders he would walk on all his charges except perjury, which was really a lie to discredit Henry and get publicity to distract from the criminal investigation of Waco DA Vic Feazell; says that Henry didn't remember what lie he told the church camp about Becky being gone after he murdered her, so Call decided to write that Henry said Becky ran away with a truck driver; claims that when Mattox told Henry to recant and got him a new attorney, who told Henry that he found the truck driver and that the trucker could testify Becky left with him, not knowing that it was a story Call made up, which proves that the authorities were falsifying evidence to discredit Henry's confessions; asserts that Henry was unable to remember a lot of the details of his murders due to drug use, and when a corrupt law enforcement officer would feed him details, he would view it as divine intervention from God to help him remember what he did, leading him to make false confessions; also alludes to the possibility that Henry might have (intentionally or unintentionally) taken credit for murders committed by other Hand of Death members; agrees that the "Madam Morris" (ed. note: Matamoros?) cult was likely related to the Hand of Death; claims that after he gave a presentation to Texas law enforcement about cults, many of the police officers from all over Texas approached him afterwards to confirm that they saw markers of the Hand of Death in murders they had on the books; claims that the Hand of Death murders all leave a distinctive mark, but one that varies, such as a cross on the breast or buttocks, a nipped off earlobe, a book of matches in the victim's hand, etc.; includes a letter from Henry on 1992/11/24 that mentions the Hand of Death and the book he helped Max Call write
    • Serial Killer Magazine, "THE HAND OF DEATH CULT: FACT OR FICTION?" by Anna M. Griffy
    • Billy Bob Barton, "An Interview With Ottis Toole: The Cannibal Kid", 2000
    • Other suspected members
      • Thomas Creech
      • Rodney Syphurs
      • Jack Smart
      • Kate Rich
      • Frank Hale
        • Florida Department of Corrections information on inmate HALE, FRANK M - DC number is 870527; birth date is 07/31/1956; received a life sentence for first degree murder on 09/28/1983; currently residing at UNION C.I. (i.e. Florida State Prison in Raiford FL)
        • Picuki.com library for #ottistoole (Google searches 1, 2): "Letter from an inmate named Frank Hale who was friends with Ottis Toole and a member of the Hand of Death Cult. He calls himself Frank the Butcher in the letter and talks about all kinds of stuff including unsolved murders he was responsible for in the Bay Area and being [...]"
      • Kenneth McKenna
      • Jeffrey Dahmer
      • Robert Charles Browne
    • Real person named Don Meteric? - unlikely but worth pursuing
  • Patricia Webb murder - in 1974 in Lincoln NE
    • From The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton: "By 1974, Toole was drifting, touring the western states in an old pickup truck. Acquaintances thought nothing of it, at the time, but later evidence suggests he may have claimed at least four victims in a six-month period. Police suspect him in the death of 24-year-old Patricia Webb, shot in Lincoln, Nebraska, on April 18."
    • Lincoln Journal Star, "Epilogue: 38 years later, Patricia Webb death still a mystery", 2012/08/20: "A new employee of the Adult Book and Cinema Store disappeared overnight April 18, 1974, along with 51 bondage-themed adult magazines, a calculator and $30. A cord leading to an extension from a pay phone had been cut and the shop door left unlocked. Two and a half days later, Oscar Fiene went to feed cattle on a vacant farm he owned east of Hallam and spotted a blue jacket sleeve and patch of thigh barely visible under a haystack. Patricia Carol Webb’s bullet-riddled body was nude under the hay, except for a quilted jacket, one of 143 extra-large jackets distributed by a feed mill and given to customers or sold to employees. Webb, 24, had a piece of tape over her mouth. [...] The 1972 opening of the Adult Book and Cinema at 140 S. 11th St. shocked Lincoln. [...] “Everybody in that era kind of thought anything having to do with pornography was probably organized crime,” Barksdale said. Common wisdom held that the Mafia ran such stores, along with gambling, drugs and prostitution. [...] Then authorities revealed Webb had been an undercover drug informant for the Nebraska State Patrol and was supposed to testify in court the day she disappeared. [...] Police never found the .22- and .25-caliber guns that put at least six bullets in Webb's head and four in her body. [...] Witnesses came forward to say they saw a young woman leave the store with a black man at about 1 a.m. April 18 and get into a large, older car that looked like a boxy Cadillac or Buick and may have had another person inside. Police developed two strong suspects, a man matching the description that witnesses gave and his partner, a white man, but they couldn't definitively connect them to the slaying. [...] They were the type of guys you'd hire if you needed cement poured, a hole dug or help collecting a debt, he said. [...] Larry Ball of Lincoln was an investigator for the State Patrol when Webb was a “special employee” for it. He said in a 1990 interview that she and another undercover informant played key roles in late 1973 and early 1974, setting up 60 or 70 undercover drug buys leading to the arrests and convictions of more than two dozen people. She stopped the undercover work in early 1974 and wanted to start again, but she owed $3,000 to $4,000 to finance companies, Ball said. [...] Police have investigated tips involving outlaw motorcycle gangs, serial rapists and satanic cults."
  • Shelley Robertson murder - in 1974 in Golden CO
    • From The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton: "By 1974, Toole was drifting, touring the western states in an old pickup truck. Acquaintances thought nothing of it, at the time, but later evidence suggests he may have claimed at least four victims in a six-month period. [...] on July 1, 24-year-old Shelley Robertson disappeared from Golden, Colorado, her nude body recovered from Berthed Pass, near Vail, on August 21. Ted Bundy is frequently blamed for Robertson's death, but the last innocent person to see her alive -- a policeman -- watched as she accepted a ride from "a wild-haired man driving an old pickup truck." (In those days, dapper Ted Bundy habitually drove a Volkswagen "bug.")"
  • Sun Ok Cousin murder and Yon Cha Lee assault - in 1974 in Colorado Springs CO
  • Ellen Holman murder - in 1974 in Pueblo CO
    • From The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton: "By 1974, Toole was drifting, touring the western states in an old pickup truck. Acquaintances thought nothing of it, at the time, but later evidence suggests he may have claimed at least four victims in a six-month period. [...] on October 10, 31-year-old Ellen Holman was abducted from Pueblo, Colorado, shot three times in the head, and dumped near the Oklahoma border. Homicide investigators now believe Toole pulled the trigger in that crime."
  • Deborah Sue Williamson murder - in 1975 in Lubbock TX
    • Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, "Cultists In Death Probe Focus", 1976/02/15 (pages 1, 10): "HOMICIDE DETECTIVES, pushing their widespread probe into a loosely knit group which may be linked to the deaths of three young women, continued last week to make inroads into Lubbock’s homosexual and narcotics communities. According to one detective, recent investigation has centered around the mysterious death of Marcella Valenzuela, a 20-year-old nightclub dancer whose body was found in the bathtub of her apartment Jan. 5. [...] Police launched their investigation into the group, a loosely organized cult of homosexuals, narcotics addicts and devil worshipers, after information uncovered by The Avalanche-Journal revealed members of the cult were associated with the dead women. Since the widespread police probe began almost two weeks ago, detectives have methodicatlly re-interviewed persons associated with Miss Valenzuela, Debbie Sue Williamson and Vickie Stroud Stokes, looking for similarities in their associates. Investigation so far reflects no evidence that the women were members of the group; however, they may have been associated with persons who were involved in 20-to 25-member cult. Detectives have proven a link between the attractive Miss Valenzuela and two reported ringleaders of the highly secretive group. [...] Two detectives last week questioned the operator and several customers at a North Lubbock gay bar. The 25-year-old lesbian, said by several sources to be the leader of the group, repeatedly has denied to officers she was involved in any of the deaths. The woman, who has served a sentence in the penitentiary and is now confined in Lubbock County Jail, also denies being a member of a satanic cult. However, several sources who said they fear for their lives have confirmed the cult exists. [...] The bulk of its members reportedly were recruited by the lesbian leader who reportedly "uses devil worship and drugs to keep the others in line.” The information discovered by The Avalanche-Journal also led officers to reopen their investigation into three deaths originally ruled suicides. [...] “What makes me so mad about them is that they pick on young kids about 14 or 15 who are susceptible to their come-ons,” said one source who knows the groups’ members well. [...] There’s no doubt about it,” said one detective, “Some of these kids are convinced she (the lesbian leader) has power over their minds. It makes it hard to get them to say anything.”"
    • KLBK, "Could her case be solved soon? LPD shares major update in the search for 18-year-old Debbie Williamson’s killer", 2022/04/13 (updated 2022/04/21): "On Saturday, Liz Flatt, Debbie’s sister, said the end to her unsolved murder investigation could come soon. Last year, the Lubbock Police Department assigned a new detective, which Flatt said was just what the case needed. “I’ve been fighting for 5 long, hard years to get LPD to do what Sergeant [Justin] Anderson and his team are doing,” Flatt said. [...] Flatt said LPD continues to re-interview people and re-examine evidence; this time, using forensic technology. [...] In January, Flatt and Sergeant Anderson decided together to send evidence to a private lab for any DNA that may have been left at the scene. [...] Over the last several months, rumors about possible suspects have circulated on Facebook. She said two private investigators who are not affiliated with Debbie’s family have wrongly accused two individuals on her sister’s Facebook page: Unsolved Murder of Deborah Sue Williamson (Debbie Agnew). “They have wrongly, and I mean wrongly, made two individuals look very guilty on that Facebook page and they have no right to do that. Absolutely no right,” Flatt said. [...] “They removed me from my own sister’s Facebook page and blocked me. [It was] very disturbing, upsetting and just shocking,” Flatt cried. “I have fought for so long for justice for my sister and, then for them to do this to me…” [...] The private investigators spoke with our newsroom on March 26 and suggested KLBK not speak with Debbie’s sister; instead, to speak with Debbie’s widowed husband. They said they no longer have a relationship with Flatt and suggested she cannot be trusted. [...] The two also said they are releasing a book with new information about the case next month. Flatt said the private investigators’ conduct is concerning and maddening."
    • NEA Report, "“Silent Silhouette” details an in-depth investigation into the unsolved stabbing death of Deborah Sue Williamson", 2022/08/17: "In June of 2021, investigative journalist and true crime author George Jared teamed with his investigative partner former Army counterintelligence officer Jennifer Bucholtz decided to delve into the mystery surrounding the woman’s death. Their new book “Silent Silhouette” details their investigation into the case. It includes interviews, case files, interviews with witnesses and persons of interest. The case has haunted the city of Lubbock, Texas for many years and has surprising connections to Northeast Arkansas. [...] “Debbie’s case immediately caught my attention because, based on the actions the killer took during the commission of the murder and the minutes afterwards, the murder was personal in nature and likely committed by someone close to Debbie,” she said. “Knowing that, it baffled me that the case had gone nearly 46 years without being solved. I believe Debbie’s case has a high solvability rate and had her and her husband’s inner circle been more heavily scrutinized in 1975, the killer likely would have been discovered back then.” [...] To study the case better, the duo traveled to Lubbock in August 2021 to track down those who’d given witness statements to the police in 1975 and to visit the home on the night of the anniversary of the murder. One person they tracked down early on was Debbie’s widower, Doug. [...] Doug was questioned as a suspect several times. He passed a polygraph test. The night of the murder he was the manager of a Pizza Inn. The waitress that worked with him that night a college student named Mary Ann, told police that he was there the entire night. Another employee, Paul Neel, asked to leave early that night to go on a date with a woman named Tina. Neel had previously dated Debbie and was friends with Doug. He clocked out that night at 8:43 p.m. and arrived for his date with Tina around 10 p.m. Jared and Bucholtz tracked down Neel and Tina and interviewed them extensively. What they and other witnesses said will shock many readers, Jared said."
    • Lubbock TX police corruption
      • Substantial Evidence: A Whistleblower's True Tale of Corruption, Death and Justice by Bill Hubbard (1998)
    • Jennifer Bucholtz and George Jared background
      • Case Breakers affiliation
        • "Meet the Case Breakers Team", 2022/07 - under Private Investigators & Forensic Experts are "APUS, College Adjunct Instructor Jen Bucholtz – former Army Counterintelligence (Peyton, CO)" and "PI George Jared – Field Investigator, Three-Time Author, Podcaster (Jonesboro, AR)"; under Consultants / Federal Agencies & Departments is "U.S. Atty. Joe Russoniello (ret.) – Former FBI, 2-time US Attorney & SF Law School Dean (S.F., CA)"
        • Note that the Case Breakers claimed in 2021 to have identified the "Zodiac killer" as Gary Francis Poste
  • John Whatley and Faye Eva Whatley disappearance - in 1976 in Bastrop TX
    • Websleuths thread on the disappearances
    • Bastrop Advertiser, "What Could Have Happened to the Whatleys?", 1976/03/25: "Bennett Blake of Houston, son-in-law of the Whatleys, reported them missing more than five weeks ago, either four or five days after something eerie occurred at their home. [...] Blake's wife, daughter of Mrs. Whatley by a prior marriage, became worried when the couple failed to show up as planned for the wedding rehearsal of their granddaughter Jan. 30 as well as the wedding the next day. [...] Long distance calls to the Whatley home went unanswered, and Blake telephoned Bastrop County Sheriff Jimmy Nutt the Saturday night of Jan. 31. Nutt dispatched a deputy sheriff to the Whatley ranch six miles north of Bastrop near the old Hills Prairie settlement. [...] The only hint of foul play was a .22 caliber bullet hole fired through a window from inside the house. Only the Whatleys seemed to be missing at the time, but officers later determined an inside bedroom door was gone. [...] Nutt is checking on all rumors, and his investigation has touched on something which occurred in Mexico over half a century ago. Whatley, born in Mexico, was the son of a physician in Chihuahua. [...] The Whatley property was confiscated by revolutionaries, and young John escaped from Mexico under a wagon. A rumor persisted that someone in Mexico might have come to Bastrop to kill Whatley and prevent him from reclaiming his family's expropriated land. [...] Whatley, a self made millionaire since coming to Texas, once operated a small dairy at Ridgetop in what is now North Austin. He sold the dairy, bought land northwest of Austin and in turn sold it for a reported $500,000. [...] Bastrop County Deputy Sheriff Verlin Hemphill says Whatley's assets are somewhere between $2 million and $7 million. [...] [Faye Whatley] is a former fraternity housemother and women's dormitory employee at the University of Texas in Austin. She had two children by a previous marriage, Mrs. Blake of Houston and a son who was killed in a plane crash."
    • Amarillo Globe-Times, "Disappearances of Texas Rancher, Wife Stymie Investigators", 1977/01/19: "The wealthy rancher, Nutt said, was last seen by some pecan thrashers, who told officers he was accompanied by man convicted of burglary. The man is wanted in Florida for violating his probation and Nutt never got to question him about the missing Whatleys."
    • Austin American-Statesman, "Lucas claims he killed wealthy Bastrop couple", 1984/04/20 (pages 1, 10): "Convicted murderer Henry Lee Lucas Thursday led authorities to the former home of a wealthy Bastrop County couple who disappeared in 1976 and said he and a companion killed the pair. John Whatley, 74, and his wife, Faye, 68, were discovered missing Jan. 31, 1976. "I believe what he told us," said Bastrop County Sheriff Tommy Moseley, who accompanied Lucas to the home. "I'm pretty well convinced he did it, because he told us things, gave us details he couldn't have known otherwise." Moseley said Lucas told him the Whatleys were stabbed to death "and their bodies were taken to Nevada and dumped in the desert." [...] Moseley said Lucas made a statement concerning the case. The sheriff said Lucas had had an accomplice, but would not say whether it was Toole, who has been implicated in other murders. A study of Lucas' travels during the time he claimed involvement in at least 360 murders shows he met Toole for the first time in December 1975 in Jacksonville, Fla. Nutt said this morning that it's "very possible" that Lucas and his accomplice used the missing door to load the bodies into their truck. The door was found in a barn loft about a year after the Whatleys' disappearance. Nutt said the barn had been searched "over and over again but maybe we missed it." Nutt said he believed Lucas' statements have cleared the case."
    • 1984/06/22 letter from Anita Whatley Lorenz to Sgt. Bob Prince of the Texas Rangers: "Recently I received a clipping taken from the Dallas News of June 7. The clipping stated that a man named Toole had confessed that he was paid ten thousand dollars to kill my brother John Whatley and his wife Fay. He met a man by the name of Lucas in San Antonio, gave him five thousand dollars and they went to the ranch not far from Bastrop, Texas and stabbed the couple to death.

      In a previous article Lucas said that he did the killing and that he had an associate but did not name him. He also said that the bodies were taken to the desert in Nevada and dumped. I hope that you are continuing to work on this case to find the person who hired these men. He is as guilty as they are and is a social menace and should be removed from circulation."
  • Clemmie Curtis murder - in 1976 in Huntington WV
    • Charleston Daily Mail, "HUNTINGTON OFFICER CUFFED, FATALLY SHOT", 1976/08/04: "Cabell County Sheriff Ted T. Barr said "there is a 99 per cent probability" that Huntington police officer Clemmie Curtis was killed with his own gun. [...] Curtis, 30, a nine-year veteran on the force, was shot in a heavily wooded area known as "Shangri-La" or "Snake Road" yesterday afternoon, according to Barr. Exact time of death is unknown, but Barr said Curtis was seen buying lunch at 2:30 and the body was found about 6 p.m. Barr said Curtis had been shot once in the chest, his hands were handcuffed in front, and was found lying on his back about two feet from the municipally owned unmarked white Dodge he had been driving. His .38 caliber police pistol lay alongside. Huntington police said Curtis was bound with his police handcuffs."
    • Chicago Tribune, "SERIAL KILLER RECOUNTS GRISLY TRAIL ACROSS U.S.", 1985/03/24: "Paula Curtis, 37, a registered nurse and the widow of a Huntington, W.Va., police officer who was shot to death along Int. Hwy. 64 by Lucas Aug. 3, 1976, doesn`t think that`s such a bad idea. The death of Patrolman Clemmie Curtis, 30, was ruled a suicide for 8 1/2 years until Lucas confessed to it and pleaded guilty Jan. 22. He and Toole were sentenced to life without parole."
    • Office Down Memorial Page entry for Patrolman Clemmie E. Curtis - a 2008/12/16 comment by Christopher Clagg says "10-42 They finally tied one of your killers to the child they had killed. I know Azel Bryant took your death with him wishing the HPD had found your killer."
  • Holly Andrews murder - in 1976 near Georgetown CO
    • Westword, "Ghost Story", 2001/02/15
      • "Tammy and Holly Andrews, only eleven months apart in age, were close friends. Both went to Columbine High School in Littleton, where Holly was outgoing, popular and took great pride in her role as a majorette."
      • "Dave eventually spent time in juvenile hall; Tammy received psychological counseling for running away from home; and in late 1976, Holly spent two months at Fort Logan Mental Health Center."
      • "Most of Lucas's account, especially the description of Holly's clothes, matched the details of the case -- if not exactly, then close enough for Gillespie and Whiteside. Lucas seemed to know things that only the killer would know. "He was quite lucid about the details and certain about the facts," says Whiteside, who retired from the CBI in 1999 after serving as director for twelve years. He even said that Holly had told him she wanted to run away to California, something she had indeed discussed with her brother Dave in the weeks before her death, according to police reports. He also correctly described the fatal stab wound to Holly's heart and correctly listed the contents of her purse."
      • "On March 13, 1984, the Clear Creek County district attorney's office charged Lucas with first-degree murder and with felony murder, which is murder committed in the process of committing another felony -- in this case, sexual assault."
      • "In June 1984, Lucas confessed to the 1979 slaying of seventeen-year-old Linda Ruth Hutchings, who'd last been seen alive on August 14 of that year. Her body was found on September 1 in a swampy area in Jefferson County. She had been beaten to death. Jefferson County sheriff's investigator Steve Forsyth went to Texas to interview Lucas. Following the advice of a Texas Ranger, Forsyth opened the interview by showing Lucas a photograph of Hutchings. Lucas told Forsyth he had just been drawing a picture of Hutchings -- it was his habit to make drawings of his victims to show investigators. "Mr. Lucas was able to relate to me details involving the victim and himself which are known only to law-enforcement personnel and Lucas," Forsyth wrote in an affidavit for Lucas's arrest on charges of first-degree murder."
      • "On December 26, 1976, the day Holly Andrews was killed, records from the report show that "Lucas resided at Benjamin Trailer in Port Deposit, Maryland." Lucas paid his rent on December 3 and was investigated by Maryland police in connection with an incident involving his nephew's car on December 8."
    • Lisa Marie Fuqua, "A Cold Case is Solved with DNA — So Why is the Killer Free?", 2019/11/18: "December 26, 1976, Holly Andrews 16, was visiting her mother for Christmas in Columbine, Colorado. One evening she left to visit a friend and didn’t return. The next day skiers would find her naked body, except for blue knee-high socks. [...] The case went cold until 1983 when serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confessed that he raped and killed Holly. Officials proved that Lucas could not have killed Holly, because they knew he was in another part of the country at the time. But they had to wonder if he was covering for another member of The Hand of Death Satanic Cult. [...] The way she was killed is reminiscent of other cult murders that have happened. She was raped and stabbed six times in the back, with the final seventh blow straight to the heart. And they are usually left to be found naked, except for their socks. [...] Ricky Lee Harnish 52, was still living in a halfway house after being released from his 2005 arrest for selling methamphetamine. When they ran his DNA sample, it hit on the cold case murder of Holly Andrews, thirty-one years earlier. [...] We know that he was 21 when he raped and killed Holly in Columbine, Colorado. After that, he lived in Kansas, Texas, and New Mexico for the most prolonged periods of time. With several other states in between. Harnish also changed careers. He was a car salesman, a seismograph operator, a steakhouse chef, a fiber-optics installer, and a drug dealer. Harnish was able to charm his way into almost anything. He was always flush with money and had the nicest rides people remembered, like the vintage black Corvette, and the classic Harley-Davidson ‘74. [...] Only hours before his trial was to begin, Harnish took a plea deal. He was given a measly 10–24 years for the brutal, rape, and murder of a young girl. [...] Harnish barely served nine years, then was released. What’s even stranger than the short time he was given for the rape and murder of a youth, is that when he was released, he wasn’t on parole, and didn’t have to register as a sex offender. He was just free to do whatever he wanted."
  • Trasie Woods murder - in 1979 in Beaumont CA
  • Rita Salazar and Frank Kevin Key murder - in 1978 near Georgetown TX and Hewitt TX
    • Austin American-Statesman, "Tijerina's sentence: 40 years", 2012/02/29 (pages B1, B8): "Investigators think there is another suspect in the case because when Key and Salazar were kidnapped, they were taken in a different car to a different location, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said. He declined to provide further details about the ongoing investigation. [...] Key’s mother, Geraldine Key, said outside court that she was relieved that justice had been served. She said she used to want vengeance for her son’s death but not anymore. Still, her grief lingered, she said. “My son was shot nine times, and I wouldn’t even do that to an animal,” she said. She also said that she did not think Tijerina was the person who shot her son. McLennan County First Assistant District Attorney Michael Jarrett disagreed. He said outside the courtroom that Tijerina had bragged to other jail inmates about shooting Kevin Key. Tijerina’s defense attorney, Russell Hunt Jr., said outside court that Tijerina told him he didn’t kill the victims or sexually assault Salazar."
  • Debra Jackson murder - in 1979 on Halloween in Georgetown TX; was formerly known as Orange Socks before her 2019 identification
    • KVUE, "1979 'Orange Socks' cold case victim identified as Debra Jackson of Abilene", 2019/08/06 (updated 2019/09/03): "The victim has been identified as Debra Louise Jackson of Abilene, Texas, who died at the age of 23 from apparent strangulation. She was found dead on Oct. 31, 1979, off of Interstate Highway 35 north of Georgetown in a concrete drainage ditch near Walburg Road. [...] After meeting with Jackson's family, officials learned that she left home in Abilene in 1977. Her family did not report her missing at this time, so her information was not entered in any databases. Also, officials said her Social Security activity halted after 1979. Officials said she could also be known by the names of Debra Louise Larned or Debra Louise Moon. Based on information officials have gathered, they learned that Jackson eventually began working at a Ramada Inn in Amarillo in 1978 located at 2508 E. Interstate Highway 40 and, later that year, at an assisted living center called Bur-Mont Inc. in Azle, Texas, located at 7150 Gantt Access Road. Officials believe she also worked at R.E. West and C.G. Cole Admiral PTR, Realty Investment LTD, in 1979 at an unknown location."
  • Elizabeth Allen murder - in 1980 with her body left in San Bernardino County CA
    • El Paso Herald-Post, "Former law agent says Lucas lied about murders", 1986/09/18: "Lucas also was a suspect in the 1980 disappearance of a 50-year-old El Paso woman, a detective testified Wednesday. The body of Elizabeth Allen has never been recovered after she disappeared in January 1980, El Paso police detective Greg Lucas testified. Detective Lucas is not related to Henry Lee Lucas. Allen’s car was found about 15 miles from Jack and Obera Smart's house in California. No Lucas fingerprints were found on the car. The Smarts were friends of Lucas, the detective said."
    • Note that Lucas allegedly met Jack Smart in January 1982, so if Lucas was involved in Allen's murder, this may be a sign that his association with Smart went back further (corroborating the claim of Smart being a fellow cultist)
  • Northwest Florida murder spree in late 1980 and early 1981
    • From p.266-267 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016):

          But a few years later the game was back afoot. In FDLE's investigative summary reports of the northwest Florida murders, Toole's information was specific. Further, despite what Lucas told the press in 1989, a year before he had confessed to them as well, and his information matched Toole's. Even further, it matched what FDLE had gotten from Frank Powell, as well as evidence from the crime scenes.
          Forgetting their uninspiring conclusions and Lucas's remarks to the contrary, these cases looked real. Including Haack and Karbin, Lucas and Toole were spree killers like they'd said. As for the rest of their maddening confessions, who knows?
       
    • Tallahassee Democrat, "Traveling killers are indicted in four Panhandle slayings", 1989/05/05 (pages 1A, 9A)
    • Associated Press, "Reputed Serial Killer Henry Lee Lucas Extradited to Florida", 1990/12/07
    • Tampa Bay Times, "Florida can't afford murder trial", 1991/09/24: "Henry Lee Lucas, 55, will be returned to Texas rather than face trial in the four Florida slayings for which co-defendant Ottis Elwood Toole was convicted. [...] In Florida, the drifters Lucas and Toole were charged with the slayings of three women and the father of Jackson County Sheriff Johnny McDaniel in 1980 and 1981. Former Malone Mayor John P. McDaniel Sr. was found shot to death Dec. 15, 1980, by his son. The younger McDaniel was sheriff-elect when he answered a robbery call at a gasoline station where his father worked as an attendant near Campbellton in Jackson County. The other victims were Mary Ruby McCary of Washington County and Jerilyn Murphy Peoples and Brenda Jo Burton, both of Holmes County. As the result of a plea bargain, Cole sentenced Toole to four consecutive life terms for his guilty pleas to first-degree murder. The first chance for parole would be after 100 years. [...] The charges against Lucas have not been dropped. If he is not executed in Texas, Appleman said, he will be brought back to Florida for trial."
    • John P. McDaniel Jr. murder - in 1980 in Marianna FL; was a gas station attendant, former mayor of Malone FL, and the father of Jackson County Sheriff John McDaniel
      • From p.269 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016), the McDaniel murder could have been a broader cult effort: "I searched the FDLE reports to see if Lucas and Toole ever had others along during their murders, besides Frank and Becky. In fact, yes, Lucas said. He hadn't wanted to give up the name, but Toole's brother-in-law Rodney Syphurs had traveled with them in a separate car during some crimes that resulted in murders including the killing of the service station attendant John McDaniel. Lucas said Syphurs shot McDaniel and added that Syphurs was a member of the Hand of Death cult. Syphurs died in 2005."
      • MYPANHANDLE, "The High Sheriff: Former Jackson County Sheriff Tells of His Time in Office", 2017/11/14 - mentions Sheriff John McDaniel starting his sheriff career in December 1980 with the investigation of his father's murder, which took 5 years and was found to be a serial killing by Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole; also discusses his wife Mellie McDaniel being followed home and murdered on 2007/01/30, a crime attributed to Lionel Sands and Daniel Brown
      • Break for News post suggests a connection between the Hand of Death and the Dixie Mafia, saying that Lucas matches the profile of southern hit men
      • Note that Marianna FL, the county seat of Jackson County FL, was the location of the abusive Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys
        • Panama City News Herald, "Youth found dead in cell", 1981/07/14: "A 15-year-old reform school escapee accused of severely beating three members of a Marianna family hanged himself in his Bay County Jail cell early Monday morning, Sheriff Lavelle Pitts said. John J. Bruschayt of Deland used strips of cloth torn from a bedsheet to hang himself from a coat hook only 4 feet from the floor of his cell, Pitts said. [...] Meanwhile, Lenox Williams, superintendent of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, said $100,000 appropriated several years ago to build a security fence around the school from which Bruschayt had escaped wasn’t spent for that purpose because the amount was insufficient. “There was $100,000 appropriated but it was not sufficient to build a secure fence,” Williams said. [...] The adopted son of Fred and Joyce Bruschayt of Deland escaped from the reform school only a few weeks after he was sent there on drug possession and paraphernalia charges from Deland, said Roy McKay, program administrator at the school. Jackson County Sheriff John McDaniel charged that the day after the escape, the youth beat Curtis Jackson, 64, his wife Jewel, 56, and son Richard, 18, with a shotgun after they discovered him allegedly trying to burglarize their home eight miles from the school. Bruschayt stole a vehicle belonging to one of the family members and wrecked it near Homerville, Ga., where he was detained by authorities and returned to Jackson County, McDaniel said. Bruschayt was charged on three counts — assault with intent to commit murder, theft and burglary — by Jackson County authorities, McDaniel said. A judge later ruled that the youth be transferred to the Bay County Jail because of its juvenile wing."
        • Murder of Rush Cowherd
          • WJHG, "Jackson County Homicide Update", 2005/12/07: "Monday morning Jackson County authorities were called out to a boat landing north of Marianna. There they discovered the body of a 62-year-old man floating in the Chipola River. Wednesday morning investigators released new information surrounding the case. Jackson County sheriff's investigators have now made it official. John P. McDaniel, Jackson County Sheriff, says, “His body went to the medical examiner's office and yesterday afternoon late the medical examiner's office told us that Rush Cowherd's death was as a result of a gunshot wound.” The man, known to his friends as "Rush," was shot in his upper torso according to investigators. [...] Benjamin Rush Cowherd lived in the Grand Ridge area of Jackson County and was a retired counselor with the Florida State Hospital. He also worked as a drug counselor at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna. [...] Investigators don't believe the motive was robbery. They say Cowherd was found with cash on him. Cowherd’s truck was also retrieved from the river along with his fishing gear and a lawn chair."
          • Jackson County Sheriff's Office, "Who Killed Benjamin "Rush" Cowherd?"
        • Dale Cox, "Greenwood and the Alcatraz Escape: Anglin brothers sighted in Florida?", 2014/10/12: "In June 1962 three inmates slipped out of the United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco Bay and carried out what many believe was the first successful escape from the federal prison that is still called "The Rock." [...] No one knows whether Clarence Anglin, John William Anglin and Frank Lee Morris are alive today. [...] While many people have at least heard of the 1962 Alcatraz escape, most do not know that Jackson County was the scene of a major local and federal search for the escapees in 1989-1991. [...] To the surprise of U.S. Marshals, a woman they would only identify as "Cathy" called the show's tip line to report that she not only recognized a photo of Clarence Anglin, but knew him to be living on a farm near Marianna under an assumed name. [...] According to "Cathy," the escape had been carried out with outside help. Her story, in brief, was that individuals with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Alabama made contact with a former Florida sheriff to solicit his help. The former officer agreed and went to San Francisco. [...] Almost immediately after news of the search hit the national news wires, I was contacted by a California writer who claimed to have information on the location of the escapees. [...] I agreed to see him, but also notified then Jackson County Sheriff John P. McDaniel and Chief Deputy John Dennis of his claim. [...] The meeting with the writer went downhill quickly after he told Sheriff McDaniel that he thought all Southern law enforcement officers were members of the KKK. [...] Documentary research revealed that Clarence Anglin and Frank Lee Morris had previous history in Jackson County. Both had spent time as juvenile offenders at what later became the Dozier School for Boys."
    • Jerilyn Peoples murder - in 1981 in Holmes County FL
      • From p.297 of The Confessions of Henry Lee Lucas:

            [...] When Mitchell left the prison, he had a signed confession to Peoples's murder. In his statement Toole recalled that Peoples had been carrying a bag of groceries and that he shot her with a rifle. Lucas, Becky, and Frank Powell were present at the time, he said.
            On June 30, 1988, Mitchell, having won Frank Powell's confidence, took a statement from the young man in which he "advised that he was present during the burglary of the Peoples home. Powell further stated that Lucas and Toole are responsible for Peoples's death inasmuch as Peoples surprised Lucas and Toole during the burglary."
            Finally, Mitchell and another agent came to Texas and talked with Lucas in prison. He, too, confessed to his role in the Peoples case.
         
  • Dorothy Collins murder - in 1981 in Waco TX
    • Waco Citizen, "CRIME OF WEEK: August 11: $1,000 Reward", 1981/08/11: "On January 25, 1981, the body of Dorothy Collins was found lying in a ditch on Tours Road murdered. She had been stabbed twice, once in the back and once in the throat. The activities of the victim on the night before she was murdered are sketchy, but it was learned that she had been at a predominately black night club located in the 600 block of So. 11th at 11:30 p.m. and was last seen alive in her apartment at about midnight. It is believed that Miss Collins killer dumped her body here on the side of the road between 7:10 and 7:30 the next morning."
    • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Police question Lucas about Waco killings", 1984/12/01: "Lt. Elijah Dickerson of the McLennan County Sheriff's Department said "we went back through the property (on Monday) and found new evidence" in the Jan. 25, 1981, murder of 25-year-old Dorothy G. Collins. Dickerson said that after discovering the new evidence, he and Deputy Bill Rich contacted the Texas Rangers who were transporting Lucas from Georgetown to Dallas this week and requested they stop in Waco for questioning. Dickerson said that after he used a "key word," Lucas began remembering the murder of Ms. Collins. Dickerson declined to say what "key word" he used. He said Lucas then took investigators to where Ms. Collins' body was found and showed the investigators where he had dumped her body."
    • Tyler Courier-Times, "Self-Proclaimed Serial Killer Testifies Before Grand Jury", 1985/04/17 (pages 1, 6): "The investigation was prompted by Lucas' confession to the 1981 murder of Dorothy Collins at a time when officers believed another suspect was on the verge of confessing, authorities said."
    • Austin American-Statesman, "Lucas 'circus' assailed", 1985/04/30 (pages B1, B4): "A month after Feazell said he started looking into the Bellmead case, the McLennan County sheriffs office announced that Lucas had confessed to the killing of 25-year-old Dorothy G. Collins Jan. 25, 1981. Collins' body was found off Inter state 35 north of Ross Road Jan. 26, 1981. Her throat had been slashed, and she was clutching a paper bag containing an alarm clock. She held some loose change in her other hand. Nov. 30, 1984, sheriffs Lt. Elijah Dickerson said Lucas had led officers to within 5 feet of the place Collins' body had been found. Dickerson said Lucas told investigators that he had met Collins at a Waco bar, later killed her inside a car, and then dumped her body not far from a truck stop. "No one else could have known the things (Lucas) knew," Dickerson said at the time. Feazell said the second confession "really got us interested.""
    • Los Angeles Times, "Killer’s Case a True Trial for Texas D.A.", 1991/12/29: "They had a stake in this one, because a suspect--Joe Lehming--was already in jail. Simons had been working on Lehming and thought he had been only a hair away from convincing the man to confess to the killings. But when Lucas confessed, Lehming shut his mouth tight, “vapor locked” as Simons put it, hoping that Lucas would take the rap."
    • Note that an entry for "H.L. Lucas" was found in Collins' "trick book" (TODO: upload documentation)
  • Linda Karbin and Hazel Haack murder - in late May 1981 in Sunny Isles FL
    • The murders of 17-year-old Linda Karbin and 19-year-old Hazel Haack in Sunny Isles, part of Dade County, were attributed to Henry Lee Lucas. Haack was a runaway who had gotten involved in prostitution (one friend called it "hanging out down on Biscayne Boulevard, at night") and selling drugs. Initially, police traced her drug connections, and when Lucas was implicated, they reclassified it as a random serial killing. But by Lucas's account, the Hand of Death performed contract hits that would simply appear to be random serial killings, so organized crime may well have been involved in the Karbin and Haack murders.
    • TODO: add quotes from Arthur Jay Harris book about the victims and Lucas's confession
  • Grimes County Jane Doe murder - in 1981 in Iola TX
  • Betty Thornton murder - in 1981 in Little Rock AK
  • Barbara Begley murder - in 1982 in Hobbs NM
    • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Lucas tale is gory whodunit on grand scale", 1985/08/25 (pages 1, 15): "CONTRAST THAT WITH cases such as the one in Hobbs, N.M. Barbara Begley was 17 and sometimes a little wild. She disappeared April 17, 1982 from a parking lot that Hobbs high school kids used as a hangout Her body was found on an oilfield road southwest of town. She had been stabbed many times. "We talked to a lot of people and turned up nothing," said Sgt. Paul Mallory of the Lee County Sheriff's Department. Barbara's mother Carol Doran says that a few weeks after her daughter's death, "someone said they had seen her in a car with a man with a funny eye." Then in early 1984, two local residents saw Lucas' picture in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and told police that they had seen him in town about the time of Begley's killing. They said that they had seen him at the small concrete-block house of an oilfield worker — who is now dead — and at the downtown parking lot from which Barbara Begley had disappeared. Shortly after that, Fred Dodd, then an investigator with the Chambers County Sheriff's Department in South Texas, was interviewing Lucas; he knew there was an unsolved slaying in Hobbs but did not know details. Dodd asked Lucas if he had ever been in Hobbs. Lucas said he had, that he had killed a girl and left her in an oilfield, in an area where he had seen lights, like airport searchlights, crossing the sky. Dodd related that information to Mallory, who then called the Rangers and set up an appointment to interview Lucas. "I didn't give any information about the case" to the Rangers on the phone, he said. In May 1984, Mallory and then-Sheriff Ralph Wrinkle of Lee Connty came to Texas to interview Lucas. [...] On tape, Mallory and Wrinkle show Lucas a photo lineup of six blond young women. "The fifth one looks like her," Lucas says. The fifth one was Begley. The rest of the tape is an interweaving of correct information provided without prompting by Lucas; incorrect information given by Lucas; and information that Lucas more or less confirms after it is provided by the New Mexico officers."
    • Note that this contradicts Jack Smart's claim of Lucas always being with him in Hemet CA for multiple months at the start of 1982, and thus strongly implies that Smart (whom Lucas implicated as a fellow cultist) was faking alibis for Lucas
  • Becky Powell murder - in 1982 in Dentox TX
  • Kate Rich murder - in 1982 in Ringgold TX
    • UPI, "A man charged in the death of an 80-year-old...", 1983/06/21: "Lucas was arrested June 11 on a charge of illegal possession of a weapon by a felon. He was charged with murder after authorities found Mrs. Rich's remains in a culvert near Ringgold on June 16 and found bone fragments in a stove at Lucas' residence in Stoneburg. Mrs. Rich and a 15-year-old girl, identified only as Becky, who may have been Lucas' common law wife, have been missing for more than nine months."
    • Wichita Falls Times, "Memorial services set for Kate Rich", 1983/06/23: "Memorial services for Mrs. Kate Rich, 80-year-old Ringgold woman who disappeared Sept. 16, 1982, are scheduled at 2 p.m. Saturday in Ringgold United Methodist Church. Officiating will be the Rev. Woody Singleton, pastor of the Ringgold Baptist Church. Arrangements are under direction of Jerry Woods’ Daugherty-McGaughy Funeral Home. A native of Minden, La., Mrs. Rich was born Aug. 11, 1902. She had resided in Ringgold for more than 40 years. Her husband, Hiram, died Feb. 2, 1948. Survivors include eight daughters, O'Bera Smart of Hemet, Calif., Ellen Toarmino of New Orleans, Maxine Rogers and Louise May, both of Wichita Falls, Elva Reda Shoemaker of Terral, Okla., Jean Stallcup of Bellevue, Texas, May Kinney of Monroe, La., and Kay Worley of Fort Worth; a son, J.A. “Bo” of Odessa; a sister, Mrs. Sara Adkins of Bowie, Texas; 31 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren. Law enforcement officials unearthed what they believed to be Mrs Rich’s remains near Ringgold last Thursday. They also found bone fragments in a stove at a residence occupied by Henry Lee Lucas, 46, who has been charged with her murder."
    • FamilySearch page for Hiram R Rich: "When Hiram R Rich was born in 1884, in Texas, United States, his father, John A. B. Rich Sr, was 29 and his mother, Mary J Rich, was 31. He had at least 1 son and 5 daughters with Katy Katie Pearl Thompson. He lived in Montague, Texas, United States in 1920 and Grady, Jefferson, Oklahoma, United States in 1940. He died on 2 February 1948, in Texas, United States, at the age of 64, and was buried in Ringgold, Montague, Texas, United States."
    • Austin American-Statesman, "Pastor, sheriff unravel drifter's gruesome tale", 1983/06/26 (pages 1, 14)
    • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Lucas lived on the road, left a trail of crime", 1983/07/17 (pages 1, 8): "Lucas sometimes took odd jobs on the road: He worked for Jack and O'Bera Smart, Kate Rich's daughter and son-in-law, in California for several months before coming to Texas. [...] Toole said Lucas returned to Jacksonville in late 1981. In January 1982 Lucas left Jacksonville with Freida. Shortly afterward they met Jack and O'Bera Smart in California, and lived and worked with them for several months. The Smarts sent them to O'Bera Smart's mother, Kate Rich, in Ringgold in May 1982, but Rich's other daughters soon kicked the two out of Rich's house. They then moved to Rueben Moore's church camp and ranch a few miles away at Ringgold. Freida, known to Moore as "Becky," disappeared that August, after the couple had left Stoneburg saying they were going to hitchhike back to Jacksonville. Lucas returned the next day, saying she had run off with a truck driver. Moore says he believes that Lucas left Stoneburg on a couple occasions between June 1982 and the date of "Becky's" disappearance. A month later, on Sept. 16, 1982, Kate Rich disappeared; for a month or more, so did Lucas. His car was found abandoned in Needles, Calif., with a knife and dried blood inside. Moore says Lucas called him from the Midwest on a couple occasions, asking Moore to send him money. When he returned, it was in the company of a couple who said their name was Smith and who had picked Lucas up "out West" and traveled with him. After that, Moore says, he doesn't remember Lucas being gone for any length of time until this June. But he said law enforcement officials told him recently that Lucas "was leaving at night" on many occasions. On June 4, Lucas left Stoneburg, telling Moore he was going to find Freida Powell and Kate. Moore got a call from him three days later, from Deming, N.M., asking for gas money, which he sent. Lucas told him that he had found Freida and Kate in Florida and that they were with him. The next day, he called again from a truck stop at San Jon, N.M., and told him the engine of his car had blown up. Moore drove to San Jon, near Tucumcari, to pick them up, but when he arrived Lucas told him that Jack Smart had kidnapped both women. Juanita Foster manages the Red X Truck Stop in San Jon. She and the other workers remember Lucas: They say he was extremely upset and that Lucas had actually called the police to tell them "his women had been stolen." When they returned to Texas, Lucas gave Moore a loaded pistol to keep, telling him, "I can't get caught with this." Moore called Sheriff W.F. Conway, and Lucas was arrested on June 11. [...] • Lucas has told police he killed Freida Powell, his traveling companion for more than a year, on Aug. 24, 1982, and last month led them to where her bones and the remains of her body were scattered over a field in Denton. • He has been indicted in the slaying of Kate Rich, who disappeared Sept. 16, 1982, the same day Lucas disappeared from Montague County, staying gone for a month or more. About the same time Lucas returned, Rich's house burned down. [...] Moore says Lucas was a "good man" who worked hard and did whatever he could to help out around the church. But at some time after Kate Rich and Freida Powell disappeared, he began to get strange and scary, Moore says. Lucas became nervous and more enamored of knives than ever, and started blaming things on Jack Smart."
    • Odessa American, "Lucas ruled competent to be tried", 1983/08/11: "A drifter who claims to have killed 100 women in 16 states, including an Odessa woman, was ruled mentally competent and will stand trial Sept. 13 on charges he killed an 80-year-old woman. Henry Lee Lucas, charged with killing Kate Rich of nearby Ringgold, nodded in agreement when asked by District Judge Frank Douthitt if he agreed with the mental competency ruling. Rich was the mother of Odessan Bo Rich, 2524 W. Murphy St. Douthitt said Wednesday his ruling on Lucas' competency was based on reports from three psychiatrists that the 46-year-old former mental patient was competent to aid in his defense. [...] Among the motions pending is one by defense attorney Don Maxfield calling for the trial to be moved because of strong sentiment in Montague County against Lucas, who has been charged with five Texas killings. Lucas was charged June 25 in the March 1981 strangling death of 46-year-old Odessan Beverly Joyce Luttrull, who was found in her 2525 W. Third St. mobile home with a telephone cord wrapped around her neck, police reports said. [...] He also has been charged in the death of his 15-year-old traveling companion, Frieda Powell, a runaway from Jacksonville, Fla., whose remains were found in Denton County. Lucas subsequently was charged in the slayings of an unidentified woman whose headless body was found near Plainview in February 1982. Last month he was indicted in the strangulation of an unidentified woman whose body was found near Georgetown. Abilene police have made three trips to Montague to question Lucas about the disappearance of one woman and the slaying of another."
    • Odessa Amerian, obituary for Julian Rich, 1983/08/12: "Services for Julian Wayne Rich, 56, of Odessa are pending at Easterling-Wilson Funeral Home. Mr. Rich died Thursday at Medical Center Hospital after a lengthy illness."
    • Times Record News (Wichita Falls TX), "Rich, Odessa", 1983/08/13: "Julian Wayne "Bo" Rich 56 of Odessa, Texas died Thursday in a hospital there. Services will be at 3 p.m. Sunday in Jerry Woods Funeral Home in Nocona with R. Lee Lucas officiating. Burial will be in Ringgold, Texas. He was born Feb. 16, 1927, in Jefferson County, Okla. He was son of the late Hiram and Katie Pearl Thompson Rich. He was the retired owner of Elliott Hotel and Restaurant. He was a member of the Methodist Church and a Navy veteran. Survivors include his son, John of Odessa; a daughter, Scarlett Bradley of Colorado City, Texas; eight sisters, O‘Bera Smart of Hemet, Calif., Ellen Toramino of New Orleans, La., Maxine Rogers and Louise May, both of Wichita Falls, Rita Shoemaker of Terral, Okla., Jean Stallcup of Bellevue, Texas, May Kenney of Monroe, La., and Kay Worley of Fort Worth; and five grandchildren."
    • Los Angeles Times, "Killer Lays Claim to Trail of Grisly Deaths", 1983/10/30 (pages 1 21, 22): "Kate Pearl Rich reared eight girls and one boy in this shriveled former railroad and cotton center near the Oklahoma border. She took in laundry, cleaned houses and baby-sat neighbor children. Every day, she traded at the grocery of Vernon and Stella Ezzell. Every night, she gossiped on the phone with Roxie Boyd. She was part of the meticulous routine of a small town. [...] Lucas moved to Ringgold in May, 1982, along with his common-law wife Frieda Powell, 15, a mentally retarded girl he called "Becky." Becky was the niece of his friend Ottis Toole. Lucas met her when he stayed in a boarding house run by the Toole family in Jacksonville. Sometime in January, 1982, they were hitchhiking near the Riverside County town of Beaumont when they were picked up by Jack and O'Bera Smart of Hemet, Tex. O'Bera Smart was a daughter of Kate Rich. Lucas and Becky Powell lived with the Smarts for five months, helping out with odd jobs around the house. In May, 1982, Smart gave them bus tickets to travel to Ringgold to help around the home of Kate Rich. For a short time, they worked for Rich. But relatives in the area were afraid they were taking advantage of the old woman and made them leave. Still, Rich liked Henry Lucas. She liked nearly everybody. "She'd take to you just like you'd knowed her forever," said her grandson Derrold Fortune, 27, who lives and works in Ringgold. So when Lucas and Becky found a place to stay a few miles away at the House of Prayer for All People campground, a former chicken farm operated as a Pentecostal retreat by Reuben and Faye Moore, they stayed in touch with Kate Rich. Lucas would sometimes swing by in his car and take her for a ride and a soda pop "She would go riding with anyone just to get out of the house," Fortune said. "Henry, when you gonna come by and take me fishing?" she would joke. Lucas called her "Granny." For a few months, Lucas and Becky Powell found a home here. He would work around the campground."
    • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Tragedy isn't over yet", 1984/01/11 (pages 21, 25): "Rich's family held a memorial service for her in June. Her remains were kept as evidence in the Montague County case until Lucas was convicted and a motion for new trial was denied. The order releasing the remains was signed Friday. She was buried beside her husband Hiram, who died in 1948, and near her son Julian "Bo" Rich. He suffered a heart attack a few weeks after Lucas made his confessions, and died on Aug. 11, his mother's birthday. [...] Lucas and Powell, arriving from California, had stayed at Rich's house for a few days around the end of May 1982, before her daughters arrived and told the couple to move on. But Rich remained on good terms with the grubby drifter and the girl he said was his wife, however. Her family said that in years past, she and her husband had often taken in hobos and given them a place to sleep." - worth asking if Rich's harboring of "hobos" was a cover for giving drifter cultists like Lucas a place to stay
    • Washington Post, "The Dark Journey of Henry Lucas", 1984/10/10
    • From p.127-128 of They Call Me Sister Clemmie:

          “Well, later the Montague Sheriff came and questioned me about Becky and Miss Rich cuz they were both missing. You know, Sister Clemmie, the Sheriff and I were friends. I used to drive into Mexico and pick up drugs for him. Then I took ‘em to Miss Rich’s house. The Sheriff came there and I loaded up his car with the drugs and he took them to a warehouse not too far from the jail. This drug ring went clear from California to Florida, and Miss Rich’s house was a ‘drop house.’”
          “Henry,” I interrupted, “why would an old woman be involved in a drug ring?”
          “Cuz some of her kids were,” he answered. Continuing, he said, “I told all this to Bob Prince.”
          “What did he say about it?” I asked.
          “Don’t you remember, you came into the office when we were talking about it?”
          “Oh, do you mean about that man who had the pond on his land where all the cult members met?” I asked.
          “Yeah, he was Miss Rich’s son, Bo. They were all part of the same ring.” He lit up another cigarette as I sat thinking.
       
    • Times Record News (Wichita Falls TX), obituary for Maxine Anita Bennett, 1993/03/16: "Maxine Anita Bennett, 67, died Saturday in a Wichita Falls hospital. Services will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at Owens & Brumley Funeral Home with Keith Parker officiating. Burial will be in Ringgold, Texas, Cemetery. Mrs. Bennett was born June 11, 1925 n Spanish Fort, Texas. She had lived in Wichita Falls since 1946. She was a retired licensed vocational nurse. Survivors include three sons, Harold of Copperas Cove, Texas, and Carl and Hiram, both of Wichita Falls; seven sisters, Obera Smart of Hemet, Calif., Ellen Tarmina of New Orleans, Louise May of Wichita Falls, Alva Reda Robbins of Terrell, Okla., Jean Stallcup of Bellevue, Texas, May Kinney of Anza, Calif., and Kay Rios of Fort Worth; three grandchildren; and a great-grandchild."
    • Times Record News (Wichita Falls TX), obituary for Louise May, 1997/09/09: "Louise May, 68, of Wichita Falls died Monday, Sept. 8, 1997, in Wichita Falls. Graveside services will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday in Elmwood Cemetery with Dick Nichols, elder of Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Bowie, officiating. Arrangements are under the direction of Burgess-Fry-Owens-Brumley Funeral Home. Mrs. May was born May 20, 1929, in Grady, Okla. She and Kissel May were married in 1950 in Wichita Falls. She was a homemaker. She had been a resident of Wichita Falls for 19 years. Survivors include her husband; three sons, Michael, Jody and Ronald May, all of Wichita Falls; a daughter, Susan Griffith of Drumwright, Okla.; and six sisters, Ellen Toarmina of New Orleans, La., Obera Smart of Hemet, Calif., Jean Stallup of Bellevue, Texas, May Kinney of Anza, Calif., Kay Rios of Fort Worth, Texas, and Reda Robbins of Terral, Okla."
  • Patricia Hicks murder - in the early 80s in Yosemite Park
    • SFGate, "A woman was found dead in Yosemite. Now she's been linked to a cult and a serial killer", 2022/11/12
      • "Hicks was born in the early 1950s in Washington. According to a 1971 article in the Spokane Daily Chronicle reviewed by SFGATE, her father was a cabinet maker and her mother a manager at Valu-Mart. When Hicks was a junior in high school, her brother, Edwin Hicks Jr., 23, took his own life while working aboard a Coast Guard vessel. Friends interviewed for “Wild Crime” say the event was deeply traumatic for Patricia, who adored her older brother."
      • "After graduating, Hicks married a classmate, but the marriage didn’t last. In the 1980s, Hicks moved alone to Merced to join up with Donald Eugene Gibson.

        Gibson is one of the stranger figures in Merced County criminal history. He seems to have emerged from nowhere, suddenly gathering a small coterie of followers by the late 1970s. He worked as a bookkeeper and sometimes as a yoga teacher for the Merced parks and recreation department, and he preyed on vulnerable people. "When I was around him, I was in Donald's reality,” one former follower would later testify against him.

        In 1981, Gibson stood trial for sexually assaulting several teenage boys. Prosecutors alleged he dosed his victims with LSD before the assaults. Prosecutors told the Merced Sun-Star that the sexual acts "between the minors and the defendant meant they would become a part of the deity and it would relieve their sins.”

        Gibson was found guilty of four counts of sexually molesting minors but, inexplicably, was allowed to go free on bond while awaiting sentencing. He failed to appear for his next three court appearances, and his attorney admitted to the judge that he hadn’t been able to contact Gibson. A deputy district attorney told local media that they’d received tips that Gibson fled to Mexico. To this day, it appears Gibson has never resurfaced; requests for comment from the Merced County Sheriff’s Office were not returned."
      • "National Park Service investigators believe Hicks was an acolyte of Gibson’s and, after his conviction and disappearance, decided to pack up and head to Yosemite. According to a friend interviewed by “Wild Crime,” Hicks hopped on the bus from Merced to Yosemite around 1982 and was never seen again. She was just 27 years old."
      • "While Lucas was in the midst of his confession spree, Yosemite investigators interviewed him several times. Although he couldn’t remember the name of Yosemite National Park, he told them he had picked up a young female hitchhiker somewhere between Fresno and the park. He claimed they drank beer, ate fried chicken he’d packed in aluminum foil and then engaged in consensual sex. He said he killed her afterward.

        When investigators went back to the Summit Meadow area, they were able to locate a possible campsite that matched Lucas’ description, down to the chicken bones and crushed beer cans. In 2020, the NPS Investigative Services Branch said this evidence pointed to Lucas, who had "information about this murder that had not been made public and could only be known by the person who committed the crime.""
    • TODO: verify the claim (possibly in the 2022/10/26 Wild Crime episode) that the Stayner family knew Donald Gibson and Cary Stayner had attended Gibson's trial
  • Rashell Ward murder - in 1983 in Red Bluff CA
  • Librada Apodaca murder - in 1983 in El Paso TX - TODO: add case details
  • Controversy over guilt
    • The reporter most involved with debunking many of Lucas's claimed murders was Hugh Aynesworth, a well-known CIA disinformation asset dating back to his work on the JFK assassination
    • On p.163-164 of The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton (copied here), Lucas' recantations and Aynesworth's debunking are both challenged:

          Lucas was barely home from that trip when the storm broke, on April 15. Writing for the Dallas Times-Herald, journalist Hugh Aynesworth prepared a series of headline articles, blasting the "massive hoax" that Lucas had perpetrated, misleading homicide investigators and the public, sometimes with connivance from the officers themselves. According to Aynesworth, over-zealous detectives had prompted Lucas with vital bits of information, coaching him through his confessions, deliberately ignoring evidence that placed him miles away from various murder scenes at the crucial moment. From jail, Lucas joined in by recanting his statements across the board. Aside from his mother, he claimed to have slain only two victims -Powell and Rich - in his life. By April 23, he was denying those crimes, despite the fact that he led police to Becky's grave, while Rich's bones had been recovered from his stove, at Stoneburg.
          From the beginning, officers had been aware of Henry's penchant for exaggeration. One of his first alleged victims, a Virginia schoolteacher, was found alive and well by police. Some of his statements were clearly absurd, including confessions to murders in Spain and Japan, plus delivery of poison to the People's Temple cultists in Guyana. On the other hand, there were also problems with Henry's retraction. Soon after the Aynesworth story broke, Lucas smuggled a letter to authors Jerry Potter and Joel Norris, claiming that he had been drugged and forced to recant. A local minister, close to Lucas since his 1983 "conversion," produced a tape recording of Henry's voice, warning listeners not to believe the new stories emerging from prison.
          The most curious part about Henry's new tale was the role of Hugh Aynesworth, himself. In his newspaper series, Aynesworth claimed to have known of the "hoax" - hearing the scheme from Henry's own lips since October 1983. A month later, on November 9, Aynesworth signed a contract to write Henry's biography. In September 1984, he appeared on the CBS-TV Nightwatch program, offering no objections as videotapes of the Lucas confessions were aired. As late as February 1985, Aynesworth published a Lucas interview in Penthouse magazine, prompting Henry with leading remarks about Lucas "killing furiously" and claiming victims "all over the country" in the 1970s. Through it all, the Times-Herald maintained stony silence, allowing the "hoax" to proceed, while dozens (or hundreds) of killers remained free on the basis of Henry's "false" confessions.
          In retrospect, the Aynesworth series smells strongly of sour grapes. A clue to the author's motive is found in his first article, with a passing reference to the fact that Lucas had signed an exclusive publishing contract with a Waco used-car dealer -- shortly after his June 1983 arrest. The prior existence of that contract scuttled Aynesworth's deal, concocted five months later, and prevented him from winning fame as Lucas's biographer. The next best thing, perhaps, would be to foul the waters and prevent competitors from publishing a book about the case. (It is worth noting that Aynesworth omits all mention of his own contract with Lucas, while listing various authors who tried to "cash in" on the "hoax.")
          Aynesworth produced an elaborate time-line to support his "fraud" story, comparing Henry's "known movements" with various crimes to discredit police, but the final product is riddled with flaws. Aynesworth rules out numerous murders by placing the Lucas-Toole meeting in 1979, while both killers and numerous independent witnesses describe an earlier meeting, in late 1976. (In fact, Lucas was living with Toole's family in 1978, a year before Aynesworth's acknowledged "first meeting.") The reporter cites pay records from Southeast Color Coat to prove that the killers seldom left Jacksonville, but office manager Eileen Knight recalls that they would often "come and go." (At the same time, Aynesworth places Lucas in West Virginia while he was working in Florida, the same error of which he accuses police.) According to Aynesworth, Lucas spent "all the time" between January and March 1978 with girlfriend Rhonda Knuckles, never leaving her side, but his version ignores the testimony of a surviving witness, tailed by Lucas across 200 miles of Colorado and New Mexico in February of that year. The woman remembers Henry's face - and she recorded his license number for police -- but her story is lost in Aynesworth's account. At one point, Aynesworth is so anxious to clear Henry's name that he lists one victim twice on the time-line, murdered on two occasions, four days apart, in July 1981.
       
    • From The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton:

          Authorities reacted in various ways to Henry’s turnaround. Arkansas filed new murder charges against him on April 23, eight days after his change of heart, and other jurisdictions remain unimpressed by his belated claim of innocence. In Marrero, Louisiana, relatives of victim Ruth Kaiser point out that Lucas confessed to stealing a stereo after he killed the 79-year-old woman, a theft that was never reported and therefore could not have been “leaked” by police. As they recalled, “He described things that we had forgotten about, details that never appeared in the paper and that we never put in the police report.”
          Investigator Jim Lawson, of the Scotts Bluff County sheriff’s office in Nebraska, questioned Lucas in September 1984 regarding the February 1978 murder of schoolteacher Stella McLean. “I purposely tried to trick him several times during the interview,” Lawson said, “but to no avail. We even tried to ‘feed’ him another homicide from our area to see if he was confessing to anything and everything in an effort to build a name for himself, but he denied any participation in the crime.”
          Commander J. T. Duff, intelligence chief for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, describes Henry’s April 1985 tour thus: “Lucas was not provided with any information or directions to any of the crime scenes but gave the information to law enforcement. When a crime scene was encountered, Lucas voluntarily and freely gave details that only the perpetrator would have known.”
       
    • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Bottom line on Lucas: Whom do you trust?", 1985/08/29 (pages 1, 2): "A Hobbs, N.M., case in which 17-year-old Barbara Begley was found stabbed to death is one of the handful where police say witnesses can place Lucas in the vicinity of a slaying. But several women have contacted police after having seen Lucas' picture in newspapers or on television, to say they believe he is the man who tried to get in their car or who followed them in a car, or who attacked them. Most of them are afraid to talk to reporters about their experiences. But Victoria Solano was willing to do so because she has become concerned in the last few months that people would begin believing that Lucas is harmless. Solano says Lucas followed her in a car on a deserted stretch of highway in New Mexico and Colorado in early February 1978. That would have been during the time Lucas was living with Rhonda Knuckles, who said he was home every night. Solano has no proof that what she says is true, but she is sure the man was Lucas. The scrap of paper on which she wrote down his license number was not saved."
    • Roofing company (Southeast Color Coat) fabricating alibis for Lucas and Toole
      • From p.230-231 of Henry Lee Lucas:

            Work records and payroll checks would later become subject to controversy because of conflicting stories regarding who cashed them, who they were actually issued to, and who had actually performed the work credited to Toole. As task force members were coming to find out, in a serial killer investigation the killer often leads police to the right clues indirectly. What might turn out to be an alibi for one jurisdiction actually turns out to be evidence in another jurisdiction. This was a process of trial and error, and as task force members became aware of conflicts in evidence, especially in work records and cashed checks, they found reasons to discount them.
            Lucas and Toole, it later turned out, had claimed they had a "deal" with the employer in Florida who, for a cut of their salaries, faked the records as needed for the two men. One employee of the company later served jail time for fraud and for forging payroll records. The Rangers and Boutwell did not consider the records completely reliable, but felt they were duty bound to report them on the logs. Thus, because of their own integrity and honesty with respect to the procedures they had established, Boutwell and the Rangers found themselves challenged when a claim by Lucas or Toole was later found to conflict with a work record. But because the procedure of logging Lucas and Toole events proved so valuable for the coordination of agency information flooding Georgetown, the task force saw no reason to change the rules when the rules bumped into a local county investigation of a Lucas homicide claim.
         
      • Longview News-Journal, "Witnesses: Lucas not at murder site", 1984/04/06: "Two supervisors at a Florida roofing and sheetmetal company testified Thursday that Henry Lee Lucas was at work on the day he is accused of killing a woman in Texas five years ago. They said they kept records that indicated that Lucas was on the job at Southeast Color Coat of Jacksonville, Fla., from Oct. 25 through Nov. 1, 1979, and a Jacksonville grocery owner testified that Lucas cashed a payroll check either Nov. 1 or 2. Their testimony was similar to that of Eileen Knight, a secretary and bookkeeper for the firm, who said earlier Thursday that Lucas was working on the day he is accused of killing an unidentified woman hitchhiker and dumping her body in a culvert. In questioning outside the presence of the jury, prosecutors attacked the supervisors' credibility. Mack Caulder agreed he had been convicted on charges of attemped burglary and forgery in California during the mid-1960s and of federal and state forgery charges in Alabama in the late 1960s. The other supervisor, Fred Ellis, first denied, then admitted convictions for issuing worthless checks in 1975 and 1979. But Caulder denied prosecution suggestions that he had accepted kickbacks to give employees credit for days worked when they had not been there."
      • Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, no. 69325: Lucas v. State, appeal decision, 1989/03/22
        • "Sheriff Boutwell testified he took yet another statement from appellant on November 10, 1983, as he drove appellant from the county jail facility in Denton to the Williamson County lockup. In this audio recording appellant said he had been in the habit of paying a foreman on a Florida roofing job to mark him present on the job site when he was, in fact, absent.

          The last statement taken from appellant and played in severely edited form before the jury was a videotaped interview conducted on February 16, 1984, in Williamson County Jail. The particular statements allowed before the jury related to appellant's Florida work records which showed he had been working at a naval station roofing job at or near the time set by Dr. Bayardo as the time of the victim's death. Again, the import of the statement was that appellant had paid all or part of his paycheck on several occasions to a foreman in return for being marked as present on the job."
        • "The testimony of Sheriff Boutwell ended the State's case-in-chief. The defense opened with Eilene Knight, secretary and bookkeeper for Southeast Color Coat, Inc., of Jacksonville, Florida. Knight, who knew appellant by sight, testified as the custodian of records for the business. She stated that foremen on the different jobs would fill out a "daily sheet" listing each worker's name and showing the number of hours worked on the day in question. She said the general superintendent on the Jacksonville Naval Air Station job was Mack Caulder, with the foreman being one Fred Ellis. Although Knight had no actual knowledge of any supervisor accepting kickbacks, she agreed that it was possible that absent workers could have been marked present in return for part of the employee's check.

          Fred Ellis took the stand after Knight. He testified it was his practice to check each worker's name off the master list on the daily sheet as he saw the person on site. Ellis said that he had never received money for checking off the names of absent workers. After a hearing outside the presence of the jury, the State was allowed to question Ellis regarding his prior criminal record. He admitted a 1973 conviction for unauthorized use of electricity, a 1975 conviction for worthless check writing, and a second conviction for bad checks in 1979. Ellis also admitted he had denied the 1975 conviction a few moments earlier at the hearing outside the jury's presence.

          Mack Caulder followed Ellis to the stand. Caulder testified he would take roll on the job site in the morning and afternoon. His time sheets for October 26th, 29th, 31st, and the first of November showed appellant marked as present at the naval air station jobsite. Caulder denied ever taking any bribes or being offered any kickbacks for falsifying work records. Later, after a hearing outside the jury's presence and over defense objection, the State was allowed to recall Caulder and question him about his criminal past. It was brought to the jury's attention that Caulder had been convicted of forgery in state district court in 1969, and a year later was again convicted of forgery in federal court. A prison sentence was assessed in both cases.

          Following Ellis and Caulder to the stand during the defense case-in-chief was a Jacksonville grocery store owner named Monir Yazgi. Yazgi testified appellant would usually cash his paychecks at the store each week. Yazgi stated that a November 1, 1979, check was cashed in his presence, but on cross-examination admitted he was not sure if the signature on the back of the check was that of appellant."
        • "At the rebuttal stage of trial, the State called five witnesses. Kenneth Emery, a roofer and carpenter for Labor, Inc., testified that Mack Caulder did not call roll every day, and, in addition, testified that appellant did not work every day but would be gone for two or three days at a time. The witness did not remember which particular days appellant was absent from work."
        • "As earlier noted, before closing, the State recalled Mack Caulder to the stand and questioned him regarding his prior convictions. The witness remained adamant that he had marked appellant present on October 31, 1979, solely because appellant was on the job site. In an effort to rehabilitate their witness, the defense team then recalled Kenneth Emery, who testified he had known Caulder for five years. According to Emery, he had never seen Caulder accept money for falsifying work records, but he knew the practice existed, as he had seen at least one foreman accepting money at the time paychecks were cashed. With that, the defense also closed, the charge was prepared and read, final arguments were made, and the jury was retired to deliberate."
        • "Caulder was born in 1930. At the time he was convicted of the prior offenses he was approximately 39 years of age. Between the time he was released and the start of appellant's trial, there is no evidence he suffered a final felony conviction or a misdemeanor conviction involving moral turpitude. Caulder did admit to being arrested in South Carolina for drunken driving and leaving the state before going to trial. From the record, it is clear Caulder knew he would be required to make an appearance in the case but instead left the state before prosecution could begin. By itself, the above evidence relating to a charge of drunken driving would not appear to be an adequate reflection of an individual's lack of reformation, since the State cannot point to a proper final conviction to connect Caulder's previous criminal conduct with subsequent conduct demonstrating similar propensities. However, the rule embraces more than evidence of proper conviction; also to be considered as evidence of Caulder's failure to conform to legal mores is his conduct in the intervening years as it may reflect upon his lack of reformation. See Crisp, supra; Gill, supra. Here, the State cited as examples of the witness's conduct his flight from South Carolina and his participation in the alleged "kick-back" scheme in Florida.

          Caulder left the state of South Carolina in 1973 or 1974 in order to avoid prosecution for the offense of D.W.I. While the offense itself may not be one for which a conviction may be used to show lack of reformation, we certainly think an individual's conduct in illegally avoiding the justice system demonstrates that person's lack of commitment to conform to the legal dictates of society and its representatives. However, the evidence reflecting Caulder's flight from authority, occurring ten years before the instant trial, is itself somewhat remote in terms of the witness's present character. The only other evidence reflecting lack of reformation is the contested fact issue of Caulder's alleged participation in a "kick-back" scheme, introduced by the State to rebut the defensive theory of alibi. Our opinion in Crisp, supra, spoke in general terms of determining remoteness "in the light of the particular facts of each case . . .", one method being " evidence showing a lack of reformation . . ." (emphasis supplied) Fundamental concerns of fairness require us to construe the alternative method to exclude controverted issues of fact which are unadjudicated at the time of trial."
        • "[...] Before Caulder was improperly impeached, the state had introduced into evidence other statements, notably those of July 31st, August 2nd and November 10th, in which appellant directly implicated himself in the crime and refuted the defensive theory. In his February 16, 1984, interview, appellant further related how the "kick-back" system worked. That evidence was supported by Kenneth Emery's testimony to the effect that the "kick-back" practice was a normal part of the job Caulder was entrusted to supervise. Finally, the work records introduced by the defense facially reflected appellant to have been present on the Florida job site on dates surrounding the murder but not specifically on the date the crime was calculated to have occurred. Add to this evidence testimony that appellant would disappear from work for days at a time and that roll was not regularly called on the job site, and the improper impeachment of the witness loses importance. [...]"
      • Florida corporate records for SOUTHEAST COLOR COAT, INC. - designated as a Florida Profit Corporation; FEI/EIN number is 59-1299605; filed 07/30/1968 and INACTIVE following MERGER on 11/04/1985; principal and mailing address is 10477 NEW KINGS RD JACKSONVILLE, FL 32219; registered agent is REAVES, JOHN J. JR. JONES CEMETARY ROAD CALLAHAN, FL 32011; president and director is REAVES, JOHN J. JR. JONES CEMETARY ROAD CALLAHAN, FL; secretary and director is REAVES,WINIFRED L JONES CEMETARY ROAD CALLAHAN, FL
      • Florida Times-Union, obituary for Johnny James Reaves Jr., 2006/11/29-30: "Johnny James Reaves, Jr., 64, of Jacksonville passed away on Monday, November 27, 2006. He was born in Jacksonville and was a graduate of Ribault High School. He was Quarterback of the football team, captain of the basketball team and played baseball as well. After many years of working with his father, he went on to become founder of Southeast Roofing and Sheetmetal in 1968, along with many other business ventures. His latest accomplishment was creating Adams Street Station in downtown Jacksonville. He took great pride in everything he accomplished. John was also founder of the Callahan Pop Warner Association and coached Callahan Little League, where he was a leader and mentor to many. John was an active member of Callahan Masonic Lodge #32 as well as the Morocco Temple and a member of the Jestors of Florida. He had many hobbies, which included hunting, fishing, and spur of the moment road trips. He leaves to cherish his memories, his devoted wife, Eileen Pearson Reaves, hisloving parents, John J. Reaves, Sr. (Joyce) and Helen M. Reaves, one daughter, Melinda G. Bennett (Jud), two sons, John J. Reaves, III (Doreen) and Shawn C. Reaves (Kim) and the mother of his children, Winnie Reaves, two step-children, Don Knight and Pam Schwartz, grandchildren, Lorin Jukes, Bryan Bennett, Justin Reaves, Cody Parham, Kyle Parham, Chance Reaves, Autumn Reaves, Brad Knight and Ciara Schwartz, three brothers, Steve Reaves, Alan Reaves and Randy Reaves, three sisters, Marilyn Davis, Lori Renfroe and Robyn Reaves, his aunt Mildred Marchman and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins and many sorrowing friends. He was the light of every event with his great sense of humor, his unconditional love and his generosity to others. He will also be greatly missed by his beloved sheltie “Shellie.”"
    • Texas Monthly, "The Twilight of the Texas Rangers", 1994/02: "The Lucas hoax drew international attention and brought shame to the Rangers of a magnitude not since the A.Y. Allee years. Today a number of retired Rangers, including Joaquin Jackson and Glenn Elliott, say they had interviewed Henry Lee Lucas about certain cases in their jurisdictions and could see for themselves that the task force was dealing with a habitual liar. “I remember him trying to cop to one he didn’t do,” says Elliott, “but there was another murder case where I’ll kiss your butt if he didn’t lead us right to the deer stand where the murder took place. Ain’t no way he could’ve guessed that, and I damn sure didn’t tell him. I think he did that one.” Yet the hoax aura of Lucas’ many confessions has left the resolution of this case in doubt."
    • Robert Nieman and Dennis Read interview of retired Texas Ranger Max Womack on 1995/10/26: "MAX WOMACK: Had Henry Lee on one case up there, he ah...he ah...I kind of believe he probably did it because he pointed out the place. But he said that it was a...ah...ah..a ah...a black man that he killed and it was a white man that ran the store. And I don't know whether he just....but he described the...he...he knew what kind of weapon it was and ah...and he pointed the place out. But he said it was whi...a black man that he killed and it was...it was a white fella."
    • From p.217-218 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016):

          Phil Ryan, who as a Texas Ranger spent a great deal of time with Lucas and coordinated his meetings with detectives from other jurisdictions, quickly realized, he told me, that every detective needed to know what the previous detective who'd discussed the same case had already told Lucas.
          [...]
          Questions never adequately answered included, Were some of Lucas and Toole's confessions real but not others? Were they competing with each other in numbers of confessions? Were they serial killers, serial confessors, or both?
          Often Lucas's information was very specific, and he drew surprisingly talented pencil drawings of who he said were his victims. Some of the women were nudes. But other times he and Toole were vague in terms of time, place, and circumstance. Ryan, who early in the investigation was dubious that Lucas had killed more than once, told me he now thinks Lucas actually committed about fifty murders—not the six hundred he claimed, but still enough to make him one of the worst criminals in modern history.
       
    • Jim Boutwell involvement and background
      • From p.221 of Henry Lee Lucas: "Boutwell is a celebrated Texas lawman who is not only a study in contrasts to Hound Dog Conway, but is also a person who came out of commercial enterprise and international service for the United States government. Boutwell is a licensed pilot, has flown as a test pilot, has sold airplanes, and had even developed and built an airport. He was a Texas Ranger and worked as a United States government agent in 1959 just after the Communist takeover of Cuba. He was instrumental in assisting several prominent Cubans to defect to the United States, in a dangerous cloak-and-dagger game, while representing an aircraft manufacturer."
      • Taylor Daily Press, "Jim Boutwell Is Candidate", 1978/01/27 (pages 1, 10): "Jim Boutwell has announced his candidacy for Williamson County Sheriff. [...] His law enforcement experience began in 1947 when he joined the Texas Department of Public Safety. He was the second employee to be appointed to the DPS Intelligence Division, and was commissioned as a Texas Ranger. He moved to Georgetown in 1956, starting an aircraft sales agency. However, former Sheriff Henry Matysek appointed him as Deputy Sheriff, a position he has held continuously on a part-time basis, except for a three-year leave to go to Wisconsin as sales manager and vice president of Champion Aircraft Corporation. During that time, he also worked with an Intelligence Agency of the federal government, as his job frequently took him to Cuba and Latin America. He is able to communicate in Spanish. After returning from Wisconsin in 1960, Boutwell organized a successful flying school in Austin and a radio communications business in Georgetown, managed the Georgetown airport, and worked on special assignments as a deputy sheriff."
    • Jim Adams involvement and background
      • FBI career
        • Emma North-Best, "FBI leadership claimed Bureau was “almost powerless” against KKK, despite making up one-fifth of its membership", 2017/12/08: "In testimony before the Church Committee, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Deputy Director acknowledged that the Bureau at one point made up as much as one-fifth of the Klu Klux Klan’s total membership - but were still powerless to curtail the KKK’s violence. His testimony also acknowledged police participation in said violence, and that the Bureau had three times as many “ghetto informants” as they did those targeting white supremacist domestic terrorists. In response to a FOIA request filed several months ago for the SENSTUDY 75 file, pertaining to the Church Committee, the FBI recently released a preprocessed file (apparently unable to provide even preprocessed documents within the time period required by the law) that includes excerpts of testimony from Deputy Associate Director James Adams addressing the Bureau’s involvement with, and failure to curtail, the KKK. Before finishing his first sentence in the excerpted testimony, Adams had offered somewhat misleading information in stating that the COINTELPRO efforts had been discontinued in 1971. In actuality, all that was discontinued in 1971 was the centralized program. [...] The testimony excerpted in the file ends with Adams’ denying that the Bureau became involved in anyone’s sex life and that such a thing would not be “of any value whatsoever.”"
    • Clemmie Schroeder background
      • Sister Clemmie Schroeder interview on 1985/04/16 about her visit with Lucas in McLennan County
      • 1985/04/17 testimony to the McLennan County grand jury - on p.3, says that she has had a ministry at the Williamson County Jail for nearly 5 years, and met Lucas on Christmas Eve of 1983; on p.10-12, discusses how Lucas would know precise details of cases but then disclaim responsibility; on p.14-20, discusses some Conroe TX murders on which Lucas flip-flopped, and Boutwell was trying to get Lucas to re-claim responsibility for; on p.22-24, describes Lucas being taken by the Rangers on a Georgia trip a few weeks prior, with Lucas emphasizing how he led them around with no information or guidance given to him at all; on p.25-26, describes the apparent acquiescence that Lucas constantly had towards Boutwell; on p.30, says that Rita Salazar was a cheerleader with her oldest daughter Kathy and she (Clemmie) had sometimes driven Rita home after football games; on p.32-36, claims that Austin American-Statesman reporter Mike Cox misquoted her about Lucas being pressured in Waco to say he only killed 3 people; on p.40-41, details how Lucas claimed that someone other than Kate Rich was burned in the stove, and her family had taken her to an "old folks home" in California because she was getting senile and talking too much about her involvement in the drug trade; on p.43, claims that Lucas told her he first met Toole in 1979; on p.43, they take a break in the testimony, and then it opens with Feazell prompting Clemmie to say something, suggesting that some testimony had been developed during the break (ed. note: did Feazell threaten her with being cut off from Lucas in Waco, and give her a story to relate?); on p.44-46, proceeds to describe how she never gave Lucas an opportunity to tell her how he'd never killed anyone, and expresses belief that Boutwell and the Rangers were taken in by him, though she doesn't consider them dishonest; on p.46, unpromptedly asks Feazell "And you want me to tell the bad stuff I did?" (referring to the taped interview she did for Boutwell about Lucas being coerced in Waco to recant); on p.47-48, gives her account of what she said in the taped 1985/04/16 statement to Boutwell (ed. note: it is inconsistent with what she actually said); on p.48-50, describes a meeting the previous night between the task force and federal officials, in which they acted prepared to fight against the McLennan County proceedings, but did not appear scared or interested in covering anything up; on p.55, notes that Lucas was now denying membership in the Hands of Death, and asked by Mattox if he had made that up, replied with uncertainty because "he could just go in so much detail about the ceremony"; on p.56, recounts how Lucas said Maryland investigators confronted him about mushroom factory work dates before stating they believed he hadn't killed anyone, and then said he believed Aynesworth was coming out with a book to that effect; on p.58, describes getting into an argument with Aynesworth in which he threatened to ruin her and her ministry; on p.58-59, mentions how Lucas believed Aynesworth got a book contract from him under false pretenses at the Montague County jail by pretending to be an attorney; on p.59-60, says that Aynesworth lied about coming to see Lucas at the jail on weekends; on p.64-68, describes how Lucas claimed he didn't kill Orange Socks and it was actually Toole, who made a confession to doing so, yet none of this evidence was heeded or aired at the trial; on p.68-69, mentions how DA Ed Walsh, Judge Carter, and defense attorney Higginbocker in the Orange Socks trial all went out to lunch together; on p.78, recounts Lucas confessing to a California crime in which he spray-painted "Becky" onto a nearby boulder, and investigators claiming they couldn't find the rock even though there was a picture of the rock with "Becky" on it; on p.82-83, describes how Lucas would brag about telling investigators case information which they didn't know but subsequently verified in their records; on p.85-86, starts detailing her experience the previous year with Johnie Dodd (misspelled Johnny Dodd in the transcript), a Waco writer who got Lucas to sign a book contract; on p.86, indicates that Dodd told Lucas he knew the death row warden; on p.87-88, describes realizing that Dodd's contract was a fraud and telling Bob Prince, who was a friend of Dodd; on p.88-91, talks about Dodd making various promises to find writers and Hollywood producers that never materialized; on p.93, says that Aynesworth claimed to have sent a percentage of his Lucas book interest to her ministry and it just got lost in the mail; on p.93-95, discusses Mike Cox, a friend of Boutwell, having an interest in writing a Lucas book but facing resistance from Lucas; on p.95-97, describes trying to write a book of her own, and getting referred to Dallas author Max Call, who wrote books for Chaplain Ray Hoekstra, but getting incredibly disappointed with how explicit he made his Lucas book; on p.115-116, affirms that Lucas did talk about abusing alcohol and drugs before his arrest, and in response, Mattox expresses skepticism that Lucas could have used LSD with the high frequency he claimed in testimony the previous day; on p.116, relates how Lucas claimed to traffic drugs from California to Florida for money
      • 1985/07/02 testimony to the McLennan County grand jury
      • Catalogue of questionable statements by Schroeder (especially in her post-April 1985 testimony and her book)
        • Insisting that her 1985/04/16 statement to Boutwell (about Lucas being coerced in Waco to recant) was made up; in her first grand jury appearance, she claims to have only talked about how Lucas was confused, looked bad, and might have been drugged or hypnotized, yet in her statement she has many specifics about how Lucas was being threatened that he had to say he never killed anyone, that the Rangers task force would be ended, and that he might be suicided in jail; moreover, in her book, she does not even put it in the narrative between her return from Waco and her grand jury appearance the next day, and she claims to have first admitted it to Feazell sometime after her testimony
        • Claiming that Lucas's letter in late April 1985 (affirming how he was being forced to recant) was just a self-sacrificing ploy to help her after she had a mental breakdown in confusion; despite testifying that Lucas no longer stood by his letter by the time of her discharge from the hospital, she went to the Waco jail the very next day with Bob Larson where Lucas recorded a corroborating statement
        • ...
    • Max Call background
      • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Grand jury in Waco resumes inquiry into Lucas statements", 1985/05/04: "Lucas told a Dallas author that he delivered the poison used in the 1978 mass suicides at the Rev. Jim Jones' camp in Guyana. [...] Boutwell denied Cox's claim that the sheriff was receiving a 2 percent royalty from the sale of Dallas author Max Call's book, The Hands of Death — The Story of Henry Lee Lucas."
      • El Paso Times, "Jail house baptism", 1985/12/02 (pages 5A, 6A): "In one of the books already written about Lucas, author Max Call describes Lucas's participation in devil worship and sacramental rituals. Lucas, however, said he "never joined them, never got Involved." Lucas, 49, explained that various Satanic rituals were described to him by people he met in Florida and California. He described those rituals to Call and the author "added to them." Lucas went along with Call's embellishing tale "sort of as a warning ... it's what could happen. I thought it would be worth writing.""
      • Political and corporate background
        • From p.186 of Hand of Death: "As an advertising executive, I molded public opinion and influenced the purchases of millions of unsuspecting people. I created and used television commercials to promote gambling in the State of California and created public images for organized labor and the working trades industry. In all these activities, I was expendable, but the work I did lives on."
        • From the back inside cover of Hand of Death: "Prior to his writing career, he was an advertising executive for Swift & Company, Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company and Compton Advertising, Inc. Call headed his own advertising and public relations firm in San Francisco for eight years."
        • The Guardsman Vol. XXXIII (City College of San Francisco), "Alumni Ranks Now Open for Membership", 1951/09/28: "Prospective graduates who join the Alumni Association within 30 days will have their names appear in the latest list of Association members to be printed and distributed with the bylaws booklet which goes to press soon, Trev Burrow, pres. of the association, announced recently. The Board of Directors of the association now consists of 13 members; Trev Burrow, president; Gloria Dunn, secretary; Edwin A. Frediani, attorney; Joseph A. Amori, Don J. Burger, Max R. Call, Ralph Hillsman, Elmer Hubacher, Don Jensen, Dr. Richard Kelley, Jon. Charles W. Meyers, Don Mix and George G. Mullany. The new by-laws provide for four regular meetings of the executive board per year. The by-laws also call for an Alumni meeting."
        • The Times Standard (Eureka CA), "Young GOP Organize -- Map Campaign Plans", 1952/03/14: "YOUNG REPUBLICANS were guests of the Humboldt County Republican Central committee at a meeting last night for the purpose of forming a Young Republican Club of Humboldt County. Pictured here are, first row, Max R. Call, Barbara Lewis, Betty Simmons; second row, Russell Harms, George Galinger, Thomas E. Baker; third row, John T. Leddy, Henry G. Heathman, Dave Way, Carney Campion; fourth row, Arthur M. Chase, Robert W. Matthews, Robin P. Ackley; fifth row, Damon Porter; sixth row, Winton E. Gordon, Ernest C. Yates, Carroll R. Gordon."
        • The Times Standard (Eureka CA), "Call Resigns As Secretary Of Planning Board", 1952/03/21: "In submitting his resignation as secretary of the Humboldt Planning Commission, Max R. Call, last night reported that is entering private business in Eureka. In his letter of resignation Call expressed the warmest of personal feelings and admiration for the members of committee. Call came to Eureka from San Francisco in July of 1948 and accepted the position of assistant manager in the Eureka Chamber of Commerce and in March of 1950 he was appointed secretary of the county planning commission. In addition to these duties he also served as secretary of the 1949 Valley of the Giants Jubilee and was the first secretary of the North Coast Conservation Council and one of the charter signers for that organization. Just recently he served the county as secretary of the local Trinity River Diversion Investigating Committee and at present is Division Secretary for Kiwanis International. Call stated that he is now owner and promotion manager of a new Eureka firm named Associated Artists, which will manufacture promotion material by the silk screen process. In addition to this function the firm will engage in limited interior decoration of business and residential buildings. Call's working partner in the firm is Gene Schilber who will serve as production manager. Schilber has had excellent experience in the silk screen industry and interior decoration. Ranking among some of his past are the Pacific Island Naval Officers' Clubs which he color-toned and painted the murals denoting the activities of the naval units during the war. He also did silk screen work in Honolulu."
        • The Times Standard (Eureka CA), "Call Appointed Warren Chairman", 1952/05/02: "Max R Call of Eureka has been named chairman of the Humboldt county group of the Warren-for-President campaign, according to a statement of Harvey Hancock, manager of the campaign's northern California committee, San Francisco Headquarters for the county group are to be opened soon in Eureka."
        • San Francisco Examiner, "WARREN AIDES SEE VICTORY", 1952/05/09: "The Republican ticket pledged to Governor Earl Warren will be overwhelmingly elected in the June 3 presidential primary, Warren campaign chairmen from the Redwood Empire counties predicted at a meeting in Ukiah yesterday. Warren-for-President leaders from Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma counties attended the all-day session. They reported to Northern California Manager Harvey Hancock that official GOP groups in the North Coast counties are solidly backing the Warren slate. Among these taking part in the conference were Max R. Call, Eureka; Lloyd Bittenbender, Mendocino; Leroy J. Lounibos, Petaluma; Charles J. Selig, Crescent City; and Alexander Mackie, Lakeport."
        • The Times Standard (Eureka CA), "Promotions For Local Guardsmen", 1952/11/13: "One officer and seven enlisted men have received promotions in the local unit of the National Guard Reserve, according to Major Corrado J. Pinochi, commanding officer. Benjamin L. Dolf of Eureka has been appointed a second lieutenant in the Guard Reserve by Governor Earl Warren and has been assigned as a platoon leader. Dolf was formally discharged from his former rank of master sergeant prior to his appointment. Second Lieutenant Max R. Call has been assigned as company executive officer. Call had been the company training officer. The following enlisted personnel have been promoted to grade of sergeant first-class: Cleo Still of Arcata, John Marcus of Eureka, James MacArthur of Samoa and Henry Tatka of Eureka. The men promoted to staff sergeant are William Mooney and Jack Pavel of Eureka. Lloyd Herndon was promoted to corporal."
        • San Francisco Examiner, "Advertising News", 1964/08/06: "Max R. Call has Joined Compton Advertising, Inc. as an account executive, according to John H. Butler, vice president and manager here. Call has been assigned to the Guild Wine Co. account. Prior to joining Compton, he was area advertising manager of the 13 western states for the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company."
          • Broadcasting, "PROGRAMMING", 1963/06/17: "John H. Butler, creative director of Compton Adv.'s San Francisco office, elected president of San Francisco chapter of Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Other officers elected: Harold P. See, KRON -TV San Francisco, first VP; Ernest Rook, California Academy of Sciences, second VP; Kelly Quinn, actress, secretary; and Ken Langley, Tuberculosis and Health Association of California, treasurer."
      • Writing background - from pornographic stories to books for the International Prison Ministry
        • From p.181-182 of Hand of Death:

              My involvement in Henry's life was stimulated by the faith of Sister Clemmie and her sister. They prayed for an author to write the story Henry wanted written. Her sister and I are members of the same Episcopal parish. As they prayed, my name came to her as the writer they were seeking. I'd just finished my fourth Christian book and it was scheduled for release with the movie in September of 1984.
              I was a member of the International Prison Ministry's board of directors and the author of Al Capone's Devil Driver and Phoebe. Her sister explained to Clemmie that Phoebe was an historical novel dealing with the spiritual equality of women, and as such, I would be open to her ministry with Henry and other prisoners. The fact that Honey, Your Mama's In Prison, my fourth book, dealt with women incarcerated for crimes ranging from murder to sexual assault seemed to indicate that I would be sympathetic to Henry's relationship to women. It was decided that her sister should call me.
              "Max," she asked, "would you be interested in writing a book about Henry Lee Lucas?"
              Like so many other Christians, I had my doubts about Henry's claimed conversion. I suppose my experience with so many jailhouse Christians colored my assessment of Henry, but I agreed to talk to Clemmie.
              "I'll have her call you," she said. "Will you be at your phone for the next 15 minutes?"
              "Yes," I answered. "I'll wait to hear from her."
              It wasn't a long wait. I barely had time to briefly discuss the possible assignment with my wife, Murney. She felt I should hear Clemmie out and encouraged me to be receptive to the proposition.
           
        • From p.186 of Hand of Death: "I learned my profession by writing pornography. My short stories have been published in Oui, Club, Club International, Variations, Turn-Ons, Vibrations and many others."
        • From the back inside cover of Hand of Death: "Call's other books are: Al Capone's Devil Driver, I.P.M. Books, 1979; Deadline in Rome, Chosen Books, 1980; Prodigal Husband, Gift Books, 1980; and Honey which was released wth the movie by I.P.M. in September 1984. His articles and short stories have appeared in HARPER'S WEEKLY, VOICE, CLUB, and many others. He's been a full time writer for 14 years."
        • Chaplain Ray Hoekstra background
          • ...
      • Wife background
        • El Paso Times, "Mary Cunningham dies after surgery", 1980/02/29: "Mary Cunningham, who with her husband, former El Paso Western author Gene Cunningham, was hostess to such literary figures as Zane Grey and Earl Stanley Gardner, died Sunday in Dallas after surgery. Mrs. Cunningham, 81, was the first Yeoman-ette to join the United States Navy from El Paso during World War I. Mrs. Cunningham and her husband returned to El Paso in 1925. While living in their Austin Terrace horne, Mr. Cunningham wrote most of his Western novels and his historical classic "Triggernometry," still regarded as one of the most accurate reports of Western gunfighters. He also served as literary editor of The El Paso Times. During World War II, Mrs. Cunningham served as section director of a national defense section in San Francisco. After her husband's death in California, Mrs. Cunningham accumulated 28,000 hours as a Red Cross Volunteer at Fort Miley in San Francisco. She returned to Texas in 1970. Mrs. Cunningham is survived by three children; Murney Call of Garland, Texas, Jean Weakley of Dallas and Col. Cleve Cunningham of Rough and Ready, Calif.; seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren."
        • Texas State Historical Association bio for Cunningham, Eugene (1896–1957): "Eugene Cunningham [Leigh Carder], novelist, was born in Helena, Arkansas, on November 29, 1896, the son of Ira Eugene and Istalena Adkins (Stradley) Cunningham. The family apparently moved from Arkansas to St. Augustine, Florida, and then to Texas in 1898. Cunningham attended public schools in Dallas and Fort Worth from 1903 to 1911. From 1914 to 1919 he served in the navy in the Asiatic, Pacific, and Atlantic fleets; in the Mexican campaign; and in the Cruiser Escort Squadron in the war zone (1917). After World War I he was a soldier of fortune in Central America. He served in the naval reserve until 1923, and during World War II he reenlisted and worked in naval intelligence. Cunningham began writing for military publications in 1914 and after his discharge in 1919 spent two years as the Central American correspondent for the London Wide World Magazine.

          After several years in San Francisco in the early 1920s, he moved to El Paso, where he held several jobs while establishing himself as a writer. He served as book-review editor for the El Paso Times from the mid-1920s to 1936 and for the New Mexico Magazine from 1936 to 1942. In 1922 Cunningham published Gypsying through Central America and in 1924 The Trail to Apacaz, his first western novel. During the 1930s he hit his stride as an author. He came to rank among the best Western writers who aimed at a middle ground between sophisticated stories and pulp novels. His tales involved an "intricately plotted contest between good and evil" and displayed a sure understanding of the psychology of gunmen. Among the best known of his violent books were Riders of the Night (1932), which involved the deaths of some seventy men, and Buckaroo (1933), in which three Texas Rangers kill about 300 villains. His other works of fiction included Diamond River Man (1934), Texas Sheriff (1934), Trail of the Macaw: Soldiers of Fortune in Banana Land (1935), Redshirts of Destiny (1935), Quick Triggers (1935), Pistol Passport (1936), Whistling Lead (1936), The Ranger Way (1937), Texas Triggers (1938), Gun Bulldoggers (1939), The Red Ranger (1939), The Spiderweb Trail (1940), The Buscadero Trail (1951), Gunsight Chance (1951), and Riding Gun (1956). Under the pen name Leigh Carder he wrote Outlaw Justice (1935), Border Guns (1935), and The Bravo Trail (1938).

          His most successful book was probably Triggernometry (1934), a nonfiction study of famous gunfighters, which went through several editions and was reissued in 1941 as Gunfighters All. In 1986 Triggernometry was named one of the thirty-six best nonfiction Western books of all time by the Western Writers of America. Cunningham's other writings included screenplays for television and numerous short stories. The television program "Wagon Train" adopted a number of his plots. He edited the nonfiction Buckboard Days, by Sophie A. Poe (1936), and with W. H. Hutchinson prepared the works of Eugene Manlove Rhodes for publication after Rhodes's death. He also edited Thomas Cruse's Apache Days and After (1941). From time to time Cunningham also worked as a political speechwriter.

          He married Mary Caroline Emilstein in 1921. The family moved from El Paso to the San Francisco area in 1942. Cunningham served as vice president of the American Fiction Guild and was an avid collector of cowboy songs, both in English and in Spanish. He died in San Francisco on October 18, 1957. He was survived by his wife, one son, and two daughters."
    • Vic Feazell involvement and background
      • Lucas biography on the henryleelucas.com website (which is set up by Feazell or his associates): "When Lucas confessed to three murders in McLennan County (Waco) TX District Attorney Vic Feazell was assigned to review the the claims. Already having potential suspects on the murders before Lucas's confessions, Feazell and his office began investigating the validity of Lucas's claims. Feazell was introduced to Journalist Hugh Aynesworth thru mutual friend and author Carlton Stowers. The two compared their notes and research on Lucas and concluded they had stumbled upon a law enforcement hoax orchestrated by the Texas Rangers. Feazell called a Grand Jury to investigate Lucas and his claims while Aynesworth wrote a front page piece for The Dallas Times Herald."
      • Lucas investigation documents on Feazell's website
      • Tyler Morning Telegraph, "Lucas Scheduled To Testify Wednesday At Waco", 1985/04/15: "Feazell said McLennan County investigators requested Lucas' transfer, taking him outside the custody of the task force for the first time since its formation in 1983. because "we wanted to be able to speak to Mr. Lucas without him being under any outside pressure. "Right now, the main focus (of the investigation) appears to be the actions of the task force," he added. "They will be invited to testify." Lucas has confessed to two murders in McLennan County, but Feazell said his investigation indicates it is "highly unlikely" that Lucas committed the crimes. [...] "In looking at those two and hearing from our investigator and investigators for the attorney general's office, we began to have serious doubts about Lucas' involvement in quite a few cases," Feazell said. An assistant to Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox is assisting in the case before the Waco grand jury, which met for eight hours last Wednesday and will reconvene Wednesday to hear testimony from Lucas and other witnesses. [...] Feazell would not speculate if members of the task force, headed by the Texas Rangers, was guilty of misconduct in the Lucas case. "That's what the grand jury is looking into," he said. [...] Feazell said McLennan County prosecutors in October 1984 began probing Lucas' confessions in the 1981 death of Dorothy Collins of Waco and the 1977 killing of Glen Parks of Bellmead. "After a cursory investigation, we concluded it was highly unlikely that Mr. Lucas had committed the crimes he confessed to," the district attorney said. "In the first two days (of the investigation), we also found 10 other cases he had confessed to across the state that it was unlikely he had committed," Feazell said. "Needless to say, that got our curiosity." Feazell said he met in January with Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox, who he said was "already aware" of possible holes in Lucas' story. The agencies have cooperated on the investigation since January, he added."
      • Sister Clemmie Schroeder interview on 1985/04/16 about her visit with Lucas in McLennan County
      • Tyler Courier-Times, "Self-Proclaimed Serial Killer Testifies Before Grand Jury", 1985/04/17 (pages 1, 6): "The investigation was prompted by Lucas' confession to the 1981 murder of Dorothy Collins at a time when officers believed another suspect was on the verge of confessing, authorities said. The McLennan County grand jury, which is being assisted by Attorney General Jim Mattox, also is looking into Lucas' confession to the 1977 killing of Glen Parks. [...] Mattox said the grand jury was not investigating a special task force that has been coordinating investigations into slayings Lucas has claimed responsibility for. "Our purpose here is not to investigate the task force," he said."
      • Henry Lee Lucas letter on 1985/04/28 to Sister Clemmie Schroeder (smuggled out of the McLennan County jail)
      • Austin American-Statesman, "Lucas 'circus' assailed", 1985/04/30 (pages B1, B4): "Jan. 7, Feazell and one of his prosecutors, Ned Butler, drove to Austin to meet with Mattox. "We talked with him about what we had found and discovered he was also looking into some of Lucas' Investigations," Feazell said. "Shortly after that, we decided to merge the investigations. Mattox said last week that he also met with Hugh Aynesworth, who was doing research for a book on Lucas. Aynesworth later went to work for the Dallas Times-Herald, which April 14 published a story by Aynesworth and another writer that maintained Lucas' murder confessions were a hoax. [...] The attorney general said that after the meeting with Aynesworth and Feazell, he called Col. Jim Adams, director of the Department of Public Safety, Jan. 8 to tell him "strong questions had been raised" concerning Lucas' confessions. A McLennan County grand Jury April 11 heard six witnesses, including Aynesworth and several McLennan County law officers. The next day, Lucas was transferred from Georgetown to Waco on a bench warrant requested by Feazell and Mattox. April 16, Feazell and Mattox questioned Lucas, and the next day, Lucas appeared before the grand jury. He testified again April 18. During that week, questions arose about possible violations of Lucas' civil rights while in McLennan County. Three FBI agents tried to interview him April 17, and on April 19, a deputy U.S. marshal tried to take custody of Lucas on a writ issued by U.S. District Judge Edward Prado of San Antonio. After an attempt to block the writ went all the way to a U.S. Supreme Court justice, Lucas appeared before a federal grand jury Wednesday in San Antonio. He was returned to Waco that night though the federal investigation is continuing. Mattox accused U.S. Attorney Helen Eversberg of interfering with a state investigation and wrote a complaint to U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese."
      • Austin American-Statesman, "Lucas claims pressure to retract slayings on radio show", 1985/05/02: "Henry Lee Lucas said in a taped interview broadcast nationally Wednesday by radio evangelist Bob Larsen that he was compelled by McLennan County authorities to say he had never killed anyone but his mother. [...] Larsen told his audience he taped Lucas' remarks Monday while visiting Lucas in his McLennan County jail cell, where he is being held during a grand jury investigation of two confessions Lucas made to slayings in the county. The radio minister said he was accompanied by his wife and by Clemmie Schroeder, a Catholic lay worker who is Lucas' confidante and Bible teacher from Goergetown. [...] Lucas' statement said: "I have killed the people I said I killed. They may have somewhere along the line found other dates, but they were supposed to have went back and checked on each case to make sure there was no conflict. They also know these work records are phony work records. They know that the people that I've taken back to the crime (scenes) did not help me to get back to those crimes. "Every time I say I didn't kill the people, it only helps these people (in McLennan County). In order for me to stay here, I have to do what I'm told, but I told the people in Georgetown the truth, and they know it's the truth. "It's only what they want to hear, and that's all. It's not what the actual truth is. The truth is I killed around 360 people." McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell issued a written statement after the broadcast saying that Lucas had told him that most of the statements aired were spliced from an earlier interview in Georgetown. [...] [Clemmie] Schroeder, who was hospitalized briefly last weekend for treatment of nervous exhaustion, was discharged from the hospital Sunday, Boutwell said."
      • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Grand jury in Waco resumes inquiry into Lucas statements", 1985/05/04: "Most recently, Williamson County Sheriff Jim Boutwell produced a letter in which Lucas said he lied to McLennan County authorities and wants to return to the Georgetown jail, where he was kept until he was moved to Waco on April 12. Lucas has denied the existence of the letter quoted by Boutwell. [...] "I cannot stop these people" in McLennan County, Boutwell quoted Lucas' April 28 letter as saying. "I have to do like they want me to do. I want back in Georgetown to clear up my cases. Look at the facts. They know (law enforcement) they didn't show me the (crime scenes). I took them there." But Lucas' attorney, Guy Cox of Waco, said he has never heard of the letter. McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell said Thursday that "Lucas has been asked about the alleged letter and he says it does not exist.""
      • El Paso Times, "Intrigue over Lucas might peak in El Paso", 1985/09/29 (pages 1, 12): "A good part of the Henry Lee Lucas life story will be told if and when Lucas goes on trial on charges he murdered an elderly Lower Valley woman 2½ years ago. At one time, Lucas confessed to killing Librada Apodaca in her El Paso home. But he also confessed to hundreds of other murders cases law enforcement agencies quickly closed. But District Attorney Vic Feazell of Waco, Texas, and Dallas author Hugh Aynesworth uncovered many public and private records proving Lucas was in jail or working thousands of miles away when several of the slayings to which he confessed were committed. The validity of Lucas' confessions began to unravel last November after he confessed to two more killings in the Waco area. "Lucas' confessions just didn't make sense," Feazell said. "We had two good suspects in each case." So Feazell assigned one of his investigators to determine Lucas' whereabouts at the time of the Waco slayings. That ques tion went unanswered. But the investigator, Truman Simon, showed the district attorney a long list of murder cases cleared by the Texas Department of Public Safety - more than 200. "And it was not possible that Henry Lucas could have committed quite a few of those murders," Feazell said. "In a couple dozen cases, Lucas, according to public records, was in jail at the time of those murders." [...] In December, the Waco district attorney and two assistants met with Department of Public Safety intelligence officer Ron Boyter to tell him about Lucas' phony confessions and to ask whether they should report to Mattox or Department of Public Safety officials. "Boyter advised us very strongly not to go to DPS but to go to the attorney general because DPS would cover it up," Feazell said. Now, however, Boyter disavows that statement, Feazell said. [...] Before releasing Lucas to McLennan County (Waco) Sheriff Jack Harwell, Texas Ranger Bob Prince told Lucas in Harwell's presence, "Be quiet, don't say anything, don't change anything and we'll get you back as soon as we can," Feazell said. The sheriff confirmed that Prince told Lucas "to stick with his story, or something to that effect. ... If Vic Feazell told you, quote it as he told you," Harwell said. But Prince, who directed the Department of Public Safety task force, vigorously denies having coached Lucas. [...] At daybreak on the morning that Lucas was scheduled to meet with the grand jury in Waco, two FBI agents showed up at the Waco jail demanding to see Lucas. "They claimed they were there investigating allegations that we were violating Henry's civil rights, which is kind of ironic because as long as Henry was on (drug-added) malts and cooperating and confessing, nobody was concerned that his rights were being violated," Feazell said. Neither Feazell nor Mattox, who arrived later, allowed the FBI agents to see Lucas."
      • Grand jury foreman J.R. Closs
        • Waco Tribune-Herald, obituary for J. Closs, 2009/01/30: "J.Ross Closs, 82, of Waco, passed away peacefully at home, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009. Services will be 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 31, at Austin Avenue United Methodist Church with the Rev. Chris Mesa and Dr. Milton Cunningham officiating. Burial will follow at Oakwood Cemetery. J.R. was born March 9, 1926, in Edge, Texas, to William and Lillian Closs. Following graduation from Bryan High School where he was a star athlete, J.R. served his country in the U.S. Marine Corps. in the Fleet Marine Force on board the aircraft carrier Yorktown, CV10, during World War II. During the war he received 5 battle stars participating in naval actionin the Philippine islands, Formosa, French Indo China, the Ryukyo Islands, Japan and participated in the occupation of Japan. He received a football scholarship to Baylor University where he earned his BBA in 1950, and was a three year letterman on Baylor's 1947-1949 football team. In 1949 he was named an All Southwest Conference defensive end by the Dallas Morning News. He remained a loyal alumni serving the Baylor Letterman's Association. J.R. and Dorothy Austin married in 1950 at Austin Avenue Methodist Church where he was a faithful member serving on numerous boards during their 58 years of marriage. He was the co-founder and owner of Austin Closs, Co. since 1952. He served on the Board of Directors of Westview National Bank and First Federal Savings and Loan. J.R. leaves a legacy of dedicated service to Waco and its residents. He served on the Waco City Council and as Mayor during the 1970's. He was a member of the City Plan Commission, President of the Better Business Bureau, President of Heart of Texas Council of Governments and President of the Waco Chamber of Commerce, a long time member of the Downtown Waco Rotary Club, and a Scottish Rite Mason."
      • Guy Cox involvement and background - was initially Lucas's court-appointed attorney; appeared at 38:05 in Episode 3 The Confession Killer to claim that the federal government was intimidating Waco lawyers such as himself into testifying against Feazell
        • Scheme to dismiss DWIs of two Baylor University bigwigs
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Prosecutor dispute uncovers alleged deal to bury 2 DWI cases", 2014/09/28: "Not much has been routine about the way the DWI cases against Jennifer Renee Jarvis, executive secretary to Baylor President Ken Starr, and her husband, Louis Houston Jarvis Jr., have been handled. Louis Jarvis is a project manager at Baylor’s physical plant. Waco attorney Guy Cox, who represents the couple, has gone to the unusual extreme of seeking to disqualify attorney Brittany Lannen from serving as special prosecutor in the cases. In response, Lannen has fired back accusing Cox of threats, intimidation and orchestrating a plan to make sure the Jarvises weren’t prosecuted. Lannen, a former prosecutor in McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna’s office and in Collin County, was appointed by County Court-at-Law Judge Mike Freeman to handle the DWI cases after Reyna filed a motion earlier this year to recuse his office. Reyna’s motion says he represented Louis Jarvis in a case before Reyna became DA in 2011. But Reyna’s former executive assistant in his private practice and later in the district attorney’s office told the Tribune-Herald that Reyna has never represented Jarvis. Further, the former assistant says she believes Reyna recused his office after Cox told the DA that he and Waco attorney Jason P. Darling had an agreement to dismiss the cases if Reyna would recuse himself and make sure Darling was appointed special prosecutor. “Guy said they had an agreement to get rid of these cases because (the defendants) are big Baylor people, and they don’t want Baylor to know,” Julissa West said. “It was going to be a huge deal that they had been arrested, and (Cox) said they had an agreement to give the cases to Jason Darling.” [...] West said she is prepared to testify at Friday’s hearing that after Lannen was appointed, Cox called to speak to Reyna, who was not in the office. She told the Tribune-Herald she will testify that Cox told her that because Lannen and not Darling had been appointed, Reyna needed to reverse his recusal, take back the Jarvis files and then refuse to prosecute them. [...] Lannen filed a motion last week asking that the hearing to disqualify her be held in an open, public courtroom. In the motion, she said Cox approached her before she made the decision to file the cases against the Jarvises. Cox said the couple should not be prosecuted because they are “good people” and that he had already worked out a deal with Darling to dismiss the cases. [...] Lannen wrote she later learned that Cox confronted another member of Reyna’s support staff and told the woman that she was supposed to see that Darling was appointed special prosecutor in the cases."
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Judge denies request to disqualify special prosecutor", 2014/10/03
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Appeals court reinstates DWI charges against Baylor employee, husband", 2016/04/08
          • Jason Darling background
            • Facebook friends list for Jason Darling - includes Susan Kelly (54th District Judge), Michael Jarrett (former McLennan County First Assistant District Attorney, involved in the prosecution of Benny Tijerina), Josh Tetens (defense lawyer for Marcus Beaudin, and the McLennan County DA elected in 2022), Felipe Reyna, Rod Goble (attorney for Gilbert Melendez), Sherre Whitney aka Sherre Johnston, Parnell McNamara, Abel Reyna, Tommy Witherspoon, and Seth Andrew Sutton
            • KWTX, "Waco man pleads guilty to sexually assaulting teen runaway; prosecutors recommend deferred probation", 2022/05/17: "A Waco man who sexually assaulted a 13-year-old runaway from East Texas in 2018 pleaded guilty to a first-degree felony charge on Tuesday. Prosecutors from the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office recommended that Nicholas Kane Jaramillo, 23, be placed on deferred probation for 10 years in exchange for his guilty plea to an aggravated sexual assault of a child charge. Judge Thomas West of Waco’s 19th State District Court expressed a bit of surprise at the state’s plea offer, telling defense attorney Jason P. Darling, “I’m not sure how you got his offer, Mr. Darling. But we’ll see.”"
            • Work at Moody, Crow & Darling i.e. Moody, Crow and Darling - most likely involves Ron Moody and Ken Crow, two of the lawyers who testified against Feazell in his federal bribery trial
              • Roster for some unspecified meeting of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (TCDLA) - lists Ronald H. Moody and Jason P. Darling, both of Waco and both identified with the firm Moody, Crow & Darling
              • Aderhold Funeral Home obituary for Marcia Walker Riggs: "Marcia (Walker) Riggs, age 59, of West, passed away late Thursday morning, September 6, 2012 at her residence. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated 2:00 p.m. Sunday at St. Martin's Catholic Church in Tours, with Msgr. Isidore Rozycki as celebrant. Burial will follow at St. Martin's Cemetery. The family will receive visitors from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Saturday at Aderhold Funeral Home in West. Marcia was born April 16, 1953 in Waxahachie, the daughter of Jesse H. and Anna Beth (Keenom) Walker. She attended school in Bellmead and graduated from La Vega High School in 1971. She worked as a legal secretary for Moody, Crow and Darling in Waco since 1983, prior to that she worked for Central Texas Iron Works. On September 14, 1984, she was united in marriage to Randall Lee Riggs in China Spring. Marcia enjoyed traveling and going to the casinos in Sheveport. She was always there for her daughter's activities including softball, Sokol, cheerleading, dancing and all their athletic events. She especially loved spending time with her grandchildren and participating in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer programs. Marcia is preceded in death by her parents and father-in-law, Archie Riggs. Survivors include her beloved husband of 28 years, Randall Riggs of West; her mother-in-law, Robbie Riggs; two daughters, Jessica Machac of Penelope and Amanda Neill and husband Justin of West; grandchildren, Tyler John and Paityn Machac; her beloved dog, Sadie and grand dog, Dusty; and many nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends. Active pallbearers are Mark Keenom, Jimmy Keenom, Terry Chapman, Terry Dietrich, Jason Crow and Cory Turnmire. Honorary pallbearers are Kenneth Crow, Ronald Moody, John Donahue and Jason Darling."
      • Gary Richardson involvement and background - is directly connected to Oklahoma governor Frank Keating; alongside Feazell, worked with Kirk Lyons (a notable lawyer for white supremacists who introduced Andreas Strassmeir to Elohim City, and partnered with CIA pilot Dave Hollaway in the C.A.U.S.E. Foundation which Timothy McVeigh had contact with) to liaise with David Koresh; represented Waco survivor David Thibodeau; later represented Hussain al-Hussaini in a libel case against Jayna Davis for accusing him of involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing
        • Waco Citizen, "Lucas Hires Own Attorney", 1985/06/11 (pages 1, 2): "At a press conference in McLennan County Commissioners Court Monday afternoon, Gary L. Richardson, an attorney with offices in Tulsa and Dallas, announced he had been hired by alleged mass murderer Henry Lee Lucas to handle any civil law suits and to handle the strategy of hs over-all legal problems. Richardson, who prosecuted two civil cases with McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell in the late 70’s and early 80’s against the former Citizens National Bank of Waco, were successful in winning judgements for their clients. [...] The Oklahoma attorney said he had viewed some of the video tapes of Henry's confession and "they made me sick," he told the media. [...] The Oklahoma attorney also charged that Lucas has been given large doses of the depressant thorizine while incarcerated. He said the drug would make one susceptible to anyones suggestions and/or directions. [...] Richarson said he was taking the case, “because the issue, at this point, isn't wether or not Lucas has killed three people, but whether or not Henry has killed the 600 or so he has supposedly confessed to—and if not—why should he take the "rap" for those cases and let 600 murderers go free and around this country.”"
        • Austin American-Statesman, "Lawyer claims lie test links Lucas to 3 slayings at most", 1985/06/11: "Henry Lee Lucas' lawyer said Monday that his client has taken a polygraph examination indicating he was Involved In no more than three slayings. The attorney, Gary L. Richardson, who has offices In Tulsa, Okla., and Dallas, also said Lucas may have been given Thorazine and other depressants when he told the Texas Rangers Homicide Task Force that be committed hundreds of murders. The drugs, Richardson said, "would make one susceptible to following anyone's suggestions and directions." [...] Boutwell said that Lucas was given the drug Thorazine when he arrived in the Williamson County Jail in 1983. He said the drug had been prescribed for Lucas when he became suicidal while in custody in the Montague County Jail. [...] "Off the top of my head, I would say he was probatly given Thorazine for less than a month," Boutwell said. [...] The only other time he was given Thorazine was while he was in San Angelo in February 1984, when he was being tried for a murder in Georgetown, Boutwell said. [...] Waco attorney Guy Cox was appointed to represent Lucas April 17, four days after Lucas was brought to Waco. "I felt that we need an attorney of Gary's stature to come in and help us with this," Cox said Monday. He said that McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell suggested Richardson. [...] Richarson said Monday he did not know how he will be paid for his services in representing Lucas. "I've been told there are some people who would like to raise a Henry Lee Lucas defense fund. I, of course, would not object to that," Richardson said."
        • Austin American-Statesman, "Prosecutor on defensive", 1985/08/18 (pages C1, C8): "One of his selling points during the campaign was that he had won a then-record Jury award in a civil trial against a Waco bank. The suit was over the bank having foreclosed on the man's property, a perfect case for a populist candidate. Feazell in fact was second-chair during the trial, which was led by Gary Richardson, an Oklahoma lawyer who initially had the case and brought in Feazell to assist as local counsel. Richardson later developed his own reputation as hard-hitting and fearless when he was a U.S. attorney and obtained convictions on a number of public officials in Oklahoma. Richardson, who has offices in Oklahoma and Dallas, now represents Henry Lee Lucas. He was brought in by a court-appointed Waco lawyer who obtained his name from Feazell. A former motivation instructor and salesman, Richardson said he had a contract with Lucas that allowed him to pick the cases in which he will get involved. Asked if he had a book or movie deal with Lucas, he said he did not discuss his contracts with clients."
        • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Drifter touches government, show business", 1985/08/25: "The US Justice Department already was working on a national computer system to provide information on unsolved slayings around the country. Lucas' claims of a killing spree brought home to police the need for such a system to share information about traveling killers. The Violent Crime Apprehension Project is expected to be operational soon. [...] The Texas Legislature had noticed Henry. In its 1985 regular session, a change in statutes was approved that made serial murder, or mass murder, a capital crime. [...] Over Richardson's objections, Lucas went back to Georgetown, where task force members predicted that once again Henry might change his story and go back to confessing. But he didn't, and Richardson refused to permit his famous client to be interviewed unless he was there. If Henry wasn't going to help clear up cases, he was useless to the task force. So on July 19 he was shipped down to Huntsville to claim his reservation on death row. But Lucas says he expects to be a free man soon, through the help of his "powerful friends.""
        • El Paso Herald-Post, "Lucas seeks attorney's help for his defense", 1986/01/29: "McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he had talked to Lucas “two or three days ago” about the matter. “I told Henry that I would mention it to a few people that he didn't have a lawyer,” Feazell said. “There have been several people that have told me they were interested.” Lucas, 49, is accused of the May 1983 ax murder and rape of Librada Apodaca, 72, in her Lower Valley home. Last week during a pretrial hearing, Lucas fired Tulsa's Gary Richardson after State 120th District Court Judge Brunson Moore refused to let Richardson resign from the case because Lucas could not pay him. Lucas, who originally hired Richardson in exchange for book and movie rights, fired the attorney after Moore would not agree to appoint him counsel so the state could pick up the tab. On Monday, Lucas sent a handwritten letter to the judge explaining that he had “been notified” that he would have an attorney within two weeks. “If you have any other questions about this,” Lucas said in the letter, “you can contact Vic Feazell and he can give you any additional information.” Feazell, who presented information to the McLennan County grand jury in 1985 showing that Lucas was far from the scene of several of the murders he claims to have committed, said he is not giving Lucas legal advice."
        • El Paso Herald-Post, "Lucas case termed 'circus-like'", 1986/02/01: "Lucas is currently in the El Paso County Detention Facility without legal representation. Also, flamboyant private investigator Jay J. Armes walked off the job after taking offense when Moore would not let him sit at the defense table during the Jan. 21-22 hearing and would not grant him access to the district attorney’s files pertaining to the case in the DA’s office, even with Richardson present. Moore, who has indicated the trial will probably be delayed beyond the previously scheduled March 3 starting date, said Friday he had two or three local attorneys in mind to appoint to the Lucas case, and Monday or Tuesday would hold a hearing — in the jail if necessary — to find out what Lucas intends to do about an attorney. [...] Richardson, the former US Attorney for the eastern district of Oklahoma, is under investigation by the Oklahoma Bar Association, following charges by Oklahoma House Speaker Dan Draper that Richardson “knowingly used perjured testimony” in prosecuting Draper and the former House majority leader in a federal conspiracy and mail fraud case in 1983. Richardson once had to abandon a proposed contract with Lucas for the book rights to Lucas’ life in exchange for defending Lucas because it proved to be illegal in Texas. He tried to get Moore to appoint a local attorney to do the research in the case but Moore declined, saying it looked as though Richardson wanted someone else to do the work so he could come in and try the case. After Moore refused to let Richardson quit because Lucas could not pay him, Lucas fired Richardson, leaving the judge no alternative but to let him withdraw. Richardson said he will continue to handle the “overall strategy” of defending Lucas."
        • Work as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Oklahoma
          • Dan Draper prosecution
            • The Oklahoman, "For Such a Quiet Man, Dan Draper's Career Has Been Controversial", 1983/06/19
            • The Oklahoman, "Draper Defense Claims Assailed", 1984/02/10: "Labeling defense allegations against him "a last ditch attempt by unrepentant former public officials to escape justice," U.S. Attorney Gary Richardson withdrew Thursday from further activity in the vote-fraud case of Dan Draper Jr. and Joe Fitzgibbon. Richardson announced his withdrawal as he read from a prepared statement. He refused to answer questions. Richardson said the allegations of wrongdoing against himself, assistant Donn Baker and postal inspector Larry Rominger "are totally, completely and entirely false. [...] Richardson, Baker and Rominger were accused a week ago by a key prosecution witness of instructing her to lie during the trial of former Senate leaders Draper and Fitzgibbon. "Certain parts of my testimony in the Draper-Fitzgibbon were not true," Ruth Ann Hembree stated in an affidavit. "The government knew the parts were untrue because either attorneys for the U.S. Attorney's office or the postal inspector asked me to testify the way I did." [...] In early August, defense attorneys sought to have the 21-count indictment dismissed on grounds that Richardson had compared the vote fraud case to the county commissioner kickback scandal while addressing the grand jury in June. The lawyers also said Richardson lied to the secret panel when he said witness Hembree would plead guilty to a misdemeanor. She wasn't charged with a misdemeanor by Richardson's office, but her probation on an unrelated charge was revoked and she was sentenced to a three-year term. [...] The following week, midway through the trial, defense attorneys asked the judge to dismiss the case because of statements Richardson had made to reporters regarding upcoming testimony. [...] Shortly before the trial ended, defense lawyers again requested a dismissal on grounds that Richardson had misled the grand jury by misstating the testimony of co-conspirator Faye Newton. [...] A week after Draper and Fitzgibbon were convicted, their attorneys asked for dismissal or a new trial because Richardson inserted personal opinions during his closing arguments to the jury. [...] In mid-October, the day before Draper and Fitzgibbon were to be sentenced, the defendants asked for a delay and a new trial on grounds that prospective jurors allegedly discussed Draper's arrest in Oklahoma City on a drunken driving charge."
            • The Oklahoman, "U.S. Attorney Richardson Cleared of Wrongdoing, Justice Officials Say", 1984/05/18: "U.S. Attorney Gary Richardson, whose office has been accused of legal and professional improprieties in its prosecution of former House leaders Dan Draper Jr. and Joe Fitzgibbon, has been cleared of any wrongdoing, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice told The Oklahoman Thursday. [...] The Oklahoman also learned earlier reports were wrong that said Federal Magistrate Frank H. Seay, who presided over the controversial trials, was being investigated by the FBI in connection with the case based on complaints from Richardson's office. [...] Ruth Ann Hembree, a key prosecution witness, testified Draper was in the back room of a general store where the ballots were being prepared. She now claims she lied. Mrs. Hembree and some other prosecution witnesses claim they testified falsely at the trial on the advice of prosecutors. Richardson and assistants Baker and Rex Earl Starr and Postal Inspector Larry Rominger earlier denied any illegal or unethical acts. Mrs. Hembree claims the attorneys and postal inspector told her what to say at the trial, and that government attorneys provided her with a list of questions and answers."
            • The Oklahoman, "Federal Judge Orders New Trial for Draper, Fitzgibbon", 1984/05/23: "Saying "It would be unconscionable to send any man to prison based upon perjured testimony," a federal judge Tuesday ordered a new trial for former legislative leaders Dan Draper Jr. and Joe Fitzgibbon. [...] "The existence of 11 recantations of trial testimony is a substantive and material fact which probably would produce an acquittal as to both defendants," Seay ruled. [...] Richardson, who announced last week that the U.S. Justice Department had cleared his office of any wrongdoing, said he will seek perjury indictments against those witnesses who have recanted their testimony. The U.S. attorney said he believes the witnesses "were talked into" changing their testimony. "I assume they were made a tremendous offer," said Richardson, who added that the FBI is investigating allegations of payoffs. [...] Concerning the allegations against prosecutors, Judge Seay wrote, "The court finds, under the evidence presented, that the United States Attorney's Office did not engage in prosecutorial misconduct through subornation of perjury." However, Seay stated, "The court finds the prosecuting attorneys did act improperly on more than one occasion by failing to bring to the court's attention the fact that they and their agents were aware that government witnesses were testifying to matters which were not the truth.""
            • The Oklahoman, "Noted lawmaker Dan Draper dies Former House speaker was 64", 2004/11/19
            • Tulsa World, "Lionized former Oklahoma House Speaker Daniel Draper dies at 64", 2004/11/19
        • Washington Post, "WACO CULT LAWYERS PREPARE THEMSELVES FOR LONG LEGAL SIEGE", 1993/03/26: "The case has attracted some of the region's top criminal lawyers, as well as conservative legal groups with a bone to pick with the ATF. "I'd love to see their sails trimmed," said Kirk Lyons, head of the fledgling Cause Foundation, a conservative civil libertarian group that coordinated an offer by several lawyers to help mediate with Koresh. The group included Vic Feazell, a former McLennan County district attorney, and Gary Richardson, a former U.S. attorney from Oklahoma. Heading the list of legal talent so far is Dick DeGuerin, a prominent Houston lawyer retained by Koresh's mother to represent him when the siege finally ends."
        • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Cultists in custody wonder why 1 allowed to walk free", 1993/05/30: "David Thibodeau, since fleeing a burning Mount Carmel has appeared on “A Current Affair,” sued the National Enquirer and stayed with family members in Maine. [...] Rumors had circulated that Thibodeau was released after operating with authorities. But his attorney Gary Richardson of Tulsa, denied that Thibodeau had made any deals."
        • The Oklahoman, "Lawsuit Says TV Station Falsely Labeled City Man", 1995/08/25: "Al-Hussaini Hussain said he lost his job, was beaten, spat upon and feared for his life. All because, he says, KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City fingered him as the elusive "John Doe 2" who was responsible for the April 19 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Hussain, a refugee from Iraq who lives in Oklahoma City, filed a lawsuit Thursday in Oklahoma County District Court against KFOR-TV Channel 4; its owner, Palmer Communications; reporters Jayna Davis and Brad Edwards; and News Director Melissa Klinzing. [...] At a news conference Thursday, Hussain's lawyers, Tulsa attorneys Gary Richardson and William Donovan, accused the television station of "tabloid journalism at its best. " "Here is a man that came to America seeking freedom and was put in imprisonment by a local TV station," Richardson said."
        • The Journal Record (Oklahoma City OK), "Attorney hopes to become first independent governor", 2001/07/05: "Tulsa attorney Gary Richardson, 60, said Tuesday that he hopes to build a bridge in Oklahoma politics by becoming the state’s first independent governor. “I’m sick and tired of the gridlock that’s keeping this state from moving forward,” said Richardson, who switched his party affiliation from Republican to independent about three months ago. [...] Leaders of the state Democratic and Republican parties called Richardson a good man whose campaign could splinter the 2002 vote. [...] Richardson twice previously ran for Congress as a Republican. He lost a close race in 1980 to incumbent Democrat Mike Synar in the 2nd District. Richardson, who was the U.S. attorney in Muskogee from 1982 to 1984, heads the Tulsa law firm that Republican Gov. Frank Keating worked for after leaving the federal government and prior to running for governor. He said his experience in serving as the state’s assistant insurance commissioner in the 1970s, as well as running his law firm and other businesses, help qualify him for the job."
        • Black Robe Fever by Gary Richardson (2016) - see this upload on Yumpu by vicfeazell.com of Ch.4 ("OFFICIAL VENDETTA: When the Good Guys Wear Black Hats") encompassing p.51-72
          • p.60: "Vic called and pleaded for me to come down to represent Lucas and to help in the investigation. Without a moment’s hesitation, I agreed. I did so without any intention of being paid for my services. It was a classic pro-bono opportunity, besides, Vic was my friend and it sounded on the phone like he was in real need of help."
          • p.66-67: "What neither Vic nor I knew until much later was that the grand jury which indicted Feazell was not the same grand jury which had spent a year listening to testimony that Assistant United States Attorney Patterson, had brought them. As a matter of fact, this Grand Jury had met only three times, and no witnesses had appeared before them in person. The indictment stood shakily on reports presented to them by Assistant US Attorney Patterson, and the uncorroborated testimony of two of Feazells former law partners who had desperately tried to convince Patterson of Feazells innocence but due to their on tax problems and due to threats of their being prosecuted themselves, they finally changed their story, going along with Patterson and entered into a plea bargain with Patterson and the United States Attorneys Office."
          • p.67: "To cause the most damage to Feazell, and for maximum notoriety, Jan Patterson waited until the opportune moment to release the affidavit four days before the election."
        • Jonathan Widran, "CHUCK RICHARDSON CARRIES ON HIS FATHER’S LEGACY", 2022/04/22: "While attending Tulsa University School of Law part time, Chuck worked full-time for the Tulsa County District Attorney’s office as a Legal Intern and later received his Juris Doctorate from T.U. in 1989. After receiving his license, he was appointed Assistant District Attorney and served until 1991. During that time, Richardson lost only one case and assisted in forming task forces to assist the Tulsa Police Department in prosecuting burglaries and armed robberies. Mr. Richardson decided to take Governor Frank Keating’s appointment as District Attorney in the late 90s, in part, to establish a strong identity of his own, and show his diverse talents beyond the long shadow of his renowned father. It was a familiar place to apply his vast legal expertise. He attended Baylor University and the University of Oklahoma where in 1986 he received his Bachelor degree in Business Administration. [...] In 1999, however, he decided to return as Senior Partner to the firm now known as Richardson Richardson Boudreaux to help carry on the legacy of his father, Gary, who founded the firm in 1985 after a stint as U.S. Attorney in Eastern Oklahoma, appointed by President Reagan. Serving now as the Managing Partner, Richardson is the ultimate legal multi-tasker, currently working 125 cases. [...] The firm’s team of nine attorneys, led by Chuck Richardson and his partners, includes lawyers who have been voted Oklahoma Super Lawyers, members of the Oklahoma Lawyers Million Dollar Club, members of the Oklahoma Lawyers Multi-Million Dollar Club, and others included on the Who’s Who Among Lawyers. They have collectively won over a dozen eight-figure verdicts and settlements, and hundreds of six and seven-figure awards. One $58 million dollar verdict [for Feazell against the Belo Corporation] was, at the time, the largest-ever award in the history of the United States for defamation. The RRB firm is currently the largest plaintiffs’ law firm in Oklahoma. [...] Chuck’s father, Gary, still works for the firm handling the same kinds of cases as his son, but also taking the role of an overseer."
        • The Frontier (Tulsa OK), "For Tulsans, different motivations for trips to Trump’s inauguration weekend", 2017/01/19: "It’s safe to say local attorney Gary Richardson is one of Trump’s more enthusiastic fans. “The first time I saw Trump on TV, I told my wife, ‘That’s my candidate,’” Richardson said. “My wife is so excited she can hardly sit still. “I think we made quite a choice for president.” [...] Richardson said although he doesn’t agree with everything Trump says, he does think the president-elect believes what he says. “To me, his whole campaign was do you want a republic or do you want socialism,” Richardson said. “I’m very excited about where this country is headed compared to where I believe it’s been headed for some time.”"
        • The Frontier (Tulsa OK), "Before scandal rocked consulting firm, gubernatorial candidate bought polling data from Cambridge Analytica", 2018/05/07: "Gary Richardson, a Tulsa-based lawyer running for governor as a Republican, reported in his latest campaign filing that he paid Cambridge Analytica $52,600 on Feb. 2. [...] About six weeks after Richardson’s campaign paid Cambridge Analytica, news broke that the agency covertly collected personally identifiable information about more than 80 million Facebook users, information that was deep enough to allow the company to create profiles of each person whose data had been collected. Richardson, responding to questions via email, told The Frontier on Friday that his campaign didn’t use any information the company turned over and had ended its relationship with Cambridge Analytica about a week before the scandal broke. Richardson said Cambridge Analytica “failed to deliver the product we had purchased in a timely fashion.” [...] Richardson said Cambridge Analytica reached out to his campaign in early 2018, and, given the company’s success with the campaigns of both Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, “we were initially looking forward to working together.” [...] Richardson said they had requested “some pretty basic polling and research” from Cambridge Analytica. [...] Cambridge Analytica had close ties to President Donald Trump, having taken over data operations for Trump’s campaign in 2016. Richardson, a Trump supporter, has even co-opted some of Trump’s phrasing on the campaign trail."
        • Catalogue of questionable statements by Richardson
          • Claiming in Black Robe Fever that his representation of Henry Lee Lucas was pro bono despite it being contingent on a book contract (and indeed, he tried to quit representing Lucas once the contract turned out to be illegal in Texas)
      • Early background
        • Vic Feazell biography on his website
        • David Funeral Homes of Lafayette obtuary for Fred Feazell, Jr. (May 9, 1926 - April 17, 2023): "Fred Feazell Jr. of Monroe, La., passed away on April 17, 2023, at William R Courtney Texas State Veterans Home in Temple, Texas.

          Fred was born on May 9, 1927, to Fred Feazell, Sr. and Ethel Jane Day. He grew up in Monroe, La., where he attended Washington High School. After high school, Fred joined the U.S. Navy during World War II and was in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese signed the surrender papers. He served on the DD 698USS Ault destroyer. Fred is a Master York Rite Mason and a Knights Templar Shriner. He completed his studies in 1955 from Acadia Baptist Academy in Eunice La., becoming an ordained minister. Bro. Fred was an active member of the Southern Baptist Convention for over 40 years.

          He was preceded in death by his wife, Dollie Sue Hudnall, on October 17, 2001. Fred and Sue were married for 52 years. They shared three children, five grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild."
        • Mental Health-Mental Retardation (MH-MR) Center work
          • ...
        • Don Hall background
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, obituary for Hall, Donald O., 2014/07/18: "Donald O. "Don" Hall of Waco passed away Tuesday, July 15, 2014. Graveside services will be at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, July 19, at Waco Memorial Park with Rev. David Cozart officiating. Visitation will be 5 to 7 p.m., Friday, July 18, at Wilkirson-Hatch-Bailey.

            Donald was born November 11, 1926, in Waco, to Earnest and Thelma Hall. He quit Waco High School and volunteered in the United States Navy in 1944. Don married the love of his life, Mary Ann Morgan on September 1, 1951, and they had two children: daughter, Lisa Don Hall, B.S. degree from Texas A&M "Magna Cum Laude", high school teacher of Equine Science at McGregor, Texas, and professional rodeo and horse show barrel racer, and son, Brett Clayton Hall, B.A. degree from Baylor University, Vice President of The American National Bank of Texas. Brett and his wife, Kelly, reside in Longview, Texas.

            In the winter of 1945, he was sent overseas and had combat duty in the Pacific Theater until V-J Day on two fighting ships, where he was blown overboard at Okinawa. He was honorable discharged in the fall of 1946 and entered Baylor University the day after he was discharged. Don graduated from Baylor in 1951 with academic and law degrees. He was awarded Honorary Juris Doctorate degree in 1969 from Baylor. Don loved to be a lawyer. He practiced law with Charles F. Koehne, John Fulbright and Billy Carl Jones for three years. He was elected Judge of the Justice Court for Waco, serving in 1954-1955. He was Assistant District Attorney and First Assistant District Attorney from 1956-1962. Don participated as a prosecutor in first televised trial known in legal history in 1956. He served as District Attorney, McLennan County from 1963 through 1966. After 1966, he practiced general law in Waco as senior partner in his law firms and owned the downtown office building. In 1991, he sold his office building and ranch, still maintaining his current law license for many years.

            He was president of Young Lawyers Association; member of American Bar Association, Texas Bar Association and McLennan County Bar Association since 1951; chairman or member of all McLennan County Bar Association committees during his career; president, McLennan County Council on Alcoholism, 1971-1972. He was a Master Mason, Waco Lodge #92, AF&AM, York Rite, Scottish Rite and Shriner since 1955; member, American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars since 1946; American Quarter Horse Association since 1953; and a member of Columbus Avenue Baptist Church since 1938. Don was a charter member of Delta Theta Phil Law fraternity, Baylor chapter. He was a licensed pilot since 1958. He was admitted to and practiced before the U.S. Supreme Court ,Washington, D.C., U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, New Orleans, U.S. District Courts, U.S. Magistrate Courts, U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, in the Federal Judiciary and the full range of Courts of the State of Texas."
        • Dick Kettler background
          • ...
        • Bill Stallings background
        • waco Citizen, "Jury Gets Kelly Case", 1981/06/05 - indicates that Bill Stallings and Vic Feazell were the defense attorneys for Carl Kelly in the 1980/09/02 murder of Steven Wade Pryor
        • Waco Citizen, "Vic Feazell Announces For DA Post", 1982/01/22 (pages 1, 2): "Vic Feazell, 30, a practicing attorney in Waco, announced his intention to seek the seat of District Attorney for McLennan County, Wednesday morning. Feazell, a graduate of Baylor Law School, has practiced law in Waco for the past 8 years. He is associated with Dick Kettler and Don Hall in the practice of law. He and his wife Bernadette are expecting their first child in September. Feazell was program director of the Heart of Texas Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation Center in 1976 when it received a 100 percent validity rating from the state. It was the the only program in the state to win this rating and the rating came exactly one year after the center was closed following two deaths, when a methadone treatment program was begun for heroin addicts. Feazell took over the program and opened the doors six months after its closure and in that time brought it to the top in the state. [...] He has tried many civil and criminal cases. He along with co-counsel Gary Richardson of Muskogee received one of the largest jury verdicts ever rendered in McLennan County, $695,000, when they represented Gene Steele, of Abbott in his lawsuit against the Citizens National Bank of Waco. [...] Asked how much he planned to spend on the campaign. Feazell said, “I expect to spend about 50c for every $1 he [Felipe Reyna] spends. I will be working from a broad base of support from law enforcement officers, businessmen and citizens.” Feazell ran for the Waco City Council in 1980 and was defeated by incumbent Dr. David Dow."
        • Waco Citizen, "Vic Feazell Names Part Of DA Staff", 1982/12/21: "Vic Feazell, District Attorney Elect for McLennan County, has named 38-year-old Dennis Green of Houston as first assistant district attorney. [...] Feazell said he met Green about three years ago when they were on the the opposite side of a lawsuit which acutally never came to trial in Limestone County. [...] “I have asked Allen Lewis to remain as an investigator and Frank Fitzpatrick, Lyann Kendrick, Pat Murphy, Ken Bennett, Virginia Doughtry, Brad Cates and Crawford Long will remain as assitant DA's,” Feazell said. “Donise Baldwin, my former secretary at MH-MR will handle the confidential typing for me and Dennis,” Feazell said. “Bill Johnson will be appointed Chief of the Worthless Check Division.” “These are the only committments made at this time,” Feazell said. [...] Don Hall will swear Feazell in on December 30 at 10 a.m. He and Feazell have been partners for about three years and Hall is a former McLennan County District Attorney."
        • Dennis Green background
          • Waco Citizen, "Vic Feazell Names Part Of DA Staff", 1982/12/21: "[Green], a trial lawyer with Shell Oil Co. in Houston worked six years with district attorneys office in Harris County, and one year with the U. S. Attorney’s office. In the trial division with the Harris County DA. Green was chief of the economic crime division and worked prior to that with consumer fraud cases. “I have worked with all types of criminal cases,” Green said. Visiting with Vic Feazell in his law office late Monday afternoon, Green said he was a graduate of South Texas Taw School and received his business administration degree from Central State in Oklahoma. He attended high school in Holland, Hague, Netherlands. “My father was stationed there when he worked for the Shell Oil Pipeline Division.” [...] He and his wife are both natives of Oklahoma. “We are delighted to moving to McLennan County,” Green said. “We actually lived in Katy and I was commuting three hours each day and unable to spend much time with my children.” “That will change here,” he added."
          • Waco Citizen, "Dennis Green Selected U.S. Magistrate Waco", 1984/12/11: "The district judges of the Western District of Texas, meeting in Waco on Friday, December 7, selected Dennis G. Green of Waco as the next U.S. Magistrate for the Waco Division. Green has been designated to serve as part-time Magistrate until October, 1985, and thereafter for an eight-year term as full-time Magistrate. [...] “Green's varied experience in state and federal courts and particularily as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the southern district of Texas were most helpful in his obtaining this appointment”, said Judge Walter Smith of Waco. [...] The attorney came to Waco in 1983 as first assistant under District Attorney Vic Feazell. He served in that capacity for one year before resigning to enter private law practice, with Murray Watson in the firm of Watson & Green. He is adjunct Faculty Member at McLennan Community College. Green is a graduate of Central State College in Edmond Oka. He attended high school in the Netherlands, Syracuse University, American College in Paris, France and received his law degree from the South Texas College of Law. From Oct. 1967 to June, 1969, he was an administrative and intelligence specialist with the United States Army in Osan Korea. He received an honorable discharge in 1973. He joined the Harris County District Attorney's Office in Houston in February 1972 and remained there until January, 1976 when he left to join the United States Attorney General’s office, Southern District of Texas. He worked under Attorney General Ed McDonough, in the special Crimes Division. In February 1977 he returned to the Harris County District Attorney's Office as Assistant District Attorney, Chief, Economic Crime Division. From August 1979 to January, 1983 he joined Shell Oil Company in Houton as trial counsel in the litigation department."
        • Ned Butler background
          • Aspen Times, obituary for Ned Coy Butler (April 1, 1942 — Jan. 2, 2018), 2018/02/11: "Ned Coy Butler, 75, passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by his family in Austin, Texas, on January 2, 2018, after an illness of several months.

            Ned is survived by his wife of over 45 years, Carla Miles Butler; his daughter, Meredith Miles Maycotte and husband, H.O., of Austin, Texas; his two sons, Ned C. Butler III, “Trey” and wife, C.J., of Midland, Texas and Bradley Huddleston Butler of Austin, Texas; and three loving granddaughters, Marin Mersenne Maycotte (11), Maslow Marcelle Maycotte (8), and Blakely Elise Butler (6 months). He is also survived by his siblings, Terry Butler of Aspen, Colorado; Karen Foster of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Gary Butler of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and beloved black lab, Macie.

            Ned lived in Aspen with his family for three years in the early 80’s while he was ranch manager of the Marvin Ranch in ​​ Little Woody Creek. The ranch was later sold to Don Johnston by Ned’s sister Terry Butler, who still resides in Aspen and owns/lives in the Residence Hotel.

            He will be laid to rest in his birthplace of Hobbs, New Mexico, with his parents who preceded him in death, Jewel Huddleston Butler (2016) and Ned C. Butler (1963) along with many other family members who are laid to rest in Prairie Haven Cemetery at 2101 E. Stanolind Road. A reception in Midland, Texas, will follow."
          • Background of parents
            • Find A Grave memorial for Ned C. Butler: "Ned C. Butler is of Anglo-Norman-Irish descent, and has Type III Irish (Dalcassian) DNA, R1b1c1 haplogroup. He is ancestrally descended from the Irish O'Brien – Butler line from Carrigogunnell Castle, and the Earls of Ormonde Line from Kilkenny Castle, Ireland. He is also a descendant of King Edward I of England, and is distantly related through the Butler line to Ann Boleyn, the beheaded wife of Henry VIII and mother of Queen Elizabeth I. He is also related to Pierce Butler, signatory to the U.S Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, both U.S. Presidents Bush, and HM Queen Elizabeth II of England.

              His direct American descent is through his 2nd great grandfather Thomas Butler, who served as a drummer in the Virginia Militia Line during the entire Revolutionary War. Thomas Butler was present during the spiking of US cannons by the British in New York and at the surrender of British General Lord Cornwallis to General George Washington at Yorktown marking the end of the Revolutionary War.

              Through his mother, Osie Pollard Butler, Ned is a descendent of Captain Benjamin G. Pollard, captain of the gunship "Row Galley" of the Virginia Navy during the American Revolution. Ned's grandfather, Wiley B. Pollard served in the Confederate Army, 41st Alabama Company B and was severely wounded at the Battle of Stone's River. Another ancestor, James M. Brake, was killed at the Battle of Perryville, Ky."
            • Find A Grave memorial for Jewel Jeanette Huddleston Butler: "Jewel Huddleston Butler passed away peacefully on Friday, August 5, 2016 at her home. She was born in Drumright, Oklahoma on November 13, 1915.

              Funeral services will take place on Monday, August 8, 2016 at 11:00 AM at Grace Presbyterian Church in Temple. Burial will take place on Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 3 :00 PM at Prairie Haven Memorial Park in Hobbs, New Mexico.

              She graduated from Hobbs, New Mexico High School in 1932. She attended Southwestern Oklahoma University (Teacher's College) graduating Cum Laude in 1936. While she was there, she was elected Homecoming Queen and Miss Southwestern. She was a teacher of Senior High School English in Oklahoma, New Mexico, and later Texas

              She married and had four children with Ned C. Butler. While raising her family, she was also a competitive duplicate bridge player and an active member of The Presbyterian Church. Upon her late husband's death in 1963, she became CEO of Butler Construction Company, an oilfield maintenance company, that had been based in Hobbs, New Mexico, Snyder, Texas and ultimately in Abilene, Texas in 1954.

              She moved to Dallas, Texas in 1975, where she became a member of The Highland Park Presbyterian Church. It is there, where she later met Colonel Edward Heilbron, and they married in 1987. Always an avid duplicate bridge player, she became a bronze life master in 1988. They moved from Dallas to Temple, in 1999, where they built their house at the age of 82. Jewel became a member of The Grace Presbyterian Church and later became director of bridge at The Sunflower Country Club.

              Jewel is survived by her four children; Ned Butler of Brenham, Texas, Terry Butler of Aspen, Colorado, Karen Butler Foster of Wisconsin, and Gary Butler of Temple, Texas. She is also survived by five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren living in Texas, Colorado, Mexico, and California."
            • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Cook Sand Wildcat Due In Callahan", 1961/10/15: "CALLAHAN — Champlin Oil & Refining Company, Fort Worth, and Ned C. Butler, Abilene, will drill No. 1 Amanda Miller 1,650 feet from north and 2,310 feet from east lines of section 33, BBB&C survey one mile west of the Eula Hope sand pool and two miles northwest of Eula in Callahan County. Contract depth 1,999 feet to test the lower Cook sand."
              • Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture entry for Champlin Refining Company: "The Champlin Refining Company, which for many years held the distinction of being the nation's largest fully integrated oil company under private ownership, was based at Enid, Oklahoma. In 1916 Enid banker and entrepreneur Herbert Hiram Champlin (1868–1944) bought a lapsed oil lease on the Beggs farm in the fledgling Garber Field about fifteen miles east of Enid. Champlin was reluctant to enter the new and highly speculative oil business, but at his wife's urging he agreed to invest twenty-five thousand dollars in the venture.

                Champlin's first well came in on Christmas Day 1916 as a 250-barrel producer. The banker-turned-oilman drilled more wells on his 160-acre lease and in July 1917 purchased a small refinery on the outskirts of Enid, enlarged it to provide a market for the oil from his wells, and established the Champlin Refining Company. In order to provide a secure market for the refinery's growing output, He purchased a series of small oil companies that operated service stations. By the mid-1920s Champlin Refining Company was marketing petroleum products in a six-state area centered on Oklahoma. As the organization grew, it drilled more wells, built a large pipeline network, opened additional refineries, and greatly expanded the retail operation, all under the auspices of Champlin's private ownership.

                When Herbert H. Champlin died on April 30, 1944, his company employed more than eight hundred people in Enid, operated service stations and wholesale outlets in twenty midwestern states, had a strong drilling and production presence in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, and continued a major refining operation supported by one of the largest pipeline complexes in Oklahoma. The company continued under family ownership until its stock went public in 1953. In 1954 the Champlin Refining Company was bought by the Chicago Corporation of Chicago, Illinois. This $55 million deal allowed the company to operate as a subsidiary until the Chicago Corporation changed its name to the Champlin Refining Company in 1956. In 1964 the Celanese Corporation bought the company, and at the beginning of 1970 Celanese sold Champlin to the Union Pacific Resources Company, a division of the Union Pacific Corporation. They operated the Champlin Refining Company in much the same manner as before. In 1984 they sold the entire retail operation to American Petrofina, closed the Enid refinery, and ended the Champlin Refining Company's lengthy and significant presence in Oklahoma."
            • Abilene Reporter-News, "Oil Operator Ned Butler Dies at 49", 1963/01/14: "Ned C. Butler, 49, of 4034 Benbrook, former mayor of Hobbs, N. M., and independent oil operator here, died at 3 a.m. Monday at his home after an illness of several months. Funeral will be held Wednesday at 10 a.m. in Central Presbyterian Church with the Rev. Joe David Ruffin, pastor, officiating. Masonic graveside rites will be held at 5 p.m. (4 p.m. N. M. time) at Prairie Haven Cemetery in Hobbs, N. M., under direction of Kiker-Warren Funeral Home. Born Jan. 7, 1914, in Booneville, Miss., Mr. Butler lived in Hobbs, N. M., from 1937 to 1951, and served as the city's mayor in 1950-51. He moved to Snyder in 52, where he operated and owned the Butler Oil Field Construction Co. In 1953 he formed a drilling company in Abilene in partnership with Frank L. Peebles. He married Jewel Huddleston on Jan. 27, 1940, in Hobbs, N. M. He was a member of the Central Presbyterian Church, where he served as an elder, and also held membership in Masonic Lodge of Hobbs, N.M., and the Shrine of Santa Fe. Surviving are his wife; two sons, Ned Coy, and Gary Don, both of the home; two daughters, Terry Lee and Karen, both of the home; his mother, Mrs. R. B. Butler of Hobbs, N. M.; five brothers, Dexter and J. W. of Hobbs, Nolan of Irving, Harold of Austin, Raymond of Morganton, N. C.; two sisters, Mrs. E. L. Groh and Mrs. Pete Dunaway, both of Hobbs, N. M."
          • Abilene Reporter-News, "5 AFROTC Frosh At UT From Here", 1960/10/17: "Five freshmen students from Abilene are enrolled in the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Command at the University of Texas, the university has reported. They are: Freeman Waynewood, son of Mrs. Louise Waynewood of 773 Nelson St., a pre-medical student; Robert D. Bassetti, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Bassetti of 1950 University Blvd., a government major; Barrett H. Barker, son of Mr. and Mrs. B. H. Barker of 2202 Amarillo St., a pre-law student; William H. Ammons of 758 Mesquite St., studying law, and Ned C. Butler, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ned C. Butler of 4034 Benbroook St., a pre-law student."
          • Abilene Reporter-News, "Butler passes bar, to work in Houston", 1975/05/14: "Ned C. Butler, son of Mrs. Jewel H. Butler and the late Ned C. Butler of Abilene, has passed his state bar examination and will work in the district attorney’s office in Houston. Butler is a 1960 graduate of Abilene High School, and received his BA degree from the University of Texas at El Paso. He received his law degree from the South Texas College of Law in Houston."
          • Tyler Morning Telegraph, "DA Named In Upshur", 1978/06/30: "Upshur County Assistant District Attorney Ned Butler has been appointed district attorney following Harry Heard's resignation Monday, a spokesman in the Governor's Office said Thursday. The appointment becomes effective July 1, said Don Adams, chief legal counsel for the Governor's Office. Heard said his resignation would enable him to return to full time private practice of law beginning Friday. Heard's resignation came during a grand jury investigation of missing funds from the district attorney's office. Heard claims he had earlier called for the investigation. Heard was appointed to the office of district attorney in November 1976, replacing J. Michael Smith of Gilmer, who resigned. Butler, 36, an Abilene native, graduated from the South Texas College of Law. He worked two years with the Harris County District Attorney's Office. He came to Gilmer in November 1976. He is married to the former Carla Miles of Abilene. They have two sons and a daughter."
          • Tyler Courier-Times, "Assistant DA In Upshur County Quits", 1979/07/01: "The Upshur County assistant district attorney has resigned and District Attorney Dwight Brannon said Saturday he will not name a successor. Ned Butler, former interim district attorney and assistant for 2 ½ years, said he will begin a retail business in Aspen, Colo. The resignation is effective immediately. Brannon said the position will not be filled."
          • Background of sister Terry Butler
            • KOTV, "DON JOHNSON'S COMPANY FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY", 2004/04/26: "A company owned by actor Don Johnson has filed for bankruptcy to protect his Pitkin County ranch from being sold at auction, according to a published report. Timber Doodle Glade Equity Venture LLC, a company controlled by the former "Miami Vice" star, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy April 14 in Denver Bankruptcy Court, the Rocky Mountain News reported in weekend editions. Johnson's bankruptcy lawyer, Lee Kutner, said Friday that Doodle Glade is one of two entities that hold title to the Woody Creek property that Johnson purchased from Aspen socialite Terry Butler in 1987. The bankruptcy filing follows a Pitkin County lawsuit brought by City National Bank of Los Angeles in March, asking the court to allow the ranch to be auctioned to collect $930,000 Johnson owes the bank. A judge in Los Angeles County ruled in September that Johnson owed the bank $921,891, and owes $21,891 in lawyer fees. Johnson's publicist, Elliot Mintz, said the actor is refinancing the ranch and the bankruptcy filing will stave off creditors until Johnson can get the financing he needs."
            • Aspen Times, "People of the Times", 2005/09/07: "Terry Butler is an Aspen businesswoman and a mixture of glamorous socialite and jock. This beautiful blonde is also one smart lady.She has been a success in everything she does, including competing in Olympic Trials in track during high school, winning every beauty contest in college, hosting television shows, modeling, mountain climbing and trekking, owning and operating a heavy-metal gym, dealing in antiques, owning and managing an Arabian horse breeding ranch, and in her latest endeavor, creating The Residence, a small boutique hotel in an old Victorian business block in Aspen.

              Many of these successes were in Mexico City, where she went to college and became the highest paid model and television host in South America during the 1960s. Skiing brought her to Aspen in 1968, and she moved here permanently in 1977. It was in Aspen that she had her ranch and gym and now her hotel. But every year she takes time off for an adventure with The Explorer’s Club … this year’s trek is in Mongolia."
            • Aspen Times, "Longtime Aspen resident Sharkey dies at 75", 2013/07/27: "Thomas Sharkey was a man who wore many hats in Aspen. Whether it was as an interior designer, skier, hiker, minister or friend to almost anyone who met him, one always could count on a smile and kind word from the longtime Aspen resident. [...] Thomas Sharkey came to Aspen from Texas in the early 1960s and was an avid outdoorsman. This year marked the 50th anniversary of when he moved to Aspen. He loved to ski, snowshoe and hike but not nearly as much as he enjoyed the people and personalities of Aspen. [...] He immersed himself into the Aspen culture and became a fixture with the Aspen Art Museum, the Music Associates of Aspen and the Aspen Historical Society. He was also a ski ambassador who could always be found smiling and helping on the slopes, even while wearing an oxygen tank on his back. “Tom was so energetic,” said longtime friend Terry Butler, of Aspen. “He was everywhere, always having fun. Tom loved to know about people and life. He was a beautiful soul and never had one bad thing to say about anybody. He was kind through and through. He really loved Aspen and its people.”"
            • Legends of Aspen board of directors - founding board member is the now-deceased Ron Krajian (note that he was a friend of W.T. Ray, who was in turn a close friend of Fleet White Sr.); board members as of 2022/12/30 are Terry Butler,​ Michael Carter, William A. Gooch (Founder), Rick Head, Greg Lewis, Nancy Snell, Robin Weeks, Joe Wise, and Sara Woodward
        • Waco Citizen, "Veteran's Day Parade", 1983/11/11: "Silver taps will be played by two members of the Fort Hood band to begin the parade. A Marine color guard followed by the Fort Hood Band and the parade Marshall will lead the parade. [...] All participants in the parade are invited to a chili lunch at Post 121, 3rd and Indiana immediately following the parade. Vic Feazell, McLennan County District Attorney, will speak at the luncheon."
      • Lake Waco murders in 1982
        • Careless Whispers by Carlton Stowers (1986, 1987, 2001)
        • Texas Monthly, "The Murders at the Lake" by Michael Hall, 2014/04
        • Lake Waco investigation and court documents on Feazell's website
        • David Spence appeal documents
        • Clemency petition for Anthony Melendez (TDCJ 378525) - details apparent collusion between Feazell and Tony Melendez's defense lawyers Chuck Youts and Jim Barlow (both of whom were accused of bribing Feazell to fix other cases on behalf of their clients: Alfred Ray Smith for Youts and Daniel Lopez for Barlow)
        • Justice Denied Vol. 1 Issue 8, "The Undisputed Champion of Capital Punishment" by John McLemore, 1999
        • Janet Jay, "Dreams Deferred: Capital Punishment and Injustice in Texas", 2007/05
        • Texas Court of Appeals, no. 10-02-00212-CV: Brian PARDO and John McLemore, Appellants, v. Truman SIMONS, Ned Butler, Vic Feazell, and Homer Campbell, Appellees, opinion, 2004/07/27
        • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Last Lake Waco triple murder defendant dies in prison", 2017/01/14: "After all these years, perhaps the final chapter of the controversial saga was closed Friday with the death of Anthony Melendez, the last of four men implicated in the grisly slayings of Jill Montgomery, Raylene Rice and Kenneth Franks, whose bodies were found in July 1982. [...] Melendez, who was serving two life prison terms, died as some, including the ex-wife of former McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell, worked to exonerate him, although those efforts stalled in the past few years. Melendez, who pleaded guilty to two counts of murder in the case and testified against David Wayne Spence at his trial in Bryan, also petitioned the governor for a reprieve, commutation or pardon after he recanted his confession. [...] Spence, who was tried in Waco and Bryan, was executed in 1997. Melendez’s brother, Gilbert, who also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two life prison terms, died in prison in 1998 of HIV complications. The fourth defendant, Muneer Deeb, also was sentenced to death after a trial in Cleburne. But his conviction was set aside, and Deeb was acquitted at a 1993 retrial in Fort Worth. [...] Feazell, who prosecuted the Lake Waco cases and now has law offices in Waco and Austin, called questions about the defendant’s guilt “BS” when asked about the efforts three years ago. “Anyone who’s read the trial transcripts . . . would know better and wouldn’t give this story the time of day,” Feazell said."
        • Reddit comment by dazeymayhem in 2017 about their investigation into the Lake Waco murders: "I live in Waco. It seems we are notorious for trouble. If you enjoy the Kari Baker case, check out the Lake Waco Murders. It's one hell of a rabbit hole to fall into. I've been obsessed with it for decades. There's a book by Carlton Stowers called Careless Whispers (if you can find it) that details a very biased version of the case. I started digging into it in earnest a few years ago and was told by the former attorney, Vic Feazell, that tried the case to leave it alone, in no uncertain terms. It's a trip."
        • Courthouse News Service, "Sons Say Texas Executed Their Innocent Father", 2017/04/25 (lawsuit document)
        • True Crime Stories, "The 1982 Lake Waco Murders", 2017/12/03: "Many have said that the four men not only would have not been convicted or even charged if Simons had not been on the case, but they also argue that had the preceding prosecutor not lost the election that year the charges would not have been filed. In late 1982 Victor Feazell was election the county prosecutor. Allegedly he and Simons were already friends and it was in part his decision to allow Simons to continue investigating the case and in the end it was Feazell who would be in charge of charging the four men."
        • Collection of documents on the case for Bernadette Feazell - includes the list of exhibits for Spence's APPLICATION FOR POSTCONVICTION WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
        • Crimewatchers.net thread on the Lake Waco murders - the OP says "I knew Vic Feazell casually- he was having trysts w/ my room mate. My impression of him was/is *smarmy*- not just because he was married & screwing around, but because he literally came across that way- just exuded ego, anything for attention, nasty personality in general."
        • Terry Lee Harper a.k.a. Tab Harper as a suspect
          • Salon, "The hanging governor: Did execution-happy George W. Bush sign off on the lethal injection of an innocent man?" by Alan Berlow, 2000/05/11: "In fact, police records showed that although not one of the 20-odd Waco citizens who were at the lake on the night of the murders had mentioned seeing Spence or his co-defendants, they had identified several other potential suspects, among them one Terry Lee Harper, who the same police files showed had actually boasted about having committed the murders.

            Seven witnesses reported that Harper had told them of his involvement in the murders and no less than three said they had heard Harper make the statement before the murders were publicly reported on the radio. Harper also had a rap sheet listing 25 assaults, including several against teenagers at Lake Waco. When police tried to interview Harper, he refused to cooperate. When Spence's lawyers did question him, Harper denied any involvement, and signed an affidavit saying he was home watching "Dynasty" at the time of the murders. But "Dynasty" wasn't shown that night. When police finally went to arrest Harper in 1994 in connection with another crime, the fatal stabbing of an elderly man, he killed himself with a shotgun."
          • Note that a large group of Waco police officers, which included Truman Simons, confroted Harper in 1994 when he committed suicide
        • Derwin Wilkins a.k.a. Bubba Wilkins as a suspect
          • Find A Grave page for Derwin Wilkins: "Derwin Lee Wilkins, 62, died Aug 17, 2001 in Waco TX. Services at Pecan Grove chapel. Burial in Rosemound Cemetery. Mr. Wilkins was born in Waco TX Nov 10, 1938 to Grady Earl Wilkins and Alpha Lee Hall Wilkins. In 1976 he married Rosiland Thompson, and they were married 25 years. He retired as a truck driver, and served in the National Guard. He was a member of Harvest House of Prayer. He was preceded in death by son, Ricky Wilkins and his parents. Survivors include: his wife, Rosiland Wilkins of Waco TX; daughter, Rhonda Donnell (Mark) of China Spring TX; sons, Bubba Wilkins of Waco, Michael Wilkins (Carey) of Robinson TX, Clayton Wilkins, Jason Wilkins, Joe Courtney, Steve Courtney (Debbie) all of Waco; brothers, Donald Wilkins (Linda), Sammy Wilkins (Oneita), Jerry Wilkins (Mary), Gregory Wilkins all of Waco TX; sister, Pam Turner (Carl), sister-in-law, Barbara Van Cleave of Arlington TX; 11 grandchildren, one great-grandson, many nieces and nephews."
          • 2022/09/13 Facebook post by Bernadette Feazell - on which Rosiland Wilkins commented "FUNNY 👏"
          • Friendship with Johnie Dodd - the same man who got a Lucas book contract
            • Lake Shore Funeral Home & Crematory page for Johnie “Bubba” Dodd: "Johnie Dodd, 81, a native of Waco, lovingly known to most as “Bubba”, passed away peacefully surrounded by his loving family, Friday, September 8, 2017. [...] Johnie was born, July 10, 1936 to the late Johnie Louis and Mary Ella Lansford Dodd. Bubba spent his entire life in the Waco area, enriching the lives of everyone he encountered. His giving spirit and generous heart could be seen and felt by everyone, whether it he was buying carnival tickets for a group of children or giving of his own prize possessions to a guest of his home. Bubba’s family owned and operated a local wrecking yard, “Johnie’s Auto Parts” from the early 1930’s, until choosing to sell the business in 1984. As well the Dodd family ran a local dairy farm. On more than one occasion, Bubba would take the children of the farm workers and purchase them all new shoes. He was always caring for others. In the early 1970’s, Bubba began serving papers for the McLennan County Constables office. He went on to work as a Chief Deputy Constable for McLennan County for over 19 years. Bubba was truly a “jack of all trades”, but buying and selling was one of his favorites. Bubba met the love of his life, Velma Lee Wade, when she was only 15 and he was 19. He fell in love with her penmanship in love letters, and when she became best friends with his sister, he knew he needed to make her is wife. Velma Lee and Bubba were married August 27, 1955. Together they worked the farm and the wrecking yard and raised their family. Bubba took care of her every need, even building her a house just a year after they were married. He was a part in securing the note which allowed the construction of, “Harvest House of Prayer” here in Waco."
            • 2017/09/10 comment by Rosiland Wilkins on the above obituary: "Dear Velma & family,I have been out of town & just heard about our sweet Bubba.I know that you all know where he is but I also know how much you will “miss him”!!He & his dear friend Derwin are neighbors again as he told Der they would be when he was sick????God bless you all & cherish your memories !Love to you all"
            • Facebook friends list for Johnie Dodd - includes Rosiland Wilkins, Vic Feazell, and Bernadette Feazell
            • Note that Spence defense lawyer Russ Hunt asked Dodd to arrange a meeting with Lucas in mid-April 1985 so that he could ask Lucas about the Lake Waco murders; Dodd gave the impression that he had set it up, but Bob Prince testified there was no record of such, and Lucas was ultimately bench-warranted to Waco in this exact timeframe that Hunt had requested, whereupon Lucas began recanting his murder confessions
        • John David Wilkins as a suspect
          • Waco Citizen, "Murder Trial Begins", 1985/05/07: "Testimony began about 4 p.m. Monday afternoon, in the murder trial of John David Wilkins in 54th State District Court. Wilkins, 29, of Mt. Calm, was charged last year with the Nov. 14 stabbing death of John Hart Pundt in a parking lot across the street from the former Okey Dokey Nite Club, 1005 Wooded Acres. Also charged with murder in Pundt's death is Larry Dean Kinder, 28, of 2208 Jane. 54th Court Judge George Allen has set his trial date for June 3. Kinder and Wilkins have both been free from jail on $25,000 bonds while awaiting trial. Pundt, 19, of Lacy-Lakeview suffered mutiple stab wounds in following what witnesses called a fight on the vacant lot across the street from the night club. Pat Murphy is presenting the case for the state and Joe Layman and C.W. McDonald are representing Wilkins."
          • Waco Citizen, "Wilkins Seeks New Trial", 1985/07/09: "John David Wilkins, who was sentenced in May to life in prison for the killing of john Hart Pundt, will seek a new trial hearing on Friday in 54th District Court. District Judge George Allen will hear the plea at 11 a.m. for a new trial from Wilkins attorney Charles McDonald. Wilkins was found guilty of killing Pundt dunng a fight that occurred on the parking lot across the street from the former Okey Dokey Nightclub, 1005 Wooded Acres, on November 14, 1984. In June, Larry Dean Kinder was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the same murder."
          • Houston Chronicle, "Kingwood family fights possible release of son’s killer", 2010/05/29: "Only months after graduating from Kingwood High School in 1984, John David Wilkins, 29 years old at the time, stabbed the 19-year-old college student to death. “Hart and two of his good friends went to the Texas State Technical Institute in Waco, starting in September of 1984; on November 16 of that year, they were at a club and John David Wilkins, for absolutely no reason, stabbed one of Hart’s friends in the back outside the club, then slashed his other friend who collapsed on the ground,” said John Pundt. “Hart went over to help him and Wilkins stabbed him in the chest. The stab wound was fatal.” Wilkins, who had a prior criminal history of burglary and aggravated assault, had been drinking heavily on the night of the stabbing. “The evidence showed there was absolutely no provocation,” said John Pundt. “The guy was drunk, and he was going to kill somebody. It was a completely ruthless, wanton killing for no reason.” A McLennan County jury convicted Wilkins of Hart’s murder and sentenced him to life in prison in May 1985."
        • Larry Dean Kinder as a suspect
          • Waco Citizen, "Murder Trial Begins", 1985/05/07: "Also charged with murder in Pundt's death is Larry Dean Kinder, 28, of 2208 Jane."
          • Waco Citizen, "Wilkins Seeks New Trial", 1985/07/09: "Wilkins was found guilty of killing Pundt dunng a fight that occurred on the parking lot across the street from the former Okey Dokey Nightclub, 1005 Wooded Acres, on November 14, 1984. In June, Larry Dean Kinder was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the same murder."
          • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, no. 946 F.2d 362: United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Larry Kinder, Defendant-appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. David Kinder, Defendant-appellant, appeal decision, 1991/10/21
            • "In February 1990, the Texas Department of Public Safety (TDPS), the Waco Police Department, and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) investigated the distribution of methamphetamine around Waco, Texas. They believed that Larry Kinder (Larry) and Sandra Kay Shook were major methamphetamine dealers in the area. A confidential informant had told Officer Floyd Goodwin of the TDPS that Larry was looking for a methamphetamine supplier. The informant also told officer Goodwin that Shook sold methamphetamine and collected the proceeds for Larry but that Larry controlled the operation. According to the informant, Larry sold between eight ounces and one pound of methamphetamine per week in the Waco area.

              Working undercover, Officer Goodwin commenced negotiations on February 8, 1990 to sell methamphetamine to Larry. After a few phone calls between Larry, Shook, and Goodwin, Shook went to Goodwin's hotel room. Shook told Officer Goodwin that she took care of most of Larry's "dope business" for him and discussed the possibility of purchasing a quarter-pound of methamphetamine from Goodwin. Goodwin told Shook that the $2,600 offered was not worth his time and declined to sell. Shook told Officer Goodwin that they did not need more because they still had eight ounces of unsold methamphetamine, but that they would be back later in the evening with more money.

              A short time later Larry phoned Goodwin to say that he was trying to raise the money to buy a half-pound of methamphetamine. An hour later, however, Shook called Goodwin and told him that they had only $3,400. Goodwin told Shook that he would not break open his one-pound package for that. Shook told Goodwin that Larry would want at least a half-pound of methamphetamine by the next week.

              On February 14, 1990 Officer Goodwin was informed that Larry was "ready to do business" by buying a half-pound. That evening, Larry and his brother David Kinder (David) went to Goodwin's hotel room. Larry told Goodwin that he had not wanted to buy a large amount of methamphetamine the week before "because he had 17 ounces of methamphetamine on the street and had not collected all of the money from the sale of [it]." Larry told Goodwin that he wanted to buy a half-pound now and would possibly want more later. Larry then instructed David to give Goodwin some bundles of money, and informed Goodwin that there was $5,800 in the bundles."
            • "Finally, Larry Kinder contests his two-point enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(c) for being an "organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor" of a criminal activity. Larry contends that his role was no different from the other two participants. He argues that any dominance he had over the others stemmed from his relationship to them (boyfriend to Shook; older brother to David) rather than his role in the activity."
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, obituary for Rosemary Kinder, 2022/11/09: "Rosemary (Stough) Kinder was born November 10th, 1933 in Grand Saline, Texas to Roy Evins Stough and Cora Mae (Copenhaver) Stough. Rosemary passed away Tuesday, November 1st, 2022, nine days away from celebrating her 89th birthday. [...] Rosemary graduated from Grand Saline High School in 1951 and then attended business school. She moved to Waco to receive treatment for polio. While there, she met Merritt (Mert) Kinder, who was visiting his friend Roland Maxwell. After numerous dates at the Melrose Theater, Rosemary and Mert got married at the South Waco Church of Christ on June 28th, 1952. They spent 52 years together until his passing in 2004. Rosemary lived life to the fullest, as her many great friends can attest. She was known as a constant friend to the underdog, always helping those in need. She combined this passion with a tireless work ethic. Rosemary worked most of her life for organizations dedicated to helping those in need, including Goodwill and Baylor University. As her career developed, she was the night manager at a series of hotels, including Old Main Lodge, International Inn, and New Road Inn. Rosemary retired in the mid-2000s. Rosemary is preceded in death by her husband, Mert Kinder, her father Roy Evins Stough, mother Cora Mae Copenhaver Stough Kilburn, step-father Homer Kilburn, sisters Mae Nell Hollingsworth and Roy Evelyn Stough Schoenfeld, and grandsons J.T. Torres and Lawrence Torres, along with her close friends Glenda and Domingo. She is survived by her children and their spouses; Christy and Larry Day, Larry Dean Kinder and Tracy Honeycutt, David Kinder, Trisha Kinder, Paul and Nita Kinder, Terri Sue Rushing and Andrew Kindler. She leaves behind her grandchildren and their spouses; Kevin (Summer) Spiares, Holley (Joshua) Day, Kaden Honeycutt, Rene (Joe) Gonzalez, Jessica Torres, Steven Tindell, Shyanne Kinder, Kerry Dean (Amanda) Harris, Amber Heard (Ricky Salinas), and Michael Heard, along with 25 great-grandchildren. She is further survived by many special friends, including Gloria and Kevin Tynes, Billy Kevil, Fritz Johnson, Heidi Neatherlin, Chris, Kathy, and their beloved Whataburger breakfast group."
          • Facebook social media presence
          • Don Kinder background
        • Marion Keith Boatman as a suspect
        • Ronnie Breiten as a suspect
          • First testimony of Catherine Breiten (p.1579-1608 of Spence first trial)
          • Second testimony of Catherine Breiten (p.1693-1706 of Spence first trial)
          • Note that Breiten was later murdered in 1992
          • Find A Grave memorial for William “Willie or Bill” Breiten: "William Breiten Sr. 93, passed away at his home in Waco, Texas on March 23, 2023. [...] William Breiten Sr. was born January 22, 1930, to Joseph and Frances Breiten in Oglesby, Texas. He was the middle child of 5 siblings. William Breiten Sr. served in the United States Navy for 20 years before becoming a retired Veteran. While serving his country he spent much time aboard the USS Coral Sea. He was proud of the years he served and was an honorable Veteran. He is preceded in death by his wife, Catherine of 40 years; his children, Ronnie, Laura (Rosa), and William (Billy) Jr; his parents; his brothers, Joseph Jr., and John; and sister, Annie (Garcia). He is survived by his son, Duane, daughter, Anita; his younger brother, Albert; 14 grandchildren; many great grandchildren; and hundreds of cousins and other family members."
        • Richard Franks as a suspect - note that he the neighbor and "good friend" of US District Judge Walter Smith Jr., and in 1985, he received a letter discussing Smith's "sexual escapades" which he then made available to Smith's wife
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, obituary for Franks, Richard L., 2015/08/30: "Richard L. Franks, of Waco, passed away Thursday, August 27, 2015. Consistent with Richard's wishes and at his son's request/suggestion, a Celebration of Richard's life will be be scheduled at a later date. Richard was born July 29, 1937 in Shreveport, Louisiana, to Jewell and Mittie Franks. He is survived by son, Curtis Franks and wife, Amber, of Austin; brother, Ron Franks and wife,Tricia, of Fort Worth; sister, Brenda Kucharski of Klamath Falls, Oregon; and Mr. Kenneth King, of Waco; and two grandchildren, Hayden and Chelsea Franks, of Austin."
        • Robert Frueh as a suspect
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Bethel Baptist Names Frueh As Pastor", 1973/03/10: "Rev. Robert Frueh will become pastor of Bethel Baptist Church of Waco Sunday. He was pastor of Central Baptist Church of Thornton for two and one-half years. Rev. Frueh is a native of Donnellson, Iowa, He graduated from Southeastern Iowa Community College and Sioux Falls College and has attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also former pastor of First Baptist Church of Aquilla. Rev. Frueh will live at 802 Rambler Drive."
          • Note that Frueh was later stabbed to death by a teenager in 1991
        • Muneer Deeb as a suspect
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Outcome of Deeb trial sends shocks", 1993/01/13
          • Dallas Observer, "Defending Darlie", 1998/08/06: "Simons' murder-for-hire theory had several flaws, however. Deeb paid for similar policies on another employee, plus one for himself and his partner. These policies were cheaper than workman's compensation, Muneer recently explained to the Dallas Observer. And the insurance policy did not pay in the case of murder or suicide, according to Deeb's insurance agent. Besides, Deeb did not need the money--his father was a well-compensated executive with IBM in Saudi Arabia."
        • David Spence as a suspect
          • Gene Deal background and involvement as Spence's probation officer - TODO: fill out
          • David Puryear background and testimony against Spence - TODO: fill out
        • Juanita White murder - in 1986 in Waco TX
          • Waco Citizen, "CRIME OF THE WEEK: Capitol Murder", 1986/04/18: "On Sunday, March 2, 1986, friends of Juanita White became worried about her not being at church. Friends, along with police, checked her residence at 1901 N. 15th and discovered her body in the back room of the house. Police believe sometime during the night, someone kicked in the front door of Mrs. White’s residence. Mrs. White confronted the suspect and a struggle began. She was struck in the head several times which caused her death. The suspect left in the victim’s car, a 1978 Pontiac LeMans with a white top and green bottom. The car was later found by Waco Police in the 1100 block of No. 6th."
          • Waco Citizen, "Murder Trial Witnesses Questioned", 1987/12/04 (pages 1, 2): "Dennis Garvey former assistant DA told the jury of six men and six women and two male alternates, that the Washington case was assigned to him after Pat Murphy left. Garvey said he knew Murphy and District Attorney Vic Feazell had worked on the case and that Truman Simons, Sheriff's Deputy was also working on the case. [...] Don Davis, brother-in-law of Calvin Washington, was the next to take the stand. Davis is serving a 50 year sentence in TDC on the psychiatric ward, for aggravated sexual assault. [...] Davis, married to Washington's sister, Wanda, testified his body was sometimes taken over by his dead father and he would commit crimes. "I see visions and my father makes me do things, that my mind knows are wrong," Davis, 26, testified. On Thursday he testified his father was killed in Dalhart in 1975 by the Klu Klux Clan. He also said he hated his father, and when he does not take his medication, he hears his fathers voice and sees him in visions. He testified the employees of the county jail would not give him his medication while he was incarcerated and would not allow him to call a psychiatrist. [...] [Defense attorney Doug] Henager asked Davis if he could be having visions about talking to Washington. "I'm not aware, it's like I black out," Davis responded. [...] Davis who was booked into the county jail on February 27, 1987 was talking to Washington less than five days after the defendant was booked in March 17, 1986. "Calvin was nervous and crying and Truman Simons said he wanted to talk to me," Davis said. Davis was released from jail on March 25, 1986 after the court dismissed a sexual assault case on a letter from the district attorney's office. Davis said he talked with Washington about four times before they became cellmates. [...] Davis said he knew his release from jail was a mistake, so he turned himself in again the next day. He was in jail on violation of parole for 90 days. [...] Davis continued his testimony saying he had two contact visits with his wife Wanda in Truman Simons' office. [...] [Capt. Dan] Weyenberg testified a "hold" written on Davis's booking card had been whited out. [...] Jan Price, WPD detective, who worked the Juanita White murder, was the next witness called by the defense on Wednesday. [...] "Truman Simons told Don Davis in my presence that he wanted Davis to know he was not an agent of the state and he explained to him, that if he was he would have to give Washington the warnings required," she told the court. [...] Simons testified that Jan Price had met with him and Feazell. Feazell then took the stand and told the court he had followed the case and worked on it. "We had been trying to work with the Waco Police Department and Jan Price came over, I was in the meeting with Jan Price and Simons when Truman told her what Washington had told Davis," Feazell testified. "I had the impression at that time she was excited about the conversation, she was concerned about what her boss Bobby Fortune would say," Feazell said. [...] [After returning to the stand on Thursday afternoon] Davis further testified that he had pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault and had a total of 50 years in TDC. Geraldine Douglas, 28, mother of 4 children, was the next witness for the state. She testified she heard Joe Sidney Williams Jr. and Washington talking on the night of March 1 outside the Rocket Club on Cumberland and they were wondering what to do "with the woman." Currently on four years probation for welfare fraud, Mrs. Douglas also said she later saw Williams at the Sands, an after hours nightclub. Mrs. Douglas formerly married to Washington's brother, said she began talking to the DA's office about a month ago, while in jail waiting for her case to be heard. [...] The state recommended probation for Mrs. Douglas on the welfare fraud case one day after she met with Truman Simons in her jail cell. [...] She had previously stated before the jury she had not met with the state until after she received probation, but Crow produced evidence that it was the day prior to her sentencing."
          • Dallas Observer, "Defending Darlie", 1998/08/06: "No proof exists linking White's death to the investigation and conviction of her son, though Pardo claims his "street sources" say there was a direct correlation. The investigation into her death, however, did bear an uncanny similarity to the one that put her son on death row.

            White's murder case was assigned to Waco police officer Jan Price, who developed a suspect--a man who committed a similar murder in Juanita White's neighborhood two months later. But before Price could pursue the case further, she was told that Truman Simons had conducted his own investigation. The district attorney's office was going to try two men he had fingered for the crime--Joe Sydney Williams and Calvin Washington, petty thieves who were almost a decade apart in age and barely knew each other.

            Again, Simons used jailhouse snitches to make his case. An inmate testified that he walked past a hotel room in the middle of the night and overheard Williams and Washington implicating themselves in the crime. At least 15 Waco police officers testified for the defense at the trials. They claimed that the most important prosecution witnesses should not be believed."
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Waco police say Bennie Carroll was an early suspect in the White murder because of similar crimes he committed", 2001/12/16
            • "While J.R. Price and Salinas stayed at the house until almost midnight processing the scene, Jan Price started trying to fit other pieces of the case together. When she was notified that police officers had found White's 1979 Pontiac Le Mans, she headed over to the apartment complex in the 1100 block of North Sixth Street where it had been dumped.

              There, Jan Price talked to a resident named Alberta DeGrate, who told her she had seen a black man in his mid-20s drive up in the car about noon that day. DeGrate didn't have many more details about the incident, except to say that the driver probably got into a blue car that was driven into the apartment complex by another black man shortly afterward."
            • "When officers looked for evidence after the second burglary, they found something that might indicate the house was specifically targeted. Discovered on the floor of White's garage was a "fairly new piece of paper which had writing on it describing a house with red and green siding at 15th and Cumberland," according to a police report. It was an apparent reference to White's house."
            • "Meanwhile, other Waco police officers were working a separate, seemingly routine theft case on the day White's body was found. Although they didn't know it at the time, the man they would question in the incident would later be at the center of the White investigation.

              A resident of an apartment in the 1100 block of North Sixth Street — the block where White's automobile was abandoned — reported that a stereo had been stolen out of his car.

              [...]

              The victim told police later that day that neighbors reported they'd seen a 21-year-old black man named Bennie Carroll with his stolen radio. Based on that information, police went to question Carroll at his home at 1403 Indiana Ave."
            • "Carroll, who went by the street name of "Homeboy," initially denied that he had stolen the stereo and said he could account for his whereabouts that night. However, he seemed nervous, according to police reports, and stayed in frequent contact with the police department during the next several days, sometimes calling two or three times within a 24-hour period.

              Although Carroll was never arrested in the stolen stereo case, he eventually admitted being involved. The complaint was dropped after he agreed to replace the stereo and to pay the owner for damage to the burglarized car."
            • "The police department was never officially informed that Simons was on the case. In hindsight, J.R. Price said, there was a clue: Within a week of White's death, Vic Feazell, the McLennan County district attorney at the time, ordered the police department to turn over its still-developing files on the case."
            • "When Jan Price went to the county jail to investigate Davis' release, she said in her deposition that jailers told her Simons had "whited out" the hold on Davis' jail booking card. Only the state parole office can legitimately remove a parole hold."
            • "Jan Price said in her deposition that she became even more uneasy when Simons asked her to get a key to White's house a few weeks after her death. Since the police department had already turned the house back over to White's family, Price said she had to ask Steve Spence for a key.

              Once she got the key, she said, Simons told her that he and Feazell wanted to look in White's attic. She accompanied the two men to the house and said they both went into the attic, saying they were looking for something that had to do with the Lake Waco murders. She said they did not come back down with anything she could see, adding that they didn't have a search warrant."
            • "Simons also takes issue with Jan Price's account of the visit he and Feazell made to White's house. He said they did want to go to the house to look for evidence from the Lake Waco murders, but Simons said only he, not Feazell, went into the attic.

              In a recent telephone interview, Feazell acknowledged that he went to White's house with Simons and Jan Price. However, he said he did not go into the attic and could not remember if Simons had."
            • "The first step the department took was to talk with the prosecutors. J.R. Price and Jan Price, in her deposition, said that they, along with the police department's legal adviser Chuck Karakashian, met with the two assistant district attorneys who were prosecuting the case to let them know they had another suspect, Bennie Carroll, who should be seriously considered.

              But the two detectives said the prosecutors had no interest in what they had to say. Assistant District Attorney Scott Peterson told them, they have both said, that prosecutors were going to rely on Simons' case because he had been in law enforcement for a long time. Peterson told them he would classify them as hostile witnesses if necessary, J.R. Price said."
            • "Nonetheless, Jan Price tried one more time before the trials began to save what she said she thought were two innocent men from being prosecuted. She said she and Karakashian paid a visit to another assistant district attorney named El-Hadi Shabazz, according to an affidavit she gave under oath in November 1991.

              [...]

              "Shabazz replied that he was well aware that the testimony of some of the prosecution's proposed witnesses, including particularly Waymon Dotson, was false," Jan Price said in the affidavit. "He said further that he was not concerned that their testimony would be false, and that the State was preparing to knowingly present this fabricated evidence in any event."

              [...]

              Shabazz, who now lives in Santa Clara County, Calif., denies that he made those remarks or talked about the White case or any other case with Jan Price, said his lawyer, Michael C. Cohen of Oakland, Calif. Through his attorney, Shabazz also said he did not speak to Karakashian about the matter or have any involvement in the prosecution of Calvin Washington. Shabazz said the statement regarding him that Price made in the 1991 affidavit is "a complete and malicious lie.""
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Battles in court and out: Jurors believe inmate tales and send pair away, but the fight for freedom goes on", 2001/12/17
            • "One of the Waco police officers, Mike Nicoletti, even testified in Washington's trial that he had direct knowledge of a deal being offered to a potential witness named Arthur Brandon. Nicoletti, who in a recent interview confirmed his testimony, said on the witness stand that Brandon told him that Truman Simons had made a deal with Brandon to have a pending murder charge against him dropped in exchange for his testifying against Washington.

              When Nicoletti asked Brandon if he was going to testify, he said he was not. Instead, he said, his wife was going to testify in his place because her criminal background was not as extensive as his. Although Brandon was not legally married, his common-law wife was Geraldine Douglas, who did testify against Washington."
            • "The 25-year-old had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in June of 1990, just three months after he was paroled for the May 1986 assault that police said was chillingly similar to the attack on White. He was found lying on the bathroom floor at his girlfriend's residence in Waco, where a .38-caliber handgun was found in the toilet, a police report said.

              Witnesses told police that Carroll carried the gun with him everywhere he went, not even putting it down when he picked up something else. That led investigators to believe that perhaps he had a hair brush and the gun in his hand at the same time and the gun accidentally discharged."
            • "In a recent interview, Feazell said he has never been shown any reason why the witnesses' stories, as they told them in court, should not be believed. However, he said the sworn recantations they gave afterward probably should not be trusted.

              "Sworn statements don't mean anything," he said, "especially if they were collected by Jan Price.""
            • "Feazell insisted that the bite-mark evidence against Williams was pretty conclusive and on that basis alone, Williams should have been retried. He pointed out that Williams' conviction was reversed not because the bitemark evidence was judged bad, but because hearsay was improperly admitted at his trial.

              "What we've got is pretty solid evidence that Joe Sidney Williams' mouth was on Juanita White's body around the time she was killed," Feazell said. "Apparently forensic odontology is acceptable everywhere else in the U.S. except Waco.""
            • "Because of the new DNA evidence, Feazell said, it's clear that Carroll must have been in on White's murder with Washington and Williams. He said recently that he always thought there was a third suspect, but prosecutors were never able to find out because Washington and Williams would not tell them who was involved. He also said Waco police never mentioned Carroll's name until after the trials were over."
            • ""I hope that Calvin Washington has straightened out his life. If not, the $300,000 the state plans to give him if he is pardoned — as recommended by John Segrest, Larry Lynch and George Allen — will certainly buy a lot of crack," Feazell said before the pardon was granted."
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "The Witnesses", 2001/12/17
            • "Harold Brown

              Criminal History: At the time of the trial, Brown was in prison for possession of a controlled substance. He had previously been convicted at least five times for possession of marijuana and he had several convictions for unlawfully carrying a weapon. He had also been arrested for attempted murder.

              Relation: He was the owner of Brown's Fine Foods, which was also known as the Sands.

              Testimony: Brown said that on a weekend night around the time of White's murder, he was inside at the Sands when Williams asked him to come outside. When he did, Brown saw Washington inside a car resembling White's.

              Possible Deals: Brown had a long history of having charges dismissed by the district attorney's office. Charges dismissed included attempted murder, burglary of a habitation with intent to kidnap, unlawfully carrying a weapon and burglary of a vehicle."
            • "Sammy Crawford

              [...]

              Other Facts: Crawford said that Simons visited him at his house the night before he testified."
            • "Fate Dotson

              [...]

              Also, Dotson testified that Simons used to regularly pick up his brother, Waymon Dotson, and take him to run errands. One time Waymon came back with drugs, he said. Dotson said Simons took Waymon on errands in return for Waymon helping Simons in some way.

              Recantation: In a statement he gave to police in January 1988, Dotson said all of his testimony was false and that he was not with Washington or Williams on the night White was killed. He said he was coerced by then-District Attorney Vic Feazell; an assistant DA; and his brother, Waymon, to testify. He said that they all told him that if he testified, Waymon would get a lighter charge on a pending case. After the trial, Dotson said, some strangers confronted him, saying they knew he had lied at trial. He became scared and asked Simons for a bus ticket to get out of town. He said Simons bought the ticket for him."
            • "Angela Miles

              [...]

              Also, Miles said on Dec. 31 that after she bonded out of prison following Williams' trial, a man came to see her. He said that Simons wanted her to come to the DA's office and that he had been instructed to give her drugs to induce her cooperation. When Miles eventually went to the office, she said she was questioned by Simons and assistant district attorneys Scott Peterson and Karen Amos. At that time, Simons told her that Waymon Dotson had said she was with him, Washington and Williams on the night White was murdered.

              Miles said she was required to take a polygraph administered by McLennan County Sheriff Jack Harwell. She said she was not asked any questions about what was in her statement but was instead quizzed about whether she had been at the C&E Motel that night or in White's car.

              [...]Afterward, Miles said, she was told that she had failed the polygraph. Simons then threatened to charge her with capital murder, she said, basing that on Waymon Dotson's statement that she was in White's car."
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Former prosecutors now split on defendants' guilt: Amos believes pair were innocent of crime, but Peterson still has doubts", 2001/12/17
            • "The contrary opinions seem to have started back in 1987 as the two prosecutors were preparing for trial. Amos, who was the lead prosecutor on the cases, said recently that she thought then that the two men were guilty. But she was uncomfortable with the cases from the start, she said, because of the questionable character of many of the state's witnesses and the lack of any evidence that conclusively linked the defendants to the crime scene.

              "They were the weakest two cases I've ever brought before a jury before," Amos said.

              Peterson, on the other hand, said he felt pretty comfortable with the cases. He said he remembers always wanting more evidence, since the reputations of many of the state's witnesses were so bad. But when then-McLennan County Sheriff's Deputy Truman Simons told him Washington had confessed to him and showed Peterson what he thought was good corroborating evidence, he made up his mind that the two men were guilty. Simons, who has since retired from the department, deferred interview requests by the Tribune-Herald on at least five occasions and finally refused to grant an interview for this series."
            • "Amos and Peterson also disagree in their views of Waco Police Sgt. Jan Price, the investigator who originally developed Bennie Carroll as a suspect. Amos said she wishes now that she had taken the time to sit down with Price and hear her out.

              Peterson does not share that regret. He said he met with Price and Waco Police Sgt. Robert Fortune but that Price used the meeting to vent about the district attorney's office rather than present him with evidence that cleared Williams or Washington or indicated Carroll.

              "They just yelled at me, so much that spit was coming out of their mouths," Peterson said."
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "The search for Juanita White's killer in many significant ways paralleled the investigation of the Lake Waco triple murders for which White's son, David Wayne Spence, was executed", 2001/12/18
            • "In the White case, Feazell delegated the prosecution duties to two assistant district attorneys in his office, but he made the decision to accept the case developed by Simons against Washington and Williams. He was in the courtroom for parts of the trials and made a few arguments for the prosecution during sessions in the judge's chambers."
            • "In the White case, three witnesses — Don Davis Jr., Angela Miles and Fate Dotson — completely recanted their testimony and said it was false. A fourth witness, Waymon Dotson, partially recanted."
            • "After Spence's trials, many of the witnesses who testified against him also recanted in sworn statements and other statements included in Spence appeals documents. They included Jesse H. Ivy, Frank Amorella, Robert David Snelson, Randy Joe White and Kevin Ray Mikel. The testimony of a sixth witness, David E. Puryear, was also called into question by his former-brother-in-law, who said Puryear told him his testimony was fabricated.

              [...]

              Steve Moore, a former brother-in-law of Puryear, said in a November 1991 statement that Puryear had a stapled booklet from Feazell containing what he was supposed to testify to and that Feazell had promised to pay Puryear for his testimony.

              Ivy said in a sworn statement in October 1992 that Feazell paid him $700 for a ring he had made in a prison workshop and that Simons allowed him to have alcohol and marijuana in jail. He also said that officials in the district attorney's office treated him "like one of the boys," and even jokingly offered him a "big Styrofoam 'key to the jail' or 'key to the city' as a present."

              Randy Joe White said in a statement that he was given a private cell with a shower and was given a radio. Several times a week, he said, Simons would take him out of the jail and drive him to visit his father, first at the nursing home where he stayed and then later at his private apartment. After many of those visits, he said he would smuggle drugs back into the jail because he was never searched."
            • "Spence's lawyers soon learned that Harper had an extensive criminal history. At the time of the lake murders, he had already been arrested on 22 assault charges of varying severity, an armed robbery charge, three aggravated robbery charges and a terroristic threat charge, according to a court document.

              When defense attorneys inquired about Harper during Spence's appeals process, they were told he had an alibi that made it impossible for him to have committed the crimes. But the nature of that alibi was not specified, Schonemann said.

              [...]

              When Spence's attorneys inquired further, they learned that Harper's alibi was that he claimed to have been at home watching the television show "Dynasty" with his sister and her boyfriend the night the three teen-agers were killed.

              Not only was that a far cry from an airtight alibi, but television records showed that "Dynasty" did not air that night, Schonemann said. Also, police reports that relate to the questioning of Harper never mention an alibi or that the alibi witnesses were ever interviewed."
            • "In Feazell's mind, there is only one connection that matters when talking about Washington and Williams in the White case and David Spence in the Lake Waco murders case.

              "Those boys were guilty, and David Spence was guilty," Feazell said."
          • National Registry of Exonerations page for Joe Sidney Williams - the information about Williams and Washington being arrested the day after White's murder for being "in possession of the White’s car" is false
        • Truman Simons background
          • Bernadette Feazell, "TRUMAN SIMONS STRANGE DEPOSITION", 2015/11/28: "Truman Simons in a deposition in 2003 against Brian Pardo and John McLemore over an article in a “trade magazine” where they question the guilt of David Spence and the others in the famous Lake Waco Triple Murder, blames the break up of his marriage on the article. He forgets about his affair with the wife of Waco Fire Chief, John Johnston, “Sherre” in his first deposition. This is the second. “Sherre”, then becomes a secretary for Vic Feazell for the next 10 years or so, AND is listed on Simons’ Private Detective license. Simons is represented by Dave Deaconson of Waco, read how lawyer Deaconson tries to “clean up” Simons’ ideas of WHEN an affair begins."
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Longtime lawman credited with solving 1982 Lake Waco murders dies", 2021/11/01: "After he retired from law enforcement as a captain with the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office, Simons spent the past two decades as a successful private investigator, working with defense attorneys. [...] While Simons avoided the spotlight, his dogged pursuit of the Lake Waco killers became the subject of award-winning writer Carlton Stowers’ 1986 book, “Careless Whispers,” a best-seller that chronicled Simons’ relentless investigation [...] “In my career, I have meet a lot of people in law enforcement and none who I ever admired more than Truman Simons,” Stowers said Monday. [...] Waco attorney David Deaconson, who worked with Simons when Deaconson was a young prosecutor in the mid-1980s, said Texas has lost a “true icon.” “He was a man of integrity who always focused on finding the truth, even when the truth wasn’t the popular answer,” Deaconson said. [...] Some of Simons’ last work was done as an investigator for defense attorney Jessi Freud in a sexual assault of a child case, which ended in a hung jury and mistrial three weeks ago."
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, obituary for Truman Simons, 2021/11/07: "Truman Lee Simons, of Waco, Texas, passed from this life to his eternal life, the night of October 30, 2021.

            Truman was born May 16, 1943, in Rosenthal, Texas, to Lonzo Luther Simons and Maud Hickox Simons. He was the second oldest of four children, and was preceded in death by his parents; his older sister, Jenny Joyce May; and "little sister", Linda Wacill Simons. He was raised in the community of Rosenthal and attended Lorena Schools. He also served his country in the Air Force from June 1960 and was honorably discharged in June 1964.

            Truman was known to many for his time as a law enforcement agent, both with the Waco PD and the McLennan County Sheriff's department. Truman had risen to the rank of Captain at the Sheriff's department prior to leaving in 2001. He won many awards as a peace officer and was most notably featured in the book Careless Whispers for helping solve the Lake Waco Murders. For many years he would receive thoughtful letters from strangers around the world, who appreciated his tenacity, grit and ability to work the hard cases. Even though he never sought fame or compensation for that case, it made him into a well-known public figure.

            After leaving law enforcement, Truman started his own business as a private investigator and continued to work many cases across the state up until his death. He truly cared about all of his clients and made sure they got a fair trial. For any of his open cases today, please know that even as he became sick, he had told his loved ones that he wanted to live long enough to help close his cases and help each of you get the best judgement or set free. We know it broke his heart that he was unable to finish his work.

            Truman was also a mechanic in his spare time that liked to rebuild cars and work on small engines. He always had two or three horses on his ranch that he loved. He enjoyed shooting his guns and even built a black-powder rifle when he was younger. He loved and lived by the old cowboy spirit and was very proud to trace his family roots back to Wild Bill Hickok. He was always a family man that mostly kept to himself and enjoyed his privacy. If Truman called you his friend, then you knew you earned it.

            He leaves behind his best friend, Sherre Whitney; his daughter, Kelly Simons, her boyfriend, Mark Walter; his son, Jason Simons, his daughter-in-law, Natalie Johnson; his brother, Randy Simons and sister-in-law, Patricia Simons; nieces, Rebecca Simons and Adrianna Simons Suarte; as well many extended family members, cousins, and cherished friends. He was also lovingly known as Paw Paw to his granddaughter, Kellsy Macdonald; grandson, Kris Macdonald; grandson, Nicholas (Niko) Simons, Paige Whitney Johnston, and Ben David Johnston.

            Truman requested a small graveside funeral with only his family in attendance. We honored his wishes on Friday, November 5. Bishop Willie E. Tompkins officiated."
          • Facebook social media presence
          • Sherre Johnston background
            • Radio Legendary, "Things We Lost In The Fire", 2017/02/20
              • "[...] Lt. Kevin Fisk wound up in a heap of trouble over how and why Ashley Dawn Rogers and her kids lost their lives on February 16, 2012 when her trailer house exploded in the sudden conflagration he says was ordered and carried out by the Texas Aryan Brotherhood, a prison gang with its roots in California and its fingers in the synthesis and sales of methamphetamine, auto theft and extortion."
              • "One of the items to be herein discussed was at one time part of an Internal Affairs Division investigation derailed by former Fire Chief John Johnston and Fire Marshal Kevin Vranich in what Fisk came to think of as a “quid pro quo” arrangement with what he has described as multiple moving parts. On October 1, 2014, Fisk had an appointment with an Internal Affairs investigator to go over his records and recollections regarding certain procedural irregularities in both departments, primarily where his investigation of the Ashley Dawn Rogers case interfered with the agenda of certain other detectives and command staffers. The meeting was scheduled for a little after the noon hour, but when he arrived for work that morning, he was ordered to a conference room at department headquarters and confronted with an allegation of “critical incident stress,” something Vranich said amounted to an injury that was affecting his objectivity. [...] The officials subsequently removed him from any active follow-up investigations of fires of questionable origin past the initial reports. He eventually wound up on administrative leave pending an psychiatric evaluation."
              • "In this first set of documents, Fisk documents how Vranich represented that a set of 9 Glock pistols – four of which were property of individual officers and 5 owned by the City of Waco were all government property, not to be sold or transferred. Falsification of the documents are prima facie evidence of a federal felony, a violation of a subsection of 18 US Code."
              • "In a second series of documents, two events which occurred long before Fisk’s meeting with Waco Police Internal Affairs are described in police reports, one in Robinson, the other at an apartment complex in Waco – during which Chief Johnston’s wife Sherre Johnston allegedly screamed imprecations at police officers whom she urged to arrest her daughter’s boyfriend for drugs after they found none, waved a 14-inch butcher knife with a serrated edge, and cut the shoulder of her daughter’s boyfriend during a confrontation. Though Chief Johnston claimed in remarks to the union’s president that there was no truth to reports that he kicked in doors at his daughter’s apartment, the documents clearly show that he did so when he thought the young woman was inside preparing to kill herself with a razor blade. Police reports released to the Johnstons’ daughter Taylor recount how she was found in a bathtub, cutting patterns on her naked thighs because it is easier to bear that kind of pain than it is to endure the strife of her mother’s wrath, she explained to Waco police."
                • Per page 13 of those Waco PD documents, Sherre's daughter's boyfriend says she claimed "her and ABEL REYNA are best friends and nothing will happen"
              • "Booking records obtained from the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office show that Mrs. Johnston has been arrested three times recently for DWI, unlawfully carrying a weapon, and failure to identify. A description of her employment at the time of her last arrest showed she worked for Private Investigator Truman Simon, a former Lieutenant of the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office. A notation on the documents shows that her permit had lapsed at the time."
              • "Mrs. Johnston endured a hot 15 minutes of fame when she found a close friend, long-time law man Mike McNamara, suffering a fatal heart attack in the parking lot of a steak house on Franklin Avenue in Waco. She called 9-1-1 operators and became rather hysterical when the woman who answered the emergency call began to ask questions. The tense moments were captured on tape."
              • "Sherre Johnston (r) recently opened “Ricochet,” a boutique located in the Central Texas Marketplace, that specializes in trendy party dresses"
            • KWTX, "Businesswoman charged in burglary on local sheriff’s property", 2017/05/10: "A local businesswoman has been arrested and charged in connection with a break-in Sunday at a storage shed next to the home of McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara off Rock Creek road in Bosqueville. Sherre Johnston, 49, of Lorena was arrested early Monday morning after a search warrant signed at 1:40 a.m. Monday by 54th District Court Judge Matt Johnson was executed at her home on Deer Valley Drive. [...] Johnston was arrested and booked into the McLennan County Jail. She was charged with burglary and criminal mischief and was later released after posting bonds totaling $6,000. McNamara declined to comment on the arrest Wednesday. An affidavit filed in connection with the arrest says that Johnston was seen on McNamara’s property by two credible witnesses at around 7:45 p.m. Sunday. [...] Johnston was warned last month to stay off the property. The affidavit said a law enforcement officer spotted her on McNamara’s property on April 13. She was advised she wasn’t allowed there and signed a document stating she understood she would face a criminal trespass charge if she returned."
            • Radio Legendary, "Burglary charge ends guns and roses affair", 2017/05/10: "According to a public document that officials of the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office refused to release to RadioLegendary, a prominent boutique owner had been given a criminal trespassing warning months ago, a document warning her to stay away from Sheriff Parnell McNamara’s home place. His brother Mike McNamara is buried there and Mrs. Sherre Johnston had visited his grave a number of times, causing complaints by his widow and family. In an exclusive interview at the time, she said she was upset because McNamara was a close friend. “Why shouldn’t I be allowed to visit the grave of a close friend?” she asked. She found him suffering a fatal heart attack in the parking lot of an area restaurant, she said, and called an ambulance. “I was just driving by.” On Sunday, May 5, she reportedly returned to the home place of the McNamara brothers’ father, U.S. Deputy Marshal in Charge of the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas, where the family has lived since antebellum days. [...] Mrs. Johnston is no stranger to legal controversy. For a number of years she served as an assistant in the law office of Vic Feazell, former District Attorney, and had a place on the slate of associates listed on the Private Investigator’s license of Truman Simons, a former Waco police detective and Captain of the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office [...]"
            • Pecan Grove Funeral Home obituary for Bonnie Jean Whitney (Parrott): "Bonnie Jean Whitney of Waco, went to be with her Lord, family and friends, on May 16, 2017. Graveside services will be 1:00 p.m., Friday, May 19, at Oakwood Cemetery, Waco, with Rev. Gary Riley officiating. Mrs. Whitney was born on July 18, 1928, in Waco, Texas. She graduated from the old Waco High School, on Columbus Ave. She attended 4 C Business College, and Baylor University. She was an avid Baylor Bear. She worked at James Connally Air Force Base and for the federal government for 25 years, which she retired from. She was known for her very high IQ, eloquent vocabulary, and vivid memory. Mrs. Whitney loved her family and most of all, her Lord. She would pray for, or witness to anyone she met. She never met a stranger. Mrs. Whitney is proceeded in death by her parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. They are all having a joyous reunion in heaven. She is survived by her daughter, Sherre Whitney Johnston; son-in-law, John David Johnston; three grandchildren, Taylor Lynn Johnston, Paige Whitney Johnston, and Ben David Johnston, all of Lorena; along with numerous great-nieces and nephews."
            • Bernadette Feazell, "SHERRE JOHNSTON EMAIL 2001, “You have known about us from the beginning and I need to know who you have told.”", 2017/08/14
            • Bernadette Feazell, "YES MAN #4 This hurts, RAY BLACK", 2017/12/22: "See she doesn’t want to be associated as “Vic’s secretary” because Vic fired her ass through the attorney in his LOVF office on Waco Drive. My son was there that day. Pissed Truman off too. He showed up and announced he was “never sending another case to Vic Feazell, ever”. See, Truman and Vic broke up, after Texas Monthly’s article about Spence, then a year or so later, Vic fired Sherre. FIRED.

              Ray believes his clients, most of the time lawyers know better but Ray even drank the Kool-Aid and let Miss Thang strut her stuff into the Courthouse with Truman who was pretending to be her “investigator” with his little notebook etc. Well, when he wasn’t there as her “investigator”, hell, she was pleading GUILTY."
            • KWTX, "Central Texas businesswoman indicted", 2019/05/30: "Sherre Lynn Johnston, 52, of Lorena, has been indicted by a Waco grand jury on one charge of prohibited substance in a correctional facility, a state jail felony, according to county documents. The indictment alleges Johnston took the controlled substance Alprazolam, commonly known as Xanax, into the McLennan County Jail on July 20, 2018. At the time, Johnston was in the middle of serving a 180 jail sentence after she was convicted on two counts of driving while intoxicated. The judge agreed to allow her to serve her time on weekends, which records show she started Jan. 19, 2018. At some point, Johnston stopped her weekend service temporarily, but jail officials said they could not disclose why due to potential HIPAA violations. Records show Johnston resumed her weekend service in June. [...] Johnston has been arrested locally at least six times since 2016 on various charges including burglary in connection with a break-in on the property of McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara in May 2017. That case is still open, KWTX confirmed Thursday."
            • Facebook post by Sherre Whitney on 2021/11/05 about Truman Simons' death - claims that Simons was "A Vietnam vet who was part of their special forces/ ranger team"; is care-reacted by Ray J Black Jr, and is liked by Jason Darling
            • Waco Tribune-Herald, "McLennan County grand jury indictments: April 14, 2022", 2022/04/18 (updated 2022/04/19): "Sherre Whitney Johnston — burglary of a habitation, tampering with physical evidence"
          • Dave Deaconson background
            • Facebook friends list - includes some Drury family members (TODO: where do I remember that from?), some Copeland family members, Parnell McNamara, Josh Tetens, Vic Feazell, David Fanning (relation to Whitney Fanning?), Tommy Witherspoon, and Truman Simons
          • Jessi Freud background and cases
            • Murder-for-hire by Seth Sutton and Chelsea Tijerina against Marcus Beaudin
              • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Waco attorney named in indecency with a child warrant", 2020/02/14: "Marcus Beaudin, 37, is expected to turn himself in to Woodway police late Sunday night, Beaudin’s attorney, Josh Tetens, said. [...] Tetens said Beaudin is charged with improper sexual contact with an 11-year-old female family member. Beaudin formerly worked at the Waco law firm of Dunnam & Dunnam and with local attorney Whitney Fanning before Beaudin and his wife, Chelsea Beaudin, opened their own practice at 600 Austin Ave. Chelsea Beaudin filed for divorce in December. Beaudin is a 2008 graduate of the Baylor University School of Law and graduated from Texas A&M University in 2005. He was in 19th State District Court on Friday morning for status conference hearings representing clients charged with possession of methamphetamine, possession of cocaine and burglary of a building."
                • Note that Whitney Fanning appeared at 38:18 in Episode 3 of The Confession Killer to claim (alongside Guy Cox) that the federal government was intimidating Waco lawyers such as himself into testifying against Feazell
              • KXXV, "Waco attorneys arrested for solicitation of capital murder", 2020/05/23 (updated 2020/05/26): "Sutton is a prominent lawyer in the area and represented Jeff Battey, one of the bikers who was set to go on trial for the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout."
              • KXXV, "Waco attorney arrested for murder-for-hire dies in motorcycle crash", 2021/05/28: "A Waco attorney who was arrested last year for murder-for-hire has died, her attorney confirmed Friday. Chelsea Tijerina Beaudin was killed on Thursday, May 27 in a motorcycle crash in Hayes County, according to attorney Jessi Freud. Beaudin was arrested in May 2020 for solicitation of capitol murder. She and Seth Andrew Sutton, also a Waco attorney, are accused of plotting to kill Marcus Beaudin."
              • KWTX, "Local attorney, target of murder-for-hire plot, indicted on charge of attempted indecency with a child", 2021/06/24: "A grand jury in McLennan County on Thursday indicted Marcus Daniel Beaudin, a Waco-area attorney once the target of a murder-for-hire plot allegedly orchestrated by his ex-wife, on a charge of attempted indecency with a child by contact. [...] The Waco-Tribune Herald reports Thursday’s indictment is related to an alleged incident involving a teenage girl in May 2016 and not to a case News 10 first reported in February 2020. The newspaper reports Beaudin has not been indicted in connection to the February 2020 case, but that case is still pending. [...] In February 2020, Woodway Police arrested Beaudin after he failed to turn himself in at the county jail on an indecency charge. At the time of the arrest, Beaudin’s attorney Josh Tetens told News 10 that he and the state had arranged for his client to turn himself in. When police thought it was apparent Beaudin wasn’t going to honor the arrangement, Woodway officers went to his home on Fairway Drive, took him into custody and drove him to jail. An affidavit filed to secure the arrest warrant in February 2020 states Beaudin is charged with “having improper sexual contact with a 10-year-old female family member on December 4, 2019.” [...] At the time of the arrest, Tetens told News 10 that Beaudin, a 2008 graduate of the Baylor University School of Law, denied the allegations. [...] Waco attorney Chelsea Tijerina, 34, who at the time was under indictment in an alleged murder-for-hire plot that targeted Beaudin, her ex-husband, died in late May 2021 in a motorcycle wreck in Hays County. Department of Public Safety troopers responded to the crash at around 6:35 p.m. near Ranch Road 12 and Winter Mills Parkway. Tijerina, a 2011 Baylor Law School graduate, was pronounced dead at the scene. [...] [Waco attorney Seth Andrew] Sutton, an arrest warrant affidavit states, met with a person who turned out to be an undercover Waco police officer on May 14, 2020 and solicited the officer to murder Tijerina’s ex-husband Beaudin. [...] Sutton was a onetime Democratic candidate for McLennan County district attorney, but dropped out after the 2016 primary leaving Republican Barry Johnson unopposed. He also defended some of the bikers arrested after the May 2015 shootout at Waco’s Twin Peaks restaurant."
              • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Appointed prosecutor takes on murder-for-hire case against Waco attorney", 2022/11/11: "A Waco attorney under indictment on a charge of solicitation of capital murder hopes a newly appointed prosecutor will drop charges, his attorney said this week. “We’re hopeful that with a fresh set of eyes, the new prosecutor will see the case for what it is and drop the charges,” Dallas attorney Clint Broden, who represents Seth Sutton on the charge, said Thursday. Judge Thomas West of 19th State District Court on Oct. 25 appointed the new prosecutor, Patrick Sloane of the Texas Attorney General’s Office. District Attorney Barry Johnson had filed a motion with West’s court in July to recuse the entire DA’s office because Johnson had briefly hired Sutton’s law partner, Aubrey Robertson, as first assistant district attorney. [...] Broden said the case against Sutton is based on an overzealous undercover Waco police officer attempt to entrap Sutton in a murder-for-hire scheme. He said the officer took advantage of a friendship with Sutton through Sutton’s motorcycle club and volunteered to kill Beaudin. [...] The district attorney’s office recusal in the case remains in effect even though Aubrey Robertson served less than a week this summer before Barry Johnson fired him, on grounds that he could not be a DA candidate and first assistant DA at the same time. Johnson’s term ends Dec. 31, and he will be replaced by Waco criminal defense attorney Josh Tetens. Broden said he does not view Johnson recusing the entire DA’s office from his case as a stunt. “The whole DA’s office would have had to recuse themselves Jan. 1, when Josh Tetens is sworn in anyway,” Broden said. Broden said Tetens represents Beaudin, the alleged target of the murder-for-hire scheme, in the indecency case involving Sutton’s family member, meaning he would have to recuse himself from the Sutton case. However, Tetens said Friday that he has not actually represented Beaudin in about a year. Whether Tetens, or the entire DA’s office, will recuse themselves from any case is not known at present."
        • Dr. James Jolliff background - brought in by Truman Simons to examine David Spence in the Waco jail under false pretenses and later testify in a way that ensured Spence ended up on death row; was also the alcoholism counselor for DWI defendant Dr. Tony Quinn, who later killed himself after possibly trying to pursue paying a bribe to the DA's office through Guy Cox; aka Dr. Jim Jolliff
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Psychiatrist Praises MH-MR Program", 1974/09/15: "Community mental health-mental retardation centers enrich independent, private psychiatric practice, Dr. James W. Jolliff writes in the current issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. Dr. Jolliff, a private psychiatrist in Waco, studied the effect of the Waco-McLennan County Mental Health-Mental Retardation Center on his private practice. He found the presence of the center lessened the burden of nonpaying patients, reduced the “all things to all people” attitude and allowed him to refine treatment techniques. In 1966, Dr. Jolliff came to Waco after two years in the U.S. Navy. He received his medical training and education at Western Reserve Medical School and University Hospital, both in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a native of Wooster, Ohio. He is coordinating psychiatrist for the Family Practice Residency Program and on the staff at Providence Hospital."
          • Affair with Marsha Cottle (a teacher at the Methodist Home)
            • Austin American-Statesman, "Complaints of sexual misconduct increasing", 1994/07/05 (pages 1, 4): "Dr. James Jolliff, a Waco psychiatrist, fostered a 3-year sexual relationship with a woman patient he was treating for emotional problems. During their affair, Jolliff arranged for the woman's unwitting husband to join in her consultations. [...] Jolliff's case was dismissed last year by the examiners board after he killed himself. The board had concluded that Jolliff's sexual relationship with the woman patient caused her "anxiety and depression, and her mental and emotional health (were) damaged." "He admitted the primary allegations," said Sam Stone, an Austin lawyer who represented Jolliff before the board. Merrilee Harmon, a Waco lawyer who also represented Jolliff, said he killed himself because of "merciless" publicity and his anxiety about the effect on his wife and children. "The whole situation was very tragic," she said."
            • Bernadette Feazell, "WACO TRIBUNE HERALD EDITORIAL DRAIN THE DA AND COUNTY SWAMP", 2017/11/15: "Shame on the Waco Tribune Herald, what a piece of work. Years ago they ragged poor Jim Jolliff, a local headshrink who had had sexual adventures with a local attorney’s wife, Marsha Buenger, remember that one? Trib wrote about Jim Jolliff’s embarrassing Hearing in Austin daily. Culminating in Jim Jolliff killing himself with a shotgun on the heliport of Hillcrest Hospital. I liked Jim Jolliff too."
            • Lake Shore Funeral Home & Crematory page for Marsha Pernell Cottle: "Marsha Pernell Cottle of Waco passed away Thursday, September 1, 2022 at the age of 72. [...] Marsha was born March 27,1950 in Cleburne, Texas to Tom and Betty Pernell. She graduated from Stephen F. Austin University in 1972 with a B.A. in Education. She worked as a teacher at the Waco Methodist Children’s Home and later worked in Child Protective Services and as a Parole Officer for the State of Texas until her retirement in 2006. Marsha lost her husband, DPS Trooper Richard Cottle, in 2001 in a line of duty accident. This loss led Marsha to become a big supporter of the Blue Knights TX XI charity events. She helped raise funds for Waco McLennan Peace Officer Memorial, 100 Club of Central Texas, Texas Police Chiefs Foundation and Mclennan County Children’s Advocacy Center. Marsha served on the Board of Directors for the 100 Club Heart of Texas. [...] Marsha is survived by her significant other, Larry Bowers, her brother, Tommy Pernell, son, Chad Buenger, wife Mandi and their two children, Hannah and Holdyn, son Justin Buenger, wife Lauren and their two children, Layne and Landyn, and many cousins and life long friends."
          • 2021/12/08 comment by William Meyer Roddy on Bernadette Feazell, "WACO TRIBUNE HERALD EDITORIAL DRAIN THE DA AND COUNTY SWAMP", 2017/11/15: "Dr. James Jolliff was a wonderful, brilliant, an extremely compassionate man! I believe that he was drawn into a trap. He was so wonderful that others wanted to see him suffer! As the saying goes, people in glass houses should not throw stones. The Public needs to know what a tremendous and truly charitable man Dr. Jolliff was. His death will always be viewed as an absolutely unnecessary travesty!"
            • Prabook article on William Meyer Roddy - was born 1959/10/14 in Waco TX, to William Nathan Roddy and Mona (Bodansky) Roddy; received a Bachelor in Psychology from the University of North Texas in 1984; received a Master of Science in Psychology from the University of North Texas in 1986; received his D.O. from Kirksville College Osteopathic Medical in 1991; did internships and residencies at Riverside Hospital in Wichita (1991-1992), University of Kansas School Medicine in Wichita (1992-1993), and East Carolina University School of Medicine in Greenville NC (1993-1994); was the chief resident in internal medicine/psychiatry at East Carolina University School of Medicine beginning in 1995; was a consultant psychiatrist for the Edgecombe-Nash Mental Health Center in Rocky Mountain NC beginning in 1993; was part of the Scotland Neck NC hospital beginning in 1994; identified as a "Consultant for state hospital and prisons"; married Wendy Sue Walsh on 1987/08/21 and had at least two sons (Eric Meyer and Asher Michael)
            • Obituary for William N. Roddy (December 25, 1920 - June 29, 2021): "William N. Roddy, M.D., died June 29, 2021. [...] “Brother,” as he was affectionately called, had a long and productive life. Born on Christmas day in 1920, he grew up in Waco, Texas. He was a Waco High School graduate and attended the University of Texas. Following graduation, he enrolled at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he obtained his Medical Doctorate. Following medical school, he did a medicine residency in Galveston and a cardiology fellowship in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania. Upon the death of his father, Dr. Louis Roddy, he returned to Waco to assume his father’s practice. He was a medical fixture in Waco for 50 years and left a wonderful legacy. He established the Waco Family Practice program 50 years ago, a program that still flourishes today. He established one of the first coronary care units in Texas and staffed the heart clinic at Providence Hospital, which served as a means for underprivileged children to obtain quality cardiac care. In addition, he was a former chief of staff at both Providence and Hillcrest Hospitals. Following his retirement at age 80, he continued his passion for medicine and kept abreast of the medical literature and attended medical symposia. He also continued his love of photography and automobiles. He was preceded in death by the love of his life, Samona Bodansky Roddy. He is survived by his sister, Mrs. Philip Sanger; his daughter, Ellen Hoffman; his sons, William Meyer Roddy and Louis Roddy; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren."
            • United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama Northwestern Division, no. CV–11–S–4355–NW: William Meyer RODDY and Wendy Sue Roddy, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA, et al., Defendants, MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER, 2013/05/24
              • "Dr. William Meyer Roddy, M.D., and his wife, Wendy Sue Roddy, allege that the City of Huntsville, Alabama, and two of its police officers violated rights protected by the United States Constitution and state laws during a series of events that flowed from a search of a Huntsville hotel room shared by the Roddys and their children. That search resulted in plaintiffs' arrests on drug charges that later were voluntarily dismissed by an Assistant State District Attorney."
              • "Dr. Roddy says that he merely asked Rowdy Meadows to tell him what had occurred at the hotel pool. Meadows, on the other hand, asserts that Dr. Roddy introduced himself as “ Judge William Roddy.” Meadows alleges that he explained to Dr. Roddy what had occurred with the two boys at the hotel pool. When Meadows attempted to leave, Dr. Roddy said, “I am not done with you ... You are not going to leave.” He then bumped into Meadows and flashed a gun from the left front pocket of his pants."
              • "Like Meadows, Hotel Manager Jolene Heckman alleges that Dr. Roddy claimed to be a “Judge.” Further, Ms. Heckman asserts that Dr. Roddy appeared to her to be “under the influence of drugs and/or [have] mental problems because he acted strangely, was fidgeting back and forth as Mr. Meadows was talking, and seemed out of it, not focused, and confused about the situation. He also acted hyped-up and jumpy.”"
              • "In addition to the gun and pills, the officers found crumpled, wadded-up cash in various denominations aggregating the amount of $3,895 in the pockets of Dr. Roddy's pants. The officers assert that the cash was also “dirty,” but plaintiffs dispute that portion of the officers' allegations."
              • "The injectable liquid was later identified as Testosterone, a Schedule III controlled substance."
              • "Sergeant Ramsey told Captain Butler “that Wendy Roddy stated that there was a large amount of cash in a safe from sales, along with a large amount of Medications,” at plaintiffs' residence in Sheffield, Alabama. As a result, Captain Butler decided to seek a search warrant for plaintiffs' residence. [...]"
              • "The patient prescription summary for “William Meyer Roddy” shows prescriptions for Oxycontin, Oxycodone, Testosterone, Methylphenidate, and several other medications that were filled at the Shoals Pharmacy in Tuscumbia, Alabama between January 1, 2009 and March 25, 2010. The prescription summary does not show any prescriptions filled under the name “Mike Roddy.” Even so, the information regarding the Oxycontin and Oxycodone prescriptions on the prescription summary for “William Meyer Roddy” matches the information regarding those prescriptions on the pill bottles for “Dr. Mike Roddy” found in Dr. Roddy's briefcase. [...]"
              • "Madison County Assistant District Attorney James Tolleson filed motions to nolle prosse the criminal charges against plaintiffs on January 19, 2011, and the motions were granted on January 21, 2011. The decision to prosecute or dismiss the charges against plaintiffs rested with Tolleson, not the Huntsville Police Department or its officers."
        • Methodist Home background - possibly an open air mind control laboratory experimenting on the kids there, given the free-flowing drugs, proximity to Muneer Deeb's store, and curious backgrounds of certain staff
          • Norma Podet background - headed staff development at the Home fro 1965 to 1974; was the wife of Rabbi Mordecai Podet, himself a friend of Waco's influential Catholic priest Mark Deering (part of a local interfaith initiative) who had once blessed Vic Feazell alongside Bernard Rapoport
            • Wilkirson-Hatch-Bailey obituary for Norma Yonover Podet (October 21, 1921 - December 12, 2006): "Norma Y. Podet, 85, died December 12, 2006. [...] Born 17 October 1921 to Celia Davis Yonover, M.D. and Nafthali Yonover, D.D.S., Norma Yonover Podet was a native of Chicago, Illinois. She earned the B.A. degree from the University of Chicago in 1942 and the M.S.W. at the University of Utah in 1958. Beginning her Social Work career with the American Red Cross, she continued it in the Chicago Court of Domestic Relations and later in the Veterans Administration Regional Office in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1949 she married Mordecai Podet. In 1954, the family – it now included a son – settled in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she was engaged first with the Children’s Service Society, then the Department of Psychiatry of the Salt Lake General Hospital, and thereafter at the University of Utah Bureau of Marriage and Family Counseling. She was also Consultant for the Utah State Prison at Draper, Utah and was elected to the Board of Directors of the Salt Lake Community Welfare Council. In 1961, the family – now including a daughter – moved to Florida where she served first as Senior Day Center Social Worker, then as Director of the United HIAS Service and the Cuban Refugee Center, all of Miami. The family came to Waco in 1964. Here she served as Social Work Supervisor and Director of Staff Development and Training at the Methodist Home 1965-74; Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Baylor University 1966-71; Director of the Waco Family Home Care Agency 1974-1985. Retiring in July, 1985, she continued to serve social and civic agencies as consultant and volunteer. She was among the founders as well as the first chairperson and a frequent program moderator of the Waco Interfaith Forum, organized in 1965 to bring together women of all faiths in dialogue for mutual understanding and the development of projects for community betterment. In 1965, as Health Chairperson of the Waco Parent-Teacher Association, she headed a drive for continuous health supervision of every Waco child, winning for the project the support of the McLennan County Medical Society, the Waco Dental Association, the Waco-McLennan County Health Unit, the City-County Board of Health, and the Children’s Hospital and Rehabilitation Center. She served on the Board of the Economic Opportunities Advancement Corporation 1967 and the Planned Parenthood Board 1975. As host/coordinator for the television program “Panel for Parents” 1976 she brought psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers before the pubic to respond to questions on parenting. She twice won elections for seven year terms of the Board of Trustees of McLennan Community College 1976-1990 and served as Board President 1984-86. In 1988 she was appointed to the Baylor University Committee On Protection of Human Subjects In Research. She appeared in many forums as lecturer, book reviewer, and panelist addressing social and mental health topics as well as representing Judaism. She was the University of Chicago candidate interviewer for this area and a frequent volunteer at the Waco Better Business Bureau. She belonged to Congregation Rodef Sholom. Her interests included the League of Women Voters, Hadassah, the Art Center of Waco, Cameron Park Zoo, Waco Conference of Christians and Jews and the Waco Family “Y”. Her husband, Mordecai Podet, is Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Rodef Sholom and Jewish Chaplain at the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System. After retiring, the Podets were frequent travelers in the United States and abroad."
            • Wilkirson-Hatch-Bailey obituary for Mordecai Podet (February 2, 1922 - November 30, 2013): "Rabbi Mordecai Podet, aged 91, died November 30, 2013. A funeral service will be held at Temple Rodef Sholom, 1717 North New Road, Waco, Texas, at 11:00 am , Wednesday, December 4, followed by interment at the Rodel Sholom Cemetery, 1529 Garden Drive. Rabbi Podet was born in New York City in 1922 to Reverend Irving M. and Becky Podet. He earned a B.A. degree from Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and a Master of Hebrew Letters from the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1951. In 1976 a seminary awarded him an honorary Doctor of Hebrew Letters degree. Rabbi Podet served as a U.S. Navy chaplain on the Sixth Fleet and NATO installations, and retired with the rank of Commander. From 1954 to 1961 he occupied the pulpit of Congregation Bnai Israel, Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1961 he was called to Congregation Judea in Coral Gables, Florida, and in 1964, to Congregation Rodef Sholom in Waco, Texas. He became Rabbi Emeritus in 1988. He served for many years on the Waco Veterans Administration Medical Center Committee on Human Studies, the Providence Hospital Medical Moral Committee, and the Hillcrest Baptist Hospital Biomedical Ethics Committee. In 1990, he was designated to form the Ethics Advisory Committee of Waco's Veterans Hospital and was long its chairman. He was a past president 1971-72 of the Downtown Waco Rotary Club. In 1967, he established its televised youth knowledge competition, which won Rotary International's Significant Achievement Award that year. In 1982, he was named to the Rotary District Roll of Fame. He was on the boards of directors of the Waco Action Planning Council 1967-73, the Economic Opportunities Advancement Corporation 1968-71, the McLennan County Planned Parenthood Association 1969-72 and 1984-85, the McLennan County Association for Mental Health 1969-83, and Vanguard High School 1974. In 1988 the Waco Conference of Christians and Jews named him Humanitarian of the Year. In 1986, he authored Pioneer Jews of Waco. He has been Lecturer in the Department of Religion of Paul Quinn College, and in the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies of Baylor University. He was Jewish chaplain for the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, which in 2012 awarded him a plaque in appreciation of fifty years of faithful service to the United States Government. He was pre-deceased by his wife, the former Norma C. Davis Yonover of Chicago."
          • Marsha Buenger background - was a teacher at the Home; note that she was coerced into a sexual relationship by her counselor Jim Jolliff, a psychiatrist brought in by Truman Simons to "examine" David Spence and later give testimony used to send him to death row; later remarried and became Marsha Cottle
        • Carlton Stowers background
          • Dallas Observer, "Defining Moment" by Carlton Stowers, 2003/10/30: "It was a time when the "local yokels"--young men like Hugh Aynesworth, Darwin Payne, Bert Shipp, Eddie Barker and dozens of others--shined through the longest days they can remember, covering the tragedy and its aftermath in a textbook, if somber, fashion. Because of this, they remain, in a sense, a band of brothers. Now, their recollections of the biggest story they ever covered are being heard. KERA-TV has produced a documentary titled JFK: Breaking the News, and Aynesworth has written a companion book that will bear the same title. [...] Aynesworth, then an aviation writer for The Dallas Morning News, is now viewed by many as the ultimate authority on the case, remembered as the only reporter who was in Dealey Plaza when the shots were fired; at the Texas Theater when accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested; in the police department basement when nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald; and who covered the Ruby trial. [...] Those who chronicled the event are not among the many who subscribe to the voluminous conspiracy theories that have become a cottage industry. "I found it interesting," says Krys Boyd Villasenor, the writer/producer of KERA's documentary, which will air nationally on November 19, "that during my seven months of interviews, none of them had any doubt that Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy." Only one--Wes Wise, former KRLD reporter and later mayor of Dallas--admitted even the slightest concern that the entire story has not yet been told."
          • Dallas Observer, "'We Want Them to Shut Up': The Two Dallas Cops Who Earned Hoover's Ire After JFK Killing", 2017/10/30: "[Captain Will] Fritz headed homicide team at DPD. He joined DPD in 1921 and reportedly had been part of the squad that hunted Bonnie and Clyde. Carlton Stowers, an author and former Dallas Observer staffer, described Fritz in his book Partners in Blue as someone who organized a seemingly well-run department and didn't appreciate interference from the brass. His competency seems demonstrated by a 10-year span with a reported 98 percent clearance rate of the murders in Dallas. The rate of today's department hovers at around 50 percent."
          • Focus Daily News, "Cedar Hill Still Home to Award-winning Author Carlton Stowers", 2019/02/28: "Dallas journalist and author Hugh Aynesworth said, “Carlton Stowers, my friend for a couple generations at least, is not only a very good reporter, but also an excellent writer. He IS quiet, unassuming…but also a master at eliciting information — often from those who would ‘confess’ to things they wouldn’t tell their wife or best friend. He is respected by all who know him.” [...] A member of Abilene High School’s 1960 State Championship track team, Stowers attended the University of Texas at Austin on a scholarship. He worked for several Texas newspapers, including 12 years at the “Dallas Morning News,” before becoming a freelance journalist. He earned numerous national and state awards for his journalism. A 17-time finalist in the annual five-state Dallas Press Club competition, he won eight Katie Awards. He is a four-time winner of the Stephen Philbin Award from Dallas Bar Association, and received a Texas Gavel Award from the State Bar of Texas for Outstanding Legal Reporting."
        • DNA exoneration efforts
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Lake Waco murders: Efforts underway to exonerate man convicted of famed slayings", 2011/05/15: "The DNA testing effort has been in process for at least a couple of years. During that time period, the two men behind the exoneration push — Waco defense attorney Walter M. Reaves Jr. and author Fredric Dannen — have had to navigate a number of obstacles. One early hurdle involved finding funding for the testing. That issue was resolved after a 2008 meeting with two top staffers in Gov. Rick Perry’s office, arranged by Feazell’s ex-wife. While the governor’s office didn’t provide money, it referred Reaves and Dannen to an innocence project at the University of Texas. That group agreed to spend $4,500 in state money to hire a California lab in April 2009. Submitted for testing were shoelaces used to bind the hands of victim Kenneth Franks. Presumably, the laces were touched by the killer or an accomplice. What has happened with the testing since then, though, is largely a mystery — even to Reaves and Dannen. The scientist at the lab in charge of the DNA testing is essentially holding the evidence hostage, said Jeff Blackburn, chief counsel for the Innocence Project of Texas. Reaves and Dannen have repeatedly asked the lab for information about the testing. But they have not been able to get the scientist, Ed Blake, to tell them much of anything, Blackburn said. [...] UT sent the money to a Richmond, Calif., company called Forensic Science Associates in April 2009, Dowling said. The lab is headed by Ed Blake, who has done work in a number of exoneration cases. What has happened since then is unclear. Blake has not provided adequate information to Reaves about the testing, despite repeated requests, said Blackburn, from the Lubbock innocence group. [...] The lab’s Blake refused to answer most of the Tribune-Herald ’s questions, likening them to a reporter asking a doctor about a patient’s surgery. He would not directly address questions related to the UT money. Blake said, though, that there is no current investigation at his lab involving a Waco case. A “number of years ago,” he said, his lab conducted one, but it “didn’t go anywhere.”"
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Lake Waco murders will return to court after decades", 2011/09/18: "The issue at the heart of the testing dispute is the lab’s contention that biological samples it extracted from the evidence and other key elements of testing are its work product. Based on that, the lab is refusing to cooperate with a request from Dannen and Reaves that the testing be transferred to another lab that might be able to get better results using a different testing method. The disagreement has delayed the testing for several years. [...] This spring, after the lab dispute became public, Reaves would only confirm a pair of shoelaces used to tie up one of the victims had been submitted for DNA testing. But the Tribune-Herald subsequently used Texas’ public information law to obtain more than 200 pages of records, which show the DNA testing is much greater in scope than previously known. That prompted the men to further discuss their work. Besides the shoestrings, beer cans found at the crime scene, material from under one victim’s fingernails and hairs found on the victim’s bodies have undergone DNA testing, according to documents from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office. The office has acted as a clearinghouse for the testing. In addition, Dannen has obtained DNA samples from several alternate suspects. [...] [After a near-decade of unsuccessful tests] Dannen and Reaves met in 2008 with a scientist from Blake’s lab and decided to pursue Y-STR testing on the shoelaces. [...] Shortly after the UT money was sent to Blake’s lab in April 2009, an attorney involved with the UT project proposed moving the testing to another lab. Blake’s lab is not accredited by any professional organization, and the attorney thought the exoneration effort would be helped by using a lab that is. The lab declined to send the shoelaces elsewhere based on the work product claim. “All they’ve done is moved the biology from the physical evidence itself into the test tube,” Dannen said. “How do you make the argument that’s their property?” But the lab persisted, so Dannen asked it to stop work on the case. That also halted work on fingernail clippings from victim Jill Montgomery, Dannen said. The lab had previously determined male DNA was present underneath Montgomery’s fingernails, Dannen said. [...] Blake has recently returned most of the evidence to the Tarrant County lab. But he has retained key pieces, including extracts, Reaves said. Tarrant County lab personnel reviewed the evidence, with the hope some of it could still yield usable samples. “Their opinion is he’s kept all the stuff we could do anything with,” Reaves said. [...] Jill Spriggs, president-elect of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, said the work product argument is indefensible and she has never heard any DNA scientist make such a claim. “The evidence holds the truth,” said Spriggs, who is chief of the Bureau of Forensic Services at the California Department of Justice. [...] John Collins, the society’s executive director, agreed."
          • Edward Blake background
            • Office of Indigent Defense Services: Forensic Resource Counsel bio for Edward Blake (2010 CV for Edward T. Blake) - of Forensic Science Associates at 3053 Research Drive, Richmond, CA 94806; in 1968, graduated as a Bachelor of Science in Criminalistics from UC Berkeley; from 1969 to 1970, employed at Paul L. Kirk & Associates; from 1971 to 1972, was an intern at the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office Criminalistics Laboratory; from 1971 to 1972, was a Teaching Assistant in the Forensic Science Program at UC Berkeley; from 1973 to 1975, was a Graduate Research Fellow at UC Berkeley; from 1975 to 1977, was a Research Assistant at UC Berkeley; in 1976, graduated as a Doctor of Criminology in Forensic Science from UC Berkeley; from 1975 to present, has been a Consultant in Forensic Biology
            • Tulare Advance-Register, "Rape-murder trial delayed to Tuesday", 1976/07/01: "Spectators continue to fill the 84-seat courtroom in the trial of Oscar Archie Clifton, 35, the accused in the kidnap, rape and stabbing murder of Donna Jo Richmond, 14, Exeter. [...] The last two witnesses Wednesday were Michael J. Grubb, a criminalist with the Institute of Forensic Sciences in Oakland, and Edward T. Blake, a graduate student at the University of California who is completing a doctorate on the genetic variations in human semen. Grubb said an analysis of a bone-handled knife taken into evidence did not show whether it was used to stabb the youth 17 times. . Blake testified about the possibility of evidence connecting Clifton to the rape, but his analyses could not point to a specific suspect. Clifton, a rural Visalia house painter, is accused of kidnap, rape, murder, indecent exposure and failure to register as a sex offender. Miss Richmond was found dead last December in an orange grove after failing to return home from a friends house."
            • ...
            • Paul L. Kirk background
          • Texas Forensic Science Commission letter on 2016/03/15 to Jason Spence, which attaches a 2015/11/09 DNA lab report addressed to Melendez's attorney Walter Reaves - indicates that reference samples from Steve Spence (the brother of David Spence), Anthony Melendez, Terry Lee Harper, Derwin Wilkins, and John David Wilkins were submitted
      • Corruption scandal
        • United States v. Vic Feazell materials on Feazell's website - has a couple transcripts of grand jury testimony from David M. Jordan and Deanna Ruth Fitzgerald, but the only trial testimony is Feazell's own
        • Belo / Channel 8 lawsuit materials on Feazell's website
        • Waco Citizen, "No Help From DA" letter to the editor by Missy Pierce, 1983/11/01: "The burglary of my home occured October 28, 1982. At first, I had the full cooperation from the McLennan County District Attorney’s office. This changed January 1, 1983, due, in my opinion, to the change in District Attorneys. Two suspects (one indicted but never tried, and one plead guilty and assessed a five year probated sentence) were apprehended. An appraisal of the property stolen from me in this burglary was almost $40,000.00. The DA’s Office was aware of this appraisal. [...] Since January 1, 1983, I tried, unsuccessfully, to see Mr. Vic Feazell. I tried to call Feazell numerous times and he never returned my calls. The Assistant District Attorney handling the case stopped returning my calls in February. Neither the DA nor his Assistant returned calls from my personal attorney. Why was I so persistent in trying to reach these two men? The female who was indicted, and never tried, is a personal friend of the District Attorney’s wife. I was also told that overheard at a party of Waco lawyers this particular case was never going to trial because of favors owed. In the spring, my attorney and I made an unannounced visit to Waco. The Assistnat Attorney was in, we talked with him and were again promised that we would be notified of any proceedings involving any of the persons indicted. On October 14, 1983, I received a telephone call telling me to pick up the few possessions of mine that had been recovered by the Sheriff’s Department. I was also told that the sentencing of one of the indicted persons had taken place five weeks earlier on September 8, 1983. Neither I nor my Attorney had been notified. I still do not know any of the facts on the case except that the person who called me told me that a sentence of five years probation had been given to one of the burglars. A condition of probation was that the burglar make restitution to me of $1,500.00."
        • Texas Department of Public Safety interoffice memorandum of 1985/04/26 from Ronald E. Boyter to W. A. Cowan Jr. ("MEETING WITH FEDERAL AUTHORITIES IN AUSTIN CONCERNING ALLEGATIONS OF POSSIBLE CORRUPTION IN THE MC LENNAN COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE")
          • Darryl Banas
          • Darryl Glenn Truax
            • Lake Shore Funeral Home & Crematory page for Glenn Salvatore Truax, Jr.: "Glenn Salvatore Truax, 76, of Waco, passed away Wednesday, January 30, 2019. [...] Glenn was born May 7, 1942, in Warsaw, New York, to Glenn E. and Elizabeth Truax. Glenn joined the United States Army in 1959. June 17, 1961, Glenn married Barbara Sue King. He was Past Master of Waco Masonic Lodge 92 in 1985. Glenn was the founder of Truax Plumbing Company and was in business for many years. He worked for the McLennan County Sherriff’s Department for 5 years as a jailer. Glenn was a member of Parkview Baptist Church, where he proudly served as an usher. Glenn was preceded in death by his father, Glenn E. Truax; his mother and step-father, Elizabeth and Kenneth Faulds; and his in-laws, Paul and Carrie King. He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Barbara Truax; sons, Kenneth Truax and wife Jeannie and Darryl Truax; daughters, Glenda Moore and husband Billy Moore, Sr. and Mary Harper and husband William; grandchildren, Billy Moore, Jr. and wife Stephanie, Rachel Moore, Rebecca Moore, Tim Truax and wife Faith, Matt Truax and wife Hailee, Alyse Simons and husband Jeff, Darla Walton and husband Scott, Kaitlynn Martin and husband Cody, Tucker Truax, and Tommy Harper; 15 great-grandchildren; brothers, Sam Faulds and wife Lisa and Leo Faulds of Tuscaroro, NY. All of Barbara’s family were like brothers and sisters to Glenn, and he loved them all dearly."
          • Loyd Edwin Perry
            • Waco News-Tribune, "Californians Are Visitors", 1973/09/21: "Mr. and Mrs. Thomas H. Evans Jr. and son Steve of 1107 North Sixty-fourth have had as guests his sister and family Mr. and Mrs. George Prier and daughter Bonnie of Fountain Valley, Calif. The two families visited the Evanses' daughter and family Mr. and Mrs. Loyd Perry in Houston. They also vacationed in Galveston and New Orleans."
            • Waco Tribune-Herald, "BIRTHS IN WACO", 1974/08/07: "Aug. 2, Girls [...] Mr. and Mrs. Loyd Edwin Perry, 4704 Edmond; mother former Shirley Louanne Evans."
        • Austin American-Statesman, "Prosecutor on defensive", 1985/08/18 (pages C1, C8): "FBI agents and DPS investigators have been questioning a number of people, including several with connections to criminal cases used as examples in the series of stories that began in June on a Dallas television station. The stories raised questions about the dismissals of drunken driving and drug cases against defendants who knew Feazell or someone in his office. Several cases were dismissed after the defendants paid attorney fees described by the television reporter as unusually high. [...] Col. Jim Adams, director of DPS, used to be second-in-command of the FBI. He grew up in Mexia, and went to school with David Smith, now Waco city manager. According to the retaliation theory, Adams started a DPS investigation of Feazell and persuaded friends in the FBI to do the same, while Smith started a city investigation of Feazell and encouraged the Waco police chief to criticize the prosecutor. [...] Some in Waco and elsewhere say the investigation of Feazell began long before the district attorney took an interest in Lucas, and say they believe Feazell started the Lucas inquiry as a smoke screen and a convenient way to claim retaliation by DPS. Feazell is not averse to comparing himself to Jesus Christ. He took the opportunity again when saying he may be down, but is not defeated. After Jesus raised the dead, "when he rode into Jerusalem they laid palm branches in front of him," Feazell said. "It wasn't too long after that they crucified him. But you can't keep a good man down." [...] [Among detractors of Feazell and Mattox] The scenario presumed that one motive of the Waco grand Jury inquiry was to discredit Walsh as a potential opponent of Mattox, or Feazell if Mattox decided to run for governor and Feazell chose to run for attorney general. Feazell's response was to dismiss Walsh, who later announced for attorney general, as a "gnat" unworthy of such concern. He also suggested Walsh was too ugly and talked too slowly to be a serious threat to Mattox. [...] One of the few people who will confirm being questioned by federal investigators regarding Feazell is Tony Duty, a Waco defense lawyer. Duty said he was quizzed about buying $1,000 in tickets for a Feazell fund-raiser, and was asked if the purchases were connected to a decision by Feazell's office to dismiss a DWI case against Duty's daughter. Duty said the two events were unrelated, and said his daughter was warned by Feazell that if she got Into trouble again he would prosecute her. His daughter was arrested again for DWI, and she received an uncommonly stiff sentence, he said. The Dallas television reports referred to a number of other dismissals by Feazell's office. Feazell readily acknowledged that several of the cases were dismissed for reasons other than legal problems with the evidence. But during his 1982 campaign, Feazell had said, "We need to cut out the plea bargaining and the cases that are swept under the rug." [...] In McLennan County, defense attorneys and two former district attorneys said, prosecutorial discretion has been a part of the Judicial system for many years. If anything, these sources said, Feazell was less likely to drop a case than many of his predecessors. "I've never heard any difference between the way things are done now and the way they have been done for the last four or five DAs that I know of," said former District Attorney Don Hall."
        • D Magazine, "WAR IN WACO" by Carlton Stowers, 1985/10
          • "●Duncan pointed to another DWI case wherein the DA chose not to prosecute because “the woman in question was eight months pregnant.”

            Feazell initially said the circumstances of the case were far different from what Duncan had aired, stating that it was his understanding that the woman had not been arrested or given a breath test, and that she had simply been taken home by the police.

            Later Feazell admitted he had not personally reviewed the file on the case, getting his information instead from another member of his staff. After personally reviewing the case file, which clearly shows the subject was in fact arrested, taken to the police department and given a breath test (she registered .12, well over the intoxication level), Feazell said, “My information was wrong on that case. I had no first-hand knowledge of it, so I relied on the memory of someone else. The lady was arrested-and then taken home and released to the custody of her husband for medical reasons.” The case was, Feazell acknowledges, dismissed."
          • "Even before the investigations of Feazell had begun, Hunt had made it clear that he was light years removed from being an admirer of the District Attorney. In a taped interview with this writer last spring he discussed Feazell’s prosecution tactics in the Spence case: “For Vic’s political gain, the lake murders were tried before they were ready. Instead of a decent investigation, they did it with bullshit from jailbirds and [bite-mark testimony from Albuquerque-based forensic odontologist] Homer Campbell. It makes me want to vomit. Obviously, I get real upset when I’m talking about Vic. Vic wants to be president of the United States or head of the CIA, depending on who you talk to. He wants to be in power.”"
        • Waco Citizen, "Lawyers Appear Before Federal Grand Jury", 1986/06/06: "Three Waco attorneys appeared before a federal grand jury in Austin Thursday in the continuing investigation surrounding activities of McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell. Appearing were Ken Crow, Ron Moody and Whitney Fanning. Also supposed to appear were Attorney Guy Cox and DA Administrative Aide John Ben Sutter. They did not appear Crow and Moody arrived at the federal courthouse around 9:30 a.m. with two other gentlemen, apparently their attorneys, as they accompanied the men inside. Fanning came about 10.30 a.m., alone, smiling as he entered the front door of the building. Jan Patterson, federal prosecutor, arrived before 9 a.m. and the grand jury members came in at different times, until all had arrived by 9:30. Fed. Agent Bob Zane was also present. He had served several of the subponeas."
        • Waco Citizen, "Waco Attorneys Make Second Appearance In Austin Court", 1986/06/24: "Waco Attorneys, Ken Crow and Ron Moody, appeared before the Austin Federal Grand Jury that is investigating activities surrounding McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell. [...] This is the second appearance of Crow and Moody before the grand jury. They made their first appearance on June 6. John Ben Sutter, Assistant to the DA for Administrative Services, was subponeaed earlier this month to appear before the grand jury and it was rumored he would be there Friday. However, he did not appear. Calls to his office on Thursday went unanswered. Reportedly on Thusday, attorneys for Waco attorneys, Guy Cox, Whitney Fanning and Crow and Moody appeared before the judge in federal court to quash a subponea for their records related to the investigation which was denied by Judge James Nowlin."
        • Waco Citizen, "Lawyer Jailed In Austin", 1986/07/22: "Waco Attorney and former McLennan County District Attorney Don Hall was arrested in Austin last Friday evening on charges of contempt of court in the ongoing investigation of McLennan County DA Vic Feazell. Hall was ordered by the grand jury to produce certain records by a subponea and he refused and late Thursday filed a motion to quash the subponea. Judge James Nowlin on Friday morning denied the motion to quash and ordered Hall to produce the records by 5 p.m Friday afternoon. Hall, former law partner of Feazell, arrived at the federal courthouse in Austin escorted by an FBI agent and Treasury Department agent. He went to Judge Nowlin's courtroom on the second floor and than to the grand jury room in the basement. From there he returned to Judge Nowlin's court where the judge ordered him arrested. He left the courthouse in handcuffs with the two agents and was placed in Travis County Jail where he remained last Monday. Also appearing in Austin was another former law partner of Feazell's, Dick Kettler. Kettler was in Judge Nowlin's courtroom for the 9 a.m. hearing and then went to the grand jury meeting room. He left about 11 a.m. and returned about 3 p.m carrying a manila envelope. Shortly before 5 p.m. he left the courthouse and asked by a reporter what had happened, Kettler replied. “I think everything is settled.” [...] Feazell publicly stated he wanted to appear before the grand jury, but he has not been subponead and it is believed he will not be. However, he could request to appear. John Ben Sutter, Feazell's administative aide, was subponead about two months ago to appear before the grand jury but has not done so. Hall was district attorney from January 1, 1963 to December 31, 1966."
        • Waco Citizen, "Attorney Released", 1986/07/25: "Waco attorney Don Hall was released from Travis County Jail around 5 p.m. Monday into the custody of federal marshals who took him to the US Federal Courthouse in Austin for a hearing before federal district judge, James Nowlin. Hall had been in the Travis Coutny Jail since his arrest late Friday afternoon, charged with civil contempt of court. He left the courthouse shortly after 6 p.m. Hall has reportedly refused to turn over records of business dealings with McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell, who is the apparent center of an investigation by a federal grand jury for alleged wrongdoings in his office. In order for Hall to be released, according to reliable sources, the records requested by the grand jury had to be made available for their investigation. Hall and Feazell were law partners prior to Feazell's election to office. Another partner in the firm, located at 504 Austin Ave., Dick Kettler, also appeared before the grand jury and judge on Friday. Kettler apparently turned over his records as he was seen entering the courthouse late Friday afternoon, following a morning appearance carrying a manila folder. When he left he did not have the folder."
        • Waco Citizen, "DA Feazell Investigation Expected To Continue", 1986/08/22 (pages 1, 2): "Investigation into alleged wrong doings in the McLennan District Attorney’s office is expected to continue. A federal grand jury was sworn in Wednesday in Austin by Judge James Nowlin and sources inside the courthouse said investigation into activities of District Attorney Vic Feazell would continue. It is not known if the local case will be heard by the new grand jury or if it passed to one already in existence. It was confirmed also Wednesday that a federal grand jury, which had heard testimony concerning the investigation, concluded a two-year term with no indictments being returned. The first grand jury served an 18-month term and was extended an additional six months. Its term ended Saturday, August 16. [...] Investigations by grand juries are generally secret but in the early part of 1985, Feazell told local media representatives he was being investigated by a federal grand jury in Austin. His statement was confirmed by federal prosecutor, Jan Patterson in July, 1985. Ms. Patterson met with the new grand jury for several hours on Wednesday, but would not comment on what was being discussed. [...] Five local attorneys were known to have appeared before their first grand jury. They were Ron Moody, Ken Crow, Whitney Fanning, Dick Kettler and former McLennan County DA Don Hall."
        • Waco Citizen, "Officers Questioned In San Antonio", 1986/09/05: "[Despite Feazell's retaliation claims,] it has been confirmed, with the ending of the federal grand jury probe into Feazell's activities that the investigation by federal authorities actually began in late summer of 1984. The first grand jury in Austin turned their reports over to a second grand jury in August which is continuing the investigation. According to sources, inside the federal courthouse in Austin, the grand jury has been working this week on the case and will continue next week."
        • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "McLennan DA denies charges", 1986/09/18 (pages 1, 16): "Feazell and his defenders said a grand jury that completed its work in August had refused to indict him after hearing testimony from more than 100 witnesses. John Ben Sutter, Feazell's administrative assistant, said he believed a newly empaneled grand jury heard only selected portions of the earlier testimony before returning the indictment. Said Feazell: "That's not the kind of case that I (as a prosecutor) would like to go into court with.""
        • Waco Citizen, "DA Investigation Continues Before Federal Grand Jury", 1986/10/03: "Six attorneys and one businessman were in Austin Tuesday to appear before the federal grand jury investigating the operations and conduct of McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell. Three of the attorneys are assistant DAs. They were Deanna Fitzgerald, First Assistant DA and Pat Murphy and David Jordan, Assistant DA. Guy Cox , Whitney Fanning and Bill Stallings, all local private practice attorneys also appeared before the grand jury. Cox and Fanning were the first attorneys to appear and spent over two hours with the grand jury. [...] Jerome Sobel, owner of the Script Shops in Waco, also came to the grand jury and said “I possibly have a subponea.” Asked what he had taken into the grand jury in a brown manila envelope, Sobel replied it was records dealing with advertising, campaign information and contributions. Sobel is a friend of Feazell's. The DA has handled several legal matters for him and federal agents took four envelopes with material relating to Sobel when they searched his office, home, car and storage bin on September 17. Sobel also served on a grand jury during 1985 and federal agents took tapes relating to grand jury information from Feazell’s home when they carried out a search warrant on September 17."
        • Waco Citizen, "Baylor Lariat Quotes DA Assistant On Contributions", 1986/10/03: "On Wednesday. John Ben Sutter. Administrative Aide to District Attorney Vie Feazell, told members of Dr Gayle Avant's political science class that his boss “has no problem accepting political contributions in return for this type of consideration and a lot of people and a lot of attorneys have contributed to his political funds.” Sutter was explaining to the class how Feazell handles Baylor students when they get in trouble with the law, according to a story printed in the Thursday, September 25 edition of the Baylor Lariat. According to the story written by Brian Estes, Sutter was explaining why and how “the DA dismissed eases for friends and for people he never saw as part of the criminal justice procedure.” [...] “In cases where somebody comes in with a DWI and his entire life is going to be ruined by getting prosecuted, Vic Feazell will say, ‘Alright, I'll hold this case for one year. You give me a waiver of speedy trial act, and I'm going to keep it in my file, which means that I can prosecute you at any time.’ “If you do anything wrong in the next year. I'm going to prosecute your butt. I will do everything I can to get the most out of my prosecution, but if you go a year without any trouble, by gosh, I'll dismiss this case,” Sutter said, according to the Baylor Lariat story. According to the story this is where the consideration came in. On Friday the Baylor Lariat ran a story where Sutter was attempting to clarify his statements. He disputed the statement reported in the Thursday edition of the Lariat, that dealt with the DA accepting payments in return for special consideration on prosecuting cases."
        • Waco Citizen, "99 Tapes Taken in Feazell Search", 1986/10/21: "Ninety nine tapes, including six cassettes labeled “Grand Jury," were on a list presented by Assistant Federal Prosecutor Jan Patterson in a hearing before District Judge James Nowlin in Austin Thursday. The tapes were seized through search warrants from the home, office and storage shed of McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell. [...] Many of the names on the labels are of local attorneys, county officials and news media representatives. Several of the attorneys have appeared before the grand jury in Austin. Those named were Ron Moody, Ken Crow, Deanna Fitzgerald, Guy Cox, Whitney Fanning, Bill Stallings, Dick Kettler and Pat Murphy. Also named were State Representative Betty Denton, County Judge Stanley Rentz, McLennan County Constable Bill Donaldson, Hugh Davis, Executive Director of HOTCOG, Attorney General Jim Mattox and several from his office, Henry Lee Lucas, Sister Clemmie, Democratic party leader, Bernard Rappaport, County Auditor Weldon Wells, and County Treasurer Odessa Wells. A large number of the tapes were unlabeled."
        • Tyler Morning Telegraph, "D.A. Accuses Opponents Of Smear Tactics", 1986/10/30: "McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell says his opponents are trying "throw everything they can at me" after it was revealed that 10 of his campaign signs were found in a truck laden with cocaine. The signs were found in a pickup being driven by S.E. Chastain of Waco. Chastain, 62, was arrested Friday with James Goff Hazeltine, 54, of Austin, after a state trooper stopped a pickup on Interstate 20 near Odessa. Chastain and Hazeltine were in the Ector County Jail in Odessa in lieu of $100,000 bond each. Sgt. Gerald Bradford of the Texas Department of Public Safety in Midland said 706 pounds of cocaine were found in the pickup. The cocaine is valued at $67.7 million and is one of the largest cocaine busts in Texas history, authorities said. Feazell said he did not know the signs were in the pickup truck. He said Chastain provided scrap lumber for yard signs to various political candidates. "I really don't think it's fair because it makes it look like I'm involved in drugs. If they'd tell the truth, I'd bet there were other political signs in there as well," Feazell said. [...] "They're trying to throw everything they can at me to make it look bad right before the election. By innuendo they are trying to tie me to drug trafficking. I had no idea any of my signs were in his truck and I didn't know he was hauling any 700 pounds of dope," he said. Bradford said he saw only Feazell signs in the truck. But Chastain's daughter, Marcee Chastain, told the Waco Tribune-Herald that her father has given scrap lumber to several candidates including Feazell and county judge candidates Raymond Matkin and John Ben Sutter. Chastain's name was listed on the label of an empty cassette tape case seized from Feazell's office by federal agents after Feazell's arrest. [...] Feazell has declined comment on Chastain, saying only that "many of the tapes taken by the feds contained names concerning ongoing criminal investigations that I'm not at liberty to discuss." Chastain also was listed as contributing $100 in money or equivalent to Feazell's campaign in September 1984. Feazell said the contribution was in the form of lumber."
        • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Affidavit charges Feazell accepted bribes", 1986/11/01 - quotes Feazell as claiming that the recent release of an FBI affidavit describing his alleged bribes was "obviously political"; subsequently reveals that federal prosecutors wanted the affidavit sealed and he asked for it to be unsealed
        • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Former aide defends official in bribery case", 1987/05/30: "The former top assistant to McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell testified yesterday that he never saw his boss take a bribe. U.S. Magistrate Dennis Green of Waco, who worked as Feazell's first assistant in 1983, said prosecutors sometimes take into account the defendant's circumstances when deciding what punishments to recommend. Feazell also tried to be merciful in cases that warranted it, Green said during the fourth day of Feazell's federal bribery trial."
        • Waco Citizen, "Clark Cross Examined by Feazell's Attorney....Lawyer's Testify Today", 1987/06/05 (pages 1, 2)
          • "Lloyd Edward Perry, an employee of MKT railroad, was the next to testify about two DWI’s he received in 1984. His first arrest was in August, 1984 and he said a friend, Roger Bethke, referred him to Hall for an attorney. The fee for his first DWI was $2,500 he told the jury in response to questions from Frels. “I told him I wanted it dismissed,” Perry said, “I never went to court.” Perry said he received his second DWI in October, 1984. He testified that Hall got him out of jail and that his fee would be $2,500 for the second offense. “I borrowed $2,000 from Bethke to pay the fee,” he said, “and the rest from another friend.” Perry said he never went to court on his second DWI, but Hall plead for public intoxication with a fine of $200 which he paid to Hall. On cross examination by Richardson, Perry said he was alseep in his car when arrested by Waco PD. He said he blew 0.12 on the breath test."
          • "“Showtime” club owner Randy Roberts, was the last witness called by the government Wednesday afternoon. Roberts, who also describes himself as a professional gambler and bookmaker, related how he had been called by Roger Bethke in 1982 and told Vic Feazell needed a contribution for his campaign. “I gave Feazell $1,000 in 100 dollar bills in his office,” Roberts said. “Roger called me again in 1983, after Vic was elected and said Vic needed some more money. In all, I have given him $3,500,” Roberts said. “In 1985, my friend James Kalocek of West, called and said he needed to borrow $3,500 to pay Don Hall to take care of his DWI charge,” Roberts said. “I loaned it to him.”"
          • "Roger Bethke, of Waco, was the next to testify. He listed his occupation as a bookmaker and said he had a social relationship with Bernadette (Bernie), wife of Vic Feazell, beginning in 1978 or 1979. He testified he met Vic through his wife in 1980 and their friendship continues today. Before and after Feazell's election, Bethke said he was a guest in the Feazell home. Bethke testified he had referred both Perry and Kalocek to Don Hall. Under cross examination by Richardson, Bethke said he had never “booked” for Feazell or Richardson. Bethke said he had a “bookie” stamp, but when asked if he was legal, he took the 5th amendment. He also testified he and Feazell were mutual friends with Waco Police Department Lt. Ronnie Rigney, who was in charge of the WPD drug enforcement unit for a number of years. Under redirect questioning from Frels, Bethke said he had asked Bernie, wife of Feazell, in 1984 or 1985, to check some license plates for him. “I did it as a favor for Randy Roberts, who said some people were following him,” Bethke said. “I don't know if it happened before or after Randy's father was shot," Bethke testified."
        • Waco Citizen, "Waco Attorney Talks About Payments", 1987/06/12 - references how Dick Kettler was subpoenaed by the Austin grand jury in April 1986, and appeared before it in June, July, and August of that year; mentions testimony from first assistant district attorney Deanna Fitzgerald about how assistant DAs would sign dismissal slips for each other, and how attorneys like Guy Cox, Jim Barlow, and Whitney Fanning would go directly to Feazell for certain cases; mentions testimony from the cashier of a local bank, describing how a $6,500 check drawn on the McLennan County Special Crimes Unit, signed by Feazell and his administrative assistant John Ben Sutter, had been written to Don Hall as "the attorney of Richard Bowers" (a hydromorphone dealer, whose $50,000 in drug money was, per Kettler, split in a deal between their firm and the DA's office); has Kettler cite Feazell as saying, in late May 1986, that Whitney Fanning and Guy Cox had been subpoenaed before the grand jury, and Jim Barlow, Ron Moody, and Don Crow would likely be getting subpoenaed too
        • Waco Citizen, "Kettler Insists Bribes Paid To DA Feazell", 1987/06/16 - mentions the Hall and Kettler law firm secretary Barbara Hilliard appearing before the grand jury in April 1986 (ed. note: article says 1985, but this is clearly a typo given the grand jury's known timing) at the same time Kettler was first subpoenaed; has Kettler recount how he and Whitney Fanning discussed cooperating with the government for immunity, but Fanning claimed to have no information to give; names a hydromorphone co-conspirator as Tom Ed Harris
        • Waco Citizen, "Don Hall Has Copies Of Records", 1987/06/16
        • Trial testimony of Victor Fred Feazell (volumes I, II)
          • "A. And one day Don Hall was up at the office, and he came walking into my office carrying this gun. He told me he had just picked it up from from J. L. Crawford. And he looked at it. And at that time, the cylinder -- it's loose now, but it was a lot looser then. I mean it had a lot of play in it. It had these grips on it, and it was dirty. I mean it was just filthy. It's fortunate nobody tried to shoot it, or it could have blown up in their hands, or at least sprayed lead pretty bad.
               He said, "This wasn't even worth walking over here for." Well, I did not have a .357, and I was willing to see if I could work on it. And I offered him fifty dollars for it. He said it wasn't worth fifty dollars.
               I said, "Well, I‘ll give you fifty dollars, or I'll take you out for a steak." And I believe what I eventually did was wind up taking him -- I'm sorry -- him and Dick Kettler out for a steak later on." (p.83 of Vol. I) - appears to be at odds with Feazell's characterization elsewhere in his testimony of Hall being incredibly cheap (TODO: find)
          • "A. Yes, sir. Now I remember this Lloyd Perry DWI. This was the second. The first one, he got in August. The second one, he got in October. This is a case that had it gone to trial, I don't believe we could have won it.
            Q. Why is that?
            A. Well, for one thing, he didn't take a breathalyzer test, if I recall, on this one right -- no breathalyzer test. And when he was arrested, he was asleep in his car with the motor off, and there was conflicting evidence as to whether he was behind the wheel or whether he was in the back seat." (p.116 of Vol. I) - this recollection of Perry not taking a breathalyzer for his second DUI is clearly incorrect
          • "Q. "And that's the one, and that gun is in the search warrant, they had that gun in the search warrant on my house, .357, which is the gun that Bowers gave to Don."
            A. Yes, sir.
            Q. And Hr. Hall's response to that was what?
            A. Don said, "No, he never did give me the gun. I never saw it."
            Q. Then you go on to say, "Well, it was forfeited, and it was gonna go to you, that was it."
            A. Yes, sir.
            Q. And Mr. Hall said, "night of, whatever."
            A. Yes, sir.
            Q. Then Mr. Kearny goes on at the bottom there and says, "Where did it end up?"
            A. Yes, sir."
            Q. And then you tell him.
            A. I said, "It ended up with me. 'Cause it was gonna go to Don, that was part of the deal for the plea bargain, I told Don, ‘I'll give you fifty dollars for it, and I don't think I ever even paid you.'"
            Q. And Mr. Hall responded to that, "No, I didn't know, you know, I don't remember those." And then you say to Mr. Hall, "what about that gun?"
            A. I say, "The gun never got to your office. I think we talked about that in my office, because I remember you looked at it and didn't like that cylinder. It was loose. It was a trash gun. It's been through hell, and I said, 'I'll give you fifty dollars for it', and I think all I ever did was take you out for a steak one day."
            Q. And Mr. Hall then said?
            A. "Well, I'm not questioning that. I just don't remember ever seeing the gun."
            Q. You don't mean at all, Mr. Feazell, in the context of this conversation on September 17th, 1986, with Don Hall to in any way insinuate that the government planted that gun in your house before the execution of the search warrant?
            A. No, sir. I believe I testified exactly how that gun got in my house, and I believe Mr. J. L. Crawford‘s testimony corroborates that." (p.277-278 of Vol. I)
          • "Q. Okay. Page 34, down towards the bottom of the page, you indicate that -- towards the middle to the bottom, you indicate, do you not to Mr. Kettler that you got John Tower, the former United States senator, looking into this matter for you?
            A. Yes, sir.
            Q. Did you?
            A. At that time, I don't think he was looking into it, but he had made a commitment to someone that he would look into it and see if there was any way to put a stop to the witch hunt.
            Q. Did you ever talk to John Tower yourself?
            A. Personally, no, but a friend did.
            Q. Okay. So when you were telling Mr. Kettler, "John Tower is looking into it for me right now. I may eventually have to switch to the Republican Party."
            A. That was a joke, yes, sir.
            Q. Then you go on, "But Tower heads - going through one other person, but he's made a commit to doing anything he can to put a stop to it." Had he given some commitment to put a stop to it at that time?
            A. He had given a commitment to this friend that he would look into it and try, yes, sir.
            Q. "And that man's still got a lot of pull and a lot of stroke. Even if they’ve got to do something like offer Helen Eversberg, and make a federal judgeship."
            A. Yes, sir.
            Q. She's the U.S. Attorney?
            A. She is. I had no commitment on anything like that. That was just light conversation toward the end. I was trying to leave on a fairly light note." (p.284-285 of Vol. II)
          • "Q. "The only way they could do anything now is to find something else that they don't already have." Am I right so far?
            A. Yes, sir.
            Q. "And unless Ravkind points 'em in the right direction, they ain't gonna get nothing, 'cause nothing is there."
            A. 'Cause nothing is there. That‘s exactly right, because nothing had happened.
            Q. You go on to say, "'Cause nothing happened."
            A. Exactly." (p.286 of Vol. II) - the claim that the authorities won't get anything "unless" Dick Kettler's lawyer Billy Ravkind "points 'em in the right direction" appears to be at odds with the claims of no criminal activity
        • Waco Citizen, "Feazell Defense Begins In Austin Courtroom", 1987/06/23 (pages 1, 2) - under cross examination, it was revealed that David R. Scott, who had failed the Texas bar exam three times, signed the motion to dismiss for one of Perry's DWI cases; mentions how David Jordan testified before the federal grand jury on 1986/09/17 (ed. note: the same day that an indictment was handed down against Feazell); has Truman Simons testify that he first met Feazell in 1974, when Simons was a narcotics cop and Feazell worked at the MHMR drug program; Simons indicates that Richard Bowers was, to his knowledge, "never out of drugs to sell"; DA's office investigator J.L. Crawford testifies that Don Hall did receive Bowers' confiscated gun (the one later found in Feazell's home)
        • Waco Citizen, "Testimony Heated In Vic Feazell Trial", 1987/06/26 (pages 1, 2)
        • The Herald-News (Passaic NJ) (from Dallas Times Herald), "Justice nearly undone: The sordid saga of Vic Feazell" by Jim Henderson, 1987/07/12 (pages H-6, H-7) - note that the author is Hugh Aynesworth's coauthor in the supposed exposes of the Lucas "hoax", and the version of events is clearly slanted towards Feazell
        • Waco Citizen, "Motion Filed Charles Duncan Deposition", 1987/11/20 - interesting that some of the people who Feazell and Richardson were trying to determine if Charles Duncan contacted include Dennis Green, Jan Price, Marvin Horton, David Spence, and Jesse Ivy
        • Roger Bethke background
        • Alfred Ray Smith background - a local businessman who punched a cop and broke her nose during a drunken disturbance, thus facing a serious charge, but following a large payment to his lawyer Chuck Youts, was able to get nothing but probation and a $7000 out-of-court settlement to the cop
          • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Waco Colonel Is Honored For Services", 1968/03/23: "The Legion of Merit, the Army’s second highest decoration for performance of duty, has been awarded to Lt. Col. Alfred R. Smith. Smith was honored for meritorious services in the performance of his duties from November, 1964 to September, 1967. He is the son of Mrs. M. L. Roberts of 1114 Clay Avenue. His wife and three children live at 8909 Gladevale Drive. Smith was serving as commanding officer of 507th United States Army Security Agency Group Special Projects Detachment. His citation in part said: “His organizational ability, coupled with sound judgment, perseverance and exceptional skill as an Army aviator, contributed significantly to the projective and successful operation of the testing phases of special projects of the United States Army Security Agency.” Smith is a 1948 graduate of Waco High School. He received a bachelor of science degree in history from the University of Southern Mississippi."
        • Richard Bowers background - a local lounge owner and prominent drug dealer, who was alleged to have bribed the DA's office through his lawyer Don Hall to get probation (though Bowers denied this), and was shot to death a month after Feazell's federal indictment
          • Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Police puzzled over shooting of man linked to McLennan DA", 1986/10/17
          • Radio Legendary, "LAKE MURDERS: Smoking gun, still hot after 35 years, returns to Austin court tomorrow", 2017/08/02: "Of particular note is the allegation made by the ex-wife of Feazell, Bernadette, who reported on her blog Feazell and Simons spoke of a certain federal informant who made allegations about a racketeering case against the DA for bribery” “He was Confidential Informant #13 in Vic’s indictment. Vic was indicted on September 17, 1986 and Bowers was dead by October 16. There is a tape of Vic and Truman that morning talking about it, plus a confession from Alvin Collins, also known as Black Jesus, saying they hired him. Dannen the…played it for me and Judy Simons on June 8, 2002.”"
          • Alvin Collins background
            • Corsicana Weekly Light, "DISTRICT COURT", 1976/01/08: "State vs. Alvin Ray Collins, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, sentenced to 10 years, probated to 5 years. State vs. Alvin Ray Collins, burglary, sentenced to 10 years, probated to five years."
            • Waco Citizen, "More Drug Charges Expected From Reyna", 1980/12/16: "Arraignments on the following cases will be heard in 54th District Court on Thursday: [...] Alvin Roy Collins, forgery by possession."
            • Waco Citizen, "Jury selection begins in murder trial", 1988/07/12: "(In a surprise move Collins plead guilty to the murder of Webb and life imprisonment.) Jury selection began Monday afternoon in the alleged murder by Alvin Ray Collins of Web Jones on Halloween night 1986. Collins, also known as “Black Jesus” on the streets, is alleged to have shot Jones to death. Collins has been in jail since November 4, 1986. Motions have been heard at various times since the murder almost two years ago, but this is the first trial for the allegation. Karen Amos and Scott Peterson are representing the state and Walter Reaves is representing Collins. Collins appearance in court was delayed after the motions were filed in order for jail personnel to cut his hair. The state is seeking a life sentence for the murder."
        • Dr. Anthony Quinn background - a prominent obstetrician and gynecologist in Waco who reportedly committed suicide on 1986/04/08; was rumored to be involved in passing bribes to Feazell, and the notes he wrote shortly before his death were suspected to have relevant clues in that regard; his alcoholism treatment came from Dr. James Jolliff, who had been used by Feazell for a covert psychiatric exam of David Spence in the Lake Waco investigation so that the DA's office would have testimony supporting the death penalty
          • Waco Citizen, "Dr. Quinn's Letter", 1986/05/02 (pages 1, 3) - on 1985/10/19, Quinn got a DWI, and it is strongly implied that he was trying to pay off the DA's office through Guy Cox to make it go away
            • 1986/04/02 notes - under "(1) Alcoholism", says "No alcohol since 10-20-85, thanks to God, A.A. & Jim Joliff"; under "(3) Legal", says "Basically, pay Guy Cox $12,500.00 & "the problem" no longer exists - because of my profession & status in this country, this obviously is not negotiable, & under other circumstances would be paid & perhaps the incident closed??? However, this must involve the D. A. who is already up to his ass in this type of problem - so how reliable a solution is if the going got tough?? -- NO GUARANTEES & I am sure I am expendable!!! Plus money does not exist, so no money / no lawyer / no arrangement with D.A. - All hell on wheels breaks loose!!"; signed "Tony Quinn 4-2-86"
            • 1986/04/07 final letter
        • Ronald Eugene Dempsey allegations - note that he first made his allegations to none other than Truman Simons, at the recommendation of a fellow inmate who provided the name of Roy Lee Wells Jr. (the meth cook for a satanic cult, who was one of two meth lab operators living at Mount Carmel under David Koresh predecessor George Roden) as a suspect in the Mark Crozier murder
          • Waco Citizen, "DA Charges Police Chief With Conspiracy Scheme", 1988/01/05: "McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell leveled charges against Waco Police Chief Larry Scott Wednesday, saying he (Scott) and two other officers of the Waco PD were involved in a conspiracy to create false evidence linking himself (Feazell) to criminal activity. Feazell said he was turning the information he had received from jail inmate Ronald Eugene Dempsey over to the Texas Attorney General’s office in Austin for investigation and prosecution. [...] In his press conference, Feazell handed out a prepared news release and copies of a polygraph results and transcripts from two phone conversations. Feazell said the evidence presented to him by local law enforcement officers shows that the Waco police officials were involved in a conspiracy attempting to bribe and coerce a criminal defendant into claiming falsely that he and Feazell had trafficked in drugs together. The Waco Police officials, Chief Larry Scott, Special Crimes Sergeant Robert Fortune and Special Crimes Detective Robert Fuller, promised the unnamed defendent favorable treatment on pending criminal cases and other benefits if he would falsely accuse the District Attorney. Feazell also said his attorney Gary Richardson was forwarding the information to friends in the justice department in Washington. Feazell previewed his evidence for some members of the Waco City Council and the city staff. He requested John Harrison, City Manager, answer a letter he wrote to him in 48 hours. The letter was given to Harrison on Monday and he responded on Tuesday, saying the council would have to make a decision on their position on the evidence. He also commented later that the tapes and videos did not appear to have much evidence in them. Feazell has said he has more evidence to present. [...] Feazell refused to comment that Detective Fuller came to jail following a call from Sheriff Jack Harwell that Dempsey had information on a murder that remains unsolved. Feazell also said this all happened in April but he only learned of it in November. “Until December 21 I was still trying to go along with the scheme,” he said. “Initially I wanted a letter from the police department about the scheme,” he said. [...] Dempsey, a former resident of Mexia, has been sent to the pen twice by members of the Limestone County’s Sheriff’s office. He has a rap sheet of over six pages long and is known for working deals, sources say. All pending cases against Dempsey in McLennan County were dropped Wednesday afternoon. Hoagie Karels, attorney for Dempsey, would not comment on the cases plead saying “this is a matter of client confidentiality and is not part of the record.”"
          • Waco Citizen, "DA Says Telephone Calls Part Of Evidence", 1988/01/05
          • Waco Citizen, "Taped Phone Call May Exonerate Waco PD", 1988/03/04 (pages 1, 7): "A transcript of a telephone conversation between Waco Police Detective Robert Fuller and Scott Peterson, Assistant DA, has been received through a confidential source. The conversation taped on December 28, 1987, between Fuller and Peterson appears to exonerate the Waco Police Department of all allegations made by District Attorney Vic Feazell during a Dec. 30 press conference where he stated the police were attempting to set him up for a drug bust using a inmate of the county jail. Peterson in the phone call to Fuller, was telling him trial dates had been set for Ronald Eugene Dempsey, the inmate who reportedly told Sherrif's Deputy Truman Simons, of the alleged set-up against Feazell. He also told Fuller a second inmate, who had told authorities about the Mark Crozier murder, would be tried during the same week as Dempsey. The second inmate, had allegedly told Dempsey to see Simons about a meeting he (Dempsey) said took place between him, Fuller, Waco Police Chief Larry Scott and Detective Sgt. Robert Fortune at the Waco Police Dept. where they mentioned the deal with him. Peterson continued talking to Fuller about a suspect in the Crozier murder, Roy Boy Wells, saying they could possibly charge him with a case, in a shooting which occurred the night before the assistant DA called the Waco detective. Peterson told Fuller he would possibly be trying Dempsey, but the assistant DA did not tell Fuller all of the charges had been dismissed or reduced against Dempsey by Feazell on December 21, 1987, exactly one week prior to the call being made. [...] During the taking of deposition on February 17, by Attorney Charles McGregor, who is looking into the allegations made against Scott and his personnel, Peterson said he had handled three felony cases on Dempsey in 1987, that were given to him in the Spring of that year. One was theft over $750 where Advantage TV Rentals owner accused Dempsey of taking TVs and VCRs from his store. Peterson also said a drug case of delivery of methamphetamine against Dempsey in the Housecall Sting was assigned to him, along with an aggravated felony, made up of a number of hot check charges. In July, 1987 the cases were turned over to El Hadi Shabazz another assistant DA. Shabazz began dealing with Karels on the Dempsey cases and told him the inmate was facing 25 years in jail. Peterson claimed in his deposition made on the same evening that he had never seen Dempsey, not even a picture of him, but he admitted he had talked with Karels about a five year sentence in TDC, although he was aware of Shabazz’s 25 year deal. Under sworn testimony, Peterson admitted that Fuller was only passing on what Dempsey wanted and the detective had no authority to grant anything. Peterson claimed in the deposition that he was not aware the cases had been dismissed until February 8 when he received his subpoena to appear for the deposition."
          • Waco Citizen, "WPD Detective “Glad Ordeal Is Over”", 1988/05/13: "Waco Police Detective Robert Fuller is “glad the ordeal is over.” Fuller along with Waco Police Chief Larry Scott, and Sgt. Robert Fortune were cleared by action of the McLennan County Grand Jury of allegations brought against them by McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell. [...] Ronald Eugene Dempsey, a three time-convicted felon, who had charges dismissed by the DA, was the man who made the allegations to Feazell that Scott, Fortune and Fuller were going to set him (Feazell) up on a drug deal. Fuller said he had numerous calls from Dempsey, during the time he was in the McLennan County jail. He wanted to see me in connection with a Waco homicide and “I had no reason to doubt his word at that time.”"
        • TODO: look into the role of FBI agent Greg Rampton, who purportedly assisted Karl Rove in political prosecutions
        • 2014/03/24 comment on Grits for Breakfast, "Must-read: Michael Hall on the Lake Waco murders", 2014/03/21: "I was a teenager in Waco during Vic Feazell's reign back in the 80s. He always oozed sleaze like a used-car salesman or a tent preacher. He was and is a shameless, grand-standing, self-aggrandizing charlatan. Everyone knew he was dismissing DUI cases for bribes back in the day, but he was able to muddy the waters enough that the feds couldn't convict him."
      • John Ben Sutter background
        • Prabook page on John Ben Sutter
        • Jaye Ramsey Sutter, "Rove attacked a friend of mine", 2005/07/14
        • Background of his wife
          • Houston Community College bio for Jaye Ramsey Sutter: "Jaye began teaching professionally in 1989 as an adjunct professor at Austin Community College. Jaye has been with Houston Community College since 1992. Besides teaching federal and Texas government, Jaye also serves students as a pre-law advisor. Jaye has been teaching political science, state and federal government since 1985 as a graduate student at Baylor University. Jaye holds a Bachelor's of Arts in foreign service from Baylor University with a special focus on American-Russian relations. She was educated in the Soviet Union in 1983 during her junior year at Baylor University. She holds a Master's of Arts in political science from Baylor University. Her Master's thesis is Arrogance of Intervention: The United States Invasion of the Soviet Union, 1918-1920.

            Jaye worked for Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox in 1988 as his legislative analyst and in the Texas Legislature with State Representative Betty Denton of Waco. She also worked on Mattox's 1990 gubernatorial campaign. Jaye then secured a Texas secondary teaching certificate in government at Southwest Texas State University, now Texas State University, in San Marcos in 1990. She moved to Borger, Texas to teach U.S History and Texas Government at Frank Phillips Junior College in 1991. While teaching, Jaye took graduate history courses at West Texas State University, now West Texas A&M University at Canyon, Texas.

            In 1985 Jaye met her future husband, John Ben Sutter, at Baylor University. John Ben has a successful career as a press secretary and political campaign consultant and was the press secretary and administrator for the McLennan County District Attorney, Vic Feazell. John Ben ran successfully as the Democractic Party nominee for McLennan County Judge but lost his runoff election after subpenaed by the FBI and Texas Rangers to a federal grand jury investigating Feazell. Feazell helped expose the Henry Lee Lucas bogus confession spree documented in the Netflix series The Confession Killer. Feazell was indicted and stood trial on federal RICO charges and Jaye worked with Feazell's defense team which secured Feazell's acquittal. Feazell sued WFAA-TV Channel 8 News for libel for repeating the RICO allegations. He won a $58 million verdict, the highest jury award in a defamation trial in American history.

            Jaye earned her Doctorate of Jurisprudence in 2004 from South Texas College of Law. Jaye taught full time while attending law school part-time. She clerked for People for the American Way and Houston Volunteer Lawyers. Upon graduation, she worked at John O'Quinn's law firm while teaching full time for Houston Community College. Jaye has taught pre-law classes at the University of Houston in 2011-2017 in judicial behavior, women in the law, criminal justice, Supreme Court cases, political theory and the law, and the history of American jurisprudence. Jaye is a noted political commentator, television panelist, and public lecturer. Since 2016 she has been active in public political education and awareness and feminist issues in local grassroots political and social organizations. She has lectured and written on the John F. Kennedy assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald's Russian correspondence. Jaye divides their time between two homes, in Sugar Land, Texas and a seventy-five-year-old farmhouse in Rayville, Louisiana where she raises 114 acres of hardwood trees."
          • The News Star (Monroe LA), obituary for John Douglas Ramsey, 2014/06/25
        • Facebook social media presence
      • Catalogue of questionable statements by Feazell
        • Claiming (at ??:?? in Episode 2 of The Confession Killer) that the Texas Rangers brought three Lucas confessions to him and that triggered his investigation; by his own contemporaneous accounts to the press, the confessions came in at different times (Glen Parks in October 1984 and Dorothy Collins in November 1984); moreover, it was local law enforcement in McLennan County which got the confessions (e.g. see the above information about Lt. Elijah Dickerson describing his interrogation of Lucas), not the Rangers
        • Claiming that Lucas's April 28 letter to Sister Clemmie did not exist, even though it does
        • Claiming that Lucas had insisted his interview with radio evangelist Bob Larson was spliced together from prior interviews, even though the interview makes specific reference to Lucas's incarceration in McLennan County
        • Claiming that Ron Boyter told him the Rangers should not investigate the veracity of Lucas's confessions because they would just cover it up, only to later accuse Boyter of being in on a conspiracy to frame him up on corruption charges; in reality, Boyter likely just said that the Rangers shouldn't investigate because it would appear like a cover-up (as they would seem to be investigating themselves)
        • Claiming (at 43:40 in Episode 3 of The Confession Killer) that the grand jury which indicted him on corruption charges did so based only on viewing the Channel 8 series, not any live witnesses or documents; by definition, investigator Ron Boyter, who Feazell says played the episodes for the grand jury, was a live witness; news reports make it clear that multiple witnesses (such as Feazell's former law partner Dick Kettler) did testify before the federal grand jury, and while Feazell and his defenders argue that this grand jury ended in August 1986 to be replaced with a new grand jury in September 1986 that quickly indicted him based on an abridged case, this new grand jury reviewed all the findings of the previous grand jury; moreover, the August 1986 grand jury ended because its 2-year term expired, meaning that Feazell had been under federal investigation since at least the summer of 1984, predating his Lucas inquiry and thus negating his retaliation claims; it also turns out that Gary Richardson, in a chapter of his book Black Robe Fever which Feazell appears to promote, offers yet another contradictory account to Feazell's documentary statements, claiming that the indictments were based off statements by his two former law partners (Kettler and Don Hall)
        • Claiming that the release, shortly before his November election, of an FBI affidavit describing his alleged bribes was "obviously political", despite it being an affidavit that federal prosecutors wanted sealed and he asked to be unsealed
        • Claiming (at ??:?? in Episode 5 of The Confession Killer) that "There's not a fingerprint. There's not a hair. There's not an eyewitness. There's nothing, nothing, nothing, except Henry's confessions, to put him in any of those murders." despite the 1982 murder of Barbara Begley having multiple witnesses who implicate Lucas
        • Claiming (at 22:49 in Episode 58 of his podcast) that the conspirators who were persecuting him for his Lucas investigation planned to have Russ Hunt (defense lawyer for David Spence in his first trial) come to Georgetown and get a confession from Lucas to the Lake Waco murders; per the June 1985 testimonies of Hunt and Bob Prince before the McLennan County grand jury, it was Hunt who decided on his own to question Lucas, and he made arrangements through Johnie Dodd, but a meeting was never arranged and Lucas was bench-warranted into Waco right before the meeting date that Hunt had planned; there is a postscript in Careless Whispers where Stowers says Lucas claimed that Bob Prince pressured him several times into confessing to the Lake Waco murders, but this account is highly dubious given the signs of Lucas's coercion in Waco and the incongruity of the Rangers being cast as pressuring Lucas into countless false confessions yet unable to do so in this instance where it matters most
        • Claiming (at ??:?? in Episode 58 of his podcast and as quoted in KWTX, "Lake Waco Murders: 40 years later, attorneys believe wrongfully convicted man executed", 2022/07/13) that the lawyers seeking to exonerate the Lake Waco defendants never submitted the defendants' own DNA, even though Reaves submitted samples from both Anthony Melendez and David Spence's brother in 2015
      • Branch Davidians / David Koresh / Waco siege connection
        • Prosecution of Koresh and his group for an armed takeover attempt of Mount Carmel
          • New York Times, "Warning of Violence Was Unheeded After Cult Leader's Gun Battle in '87", 1993/03/10: "There was an exchange of gunfire that lasted for several minutes and left the leader, George Roden, slightly wounded, and Mr. Koresh ultimately in control of the property and the sect. But after a two-week trial here, none of the participants were convicted of anything and their weapons were returned to them. [...] "A McLennan County sheriff's deputy out there said at the time they had enough weapons and ammunition to hold off the entire McLennan County Sheriff's Department, the police department and the local national guard," El-Hadi J. Shabazz, an assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, said in an interview last week. [...] Mr. Koresh maintained in his trial that he had been aiming at a tree, not trying to hit Mr. Roden. And after the jurors who heard that argument deadlocked on the charge of attempted murder, several hugged him. His comrades, who said they had been shooting into the air, were found not guilty of the same charge. Mr. Shabazz, now a lawyer in private practice here, did not explain why he did not seek to retry Mr. Koresh after the hung jury, although he did recall with some bitterness that "it was a black man trying to prosecute seven white men in a Southern town called Waco.""
          • Bernadette Feazell, "Branch Davidians": "The Davidians were found not guilty on the count of attempted murder. Justice was done, and the Davidians were humble and grateful. Members of the jury had lingered in the hallway, as did El Hadi T, whose heart was never really in it to begin with, congratulating Vernon Howell, shaking hands with Clive Doyle. [...] Winn Norman [Vic Feazell] was satisfied with the verdict, but took it upon himself to walk over to the courthouse to ask Judge Bebee about the matter of the Davidian arsenal, which still littered the courtroom. “Judge, these people are a little bit naïve ‘bout these guns, and I’m not sure they need to have them back.” Judge Bebee had the power to keep the guns from ever reaching the hands of the Davidians again, but instead made a snap decision to return them to Mt Carmel. Almost ten years later, when the Feds went in, the Davidian arsenal had been an important factor in their action. As he watched, along with most of the nation, as the Mt Carmel compound burned to the ground with David Koresh and the Branch Davidians trapped inside, Winn wondered what might have happened if he hadn’t personally questioned the judge about the weapons. A part of him that he didn’t really want to hear whispered that maybe the judge had made his fateful decision just to stick it to Winn, because of the bad blood between them."
            • Interesting to note that Bernie Feazell, named in this story under the pseudonym of Rusty Norman, describes herself as an old friend of Torbitt document author David Copeland: "She had always avoided him like the plague, keeping herself away from as many identified alcoholics as she could. “Tar Babies,” all of them, but Portman, “The Third,” had finally managed to wrangle his way into her heart at the funeral of a mutual friend, David Copeland, an old and treasured friend who had represented Portman for his numerous DWI’s."
          • El-Hadi Shabazz background
            • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Former Koresh prosecutor disbarred: Shabazz stripped of right to practice in Texas over alleged insurance-settlement misconduct", 1994/09/21: "A former Waco attorney who unsuccessfully prosecuted Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh after a 1987 shootout with a sect rival was barred from practicing law in Texas on Tuesday. Retired Judge Robert Montgomery of Chandler stripped El-Hadi T. Shabazz of his right to practice law in Texas after a brief hearing in Waco’s 74th State District Court. Shabazz, whose name was Donald Harris before he changed it in honor of slain civil rights leader Malcolm X, did not attend the hearing. Shabazz declined comment on his disbarment when reached Tuesday at his home in Carlsbad, Calif. A complaint filed against Shabazz by the State of Texas charged him with professional misconduct for reportedly keeping a portion of the proceeds from an insurance settlement in 1991 after a client fired him as his attorney. [...] According to testimony at Tuesday’s brief hearing, Shabazz’s Texas law license was under suspension for his failing to complete the required number of annual continuing legal education courses. It also was revealed that Shabazz agreed in 1992 to accept a private reprimand from the State Bar of Texas for unspecified wrongdoing. Shabazz earned his law degree from the University of California-San Francisco and practiced in Detroit for six years before coming to Waco in 1985. He worked as a prosecutor on former District Attorney Vic Feazell’s staff from 1987 to 1989. He prosecuted a number of felony cases, including the 1988 trial of Koresh, then known as Vernon Howell, and seven of his followers, charged with the attempted murder of former Branch Davidian leader George Roden. A McLennan County jury acquitted Koresh’s followers, but could not reach a verdict concerning Koresh’s guilt, forcing a mistrial. After leaving the DA’s office, Shabazz entered private practice in Waco, founded and became the first president of a local black bar association and ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner, justice of the peace and Waco school board. He moved to California about two years ago, according to his cousin, Quincy Harris, a McLennan County adult probation officer."
            • Note that Shabazz was one of the prosecutors on the Juanita White murder case; Waco cop Jan Price claims to have told him that the informant witnesses developed by Truman Simons were liars, to which Shabazz allegedly responded that he knew but didn't care
        • Legal representation of Koresh - done alongside his friend and attorney Gary Richardson, under the aegis of Kirk Lyons' CAUSE Foundation
          • Washington Post, "WACO CULT LAWYERS PREPARE THEMSELVES FOR LONG LEGAL SIEGE", 1993/03/26: "The case has attracted some of the region's top criminal lawyers, as well as conservative legal groups with a bone to pick with the ATF. "I'd love to see their sails trimmed," said Kirk Lyons, head of the fledgling Cause Foundation, a conservative civil libertarian group that coordinated an offer by several lawyers to help mediate with Koresh. The group included Vic Feazell, a former McLennan County district attorney, and Gary Richardson, a former U.S. attorney from Oklahoma. Heading the list of legal talent so far is Dick DeGuerin, a prominent Houston lawyer retained by Koresh's mother to represent him when the siege finally ends."
      • Life after the DA's office and Belo verdict
        • Bernadette Feazell, "LAKE WACO TRIPLE MURDERS: Careless Whispers or Contrived Convictions ?", 2017/10/08
          • "When Vic Feazell, John Ben Sutter, George Shaffer, and Mike Stanley got their settlement checks from the Belo case, they all had their wives sign Agreements that the verdict and settlement be in the name of the men, “for tax purposes”, to protect the amount of the verdict, which at the time was not taxed. It was the “loss of reputation”, which was like the “loss of a limb” at that time. The wives of the Plaintiffs were all friends, trusted Vic Feazell and Gary Richardson, so they signed away any right to any of the verdict monies.

            The women trusted Vic Feazell.

            One of Vic’s closest friends once said, “Vic is a good friend as long as he is in trouble.”

            That seems to have been the case as years later, one of the wives of one of the other Plaintiff’s called Vic and asked his advice when her boss had asked her for oral sex and told her if she didn’t he was going to demote her. Instead of helping or sympathizing, Vic merely laughed at her. He made her feel embarrassed and helpless so she didn’t get any other legal help, rebuffed his advance and wound up having to move into an apartment from a house when her position was taken away in retribution.

            Just like when asked about getting the wrong MEN in the Juanita White murder, Vic Feazell and Truman Simons say, “We always knew there was a third man.” Feazell had masterminded controlling all the money as blackmail and control over his own wife as well as giving the other men control over theirs."
          • "When his ex wife swam out of Denial and took a deep breath of truth, she not only realized he had planned on leaving her and their son with either nothing or whatever he wanted for at least six years while she slept next to him. Coupled with sending Joe Sidney Williams and Calvin Washington to prison without even a nano second of question, curiosity or remorse.

            Worst of all, and even more terrible than Feazell’s cheating was that he had brought home a clear, odorless substance that was legal at the time called, “GHB”. Feazell wanted to be a healthy muscle man like his new law partner, “Mr. World”, Marc Rosenthal. If you live in Waco you might remember Vic, “Mr. World”and anonymous support staff on the cover of your phone book for years. GHB is a precursor to testosterone and Feazell touted it as “non addicting”, and healthy for you. Everyone who was around him back in those days knew it, he made no secret of it and always had a bottle of water with him laced with the stuff. [...]"
          • "Everyone is a liar except Vic, well, maybe Truman but their Bromance ended when Vic Feazell fired Sherre Johnston, yes, the same Fire Chief’s wife that had the Marshall/DA’s investigator die in her arms, and is the long time lover of Truman Simons and others. Of course, Feazell hired Sherre Johnston FOR Truman Simons, so that they could see eachother and continue their love affair, of course, both collecting money from the Law Office of Vic Feazell. Perfect, and, Vic went right along with it, even though it was a humiliating thing to do to Simons’ wife, not to mention John Johnston who doesn’t seem to have any ego when it comes to his wife’s love life whatsoever. [...]"
          • "You live long enough and you just wonder what on earth because you cannot imagine having that kind of ego. Not in the very least. Truman has that, “aw, shucks” thing, while Feazell went from Baptist preacher, to lawyer, to actor, and no one ever said he wasn’t good. Simons shredded Gilbert’s truck. Feazell calls his own son a liar, has gone to rehab himself for drugs and sexual addiction, [...]"
        • Old version of the vicfeazell.com website
          • Home Page
          • Vic's Soapbox
          • Recommended Files
            • 2001/04/24 - the "Mind Control" link (to a Jeff Rense page) is captioned "The battle for your mind. Mass mind control techniques in America. Thought provoking. Required reading for anyone who wants to remain free"; the "Spiritual & Ritual Use of Psychoactives" link is captioned "The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong"; the "The One Behind The Many" link is captioned "This is a treasure trove of articles and papers on consciousness and spirituality. I spend several hours each week going through this file. Thought provoking and enlightening"; the "This is a great video about the history of LSD" link (to a History Channel documentary) is captioned "It will shock, surprise and educate you. Don’t believe what anyone else has told you. See this for yourself"; the "Nag Hammadi Library" link is captioned "A great site containing a history and translation of the Nag Hammadi Library, a treasure of Gnostic writings"
          • Photos
            • 2001/04/23
              • History Page 1 - includes "K ieth Darden, Berni, Jerry Sobel", "Fred Feazelll & Vic 1969", "Harry Reasoner 1985" (the CBS 60 Minutes reporter who did a 1985 piece on Lucas's alleged false confessions), "Fred & Sue Feazell & Greg", "Waco 1982" (depicting a Knights of Columbus sign stating "WELCOME VIC FEAZELL AND FRIENDS")
              • History Page 2 - includes "Jim Mattox & Guy Cox" (depicting one of the chief Lucas confession investgators and Lucas's court-appointed Waco attorney posing for a photo together), "John Ben Sutter 1984", "U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentson" (depicting Feazell with Lloyd Bentsen), "Henry Lee Lucas", "Ned Butler", "Gary Richardson"
              • History Page 3 - includes "Willie Thompkins" (depicting Willie Tompkins, the former policeman and friend of Truman Simons turned Baptist preacher who had a business partnership with Muneer Deeb, later became a prosecution witness against Deeb, and officiated at Simons' funeral), "The Belo Plaintiffs", "Jim Mattox 1984" (depicting Feazell and Mattox together in what is said to be the year prior to their joint Lucas investigation), "Ken Crow", "Ron Moody", "Dick Kettler & Don Hall 1983"
              • History Page 4 - includes "Wayne Davis & Gary Coker" (depicting Feazell in what appears to be a victory pose with two men who are said to be Wayne Davis and Gary Coker, the latter being the future attorney for David Koresh in the Roden shootout trial and 1993 siege), "Blessed by Rapaport and Deering" (depicting Feazell getting blessed by two men who are presumably Mark Deering and Bernard Rapoport), "Betty Denton", "Raymond Matkin" (depicting Feazell with Raymond Matkin, who was the other person alongside Feazell and his administrative assistant John Ben Sutter to whom cocaine trafficker S.E. Chastain provided lumber)
                • Waco Tribune-Herald, "Monsignor Mark Deering, who united faiths and races, dies at 94", 2016/06/03: "Deering was born Nov. 6, 1921, in Ballybit, Rathvilly, County Carlow, Ireland. He was appointed to Waco — his first and only assignment — as a newly ordained priest under Bishop Louis J. Reicher of the Diocese of Austin. [...] He arrived in Central Texas in July 1953, two months after Waco’s deadly May 11, 1953, tornado, and quickly discovered a change in climate from his native Ireland that blisteringly hot summer. [...] But he soon found the weather wasn’t the biggest difference in his new parish. [...] The city not only carried a streak of racial prejudice, but a religious one, largely expressed against Catholics and Jews. [...] In addition to serving as president of the Waco Ministerial Alliance, Deering was a founding member of the Waco Conference of Christians and Jews with his longtime friend, the late Rabbi Mordecai Podet. Wilton Lanning, a close friend of Deering, accepted his 50-year pin from the Waco Rotary Club with the monsignor, Podet and the late Paul Marable. Lanning said he offered condolences to Deering at the passing of his friend. [...] Marable served as president of the Waco Rotary Club after Podet and before Deering and was fond of saying that he felt “like a postscript between the Old Testament and the New Testament,” Lanning said. [...] [Deering] was named an honorary Baylor alumnus by then-President Emeritus Herbert Reynolds. [...] During his Waco priesthood, Deering estimated he performed several hundred marriages and presided at more than 1,600 funerals, many of whom were non-Catholics but whose families had asked Deering to officiate. [...] Deering was named a monsignor on Dec. 28, 1976, by Pope Paul IV. After 47 years as pastor of St. Louis, he retired in October 2000, but continued to make his home in Waco. [...] Deering served as president of the Waco Rotary Club from 1973 to 1974. He attended Rotary meetings all over the world and received his 50 years perfect attendance gold pin in May 2015. [...] Deering traveled extensively, visiting many places including India, Japan, China, Israel, Egypt, Hong Kong and Europe."
              • History Page 5 - includes "Jim Barlow", "George Shaffer", "Sheriff Jack Harwell", "Clint McKethan", "Ralph Webb"
              • History Page 6 - includes "Scott Peterson", "Suzie, Bob Pearson and Janet Kettler", "J.L. Crawford 1987" (a DA's office investigator), "Joan Chapman, Karen and Raymond Matkin with Pat Murphy in the socks and underwear"
              • History Page 7 - incudes "Ted Hernandez", "J.L. Crawford, Berni and Vic 1982", "Chet Edwards 1982"
              • History Page 8
              • History Page 9
        • Old versions of the Law Offices of Vic Feazell website
        • Claims by Bernadette Feazell about their now-deceased son Greg Feazell
          • KWTX, "Former Central Texas District Attorney’s Son Charged With Theft", 2015/07/31: "The son of a former McLennan County District Attorney has been charged in connection with the theft of items from his father’s apartment. Gregory Victor Feazell, 32, was ordered held in lieu of $3,000 bond, charged with theft of more than $1,500, but less than $20,000, a jail records clerk said. The charges stem from the theft of guns, art, electronics and household items from his father's apartment in the 3300 block of West Waco drive, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said. [...] Vic Feazell makes his primary home in Austin but still spends time in Waco and practices law here."
          • Bernadette Feazell, "LAKE WACO TRIPLE MURDERS: Careless Whispers or Contrived Convictions ?", 2017/10/08: "[...] When finally they both snapped to the fact their son was on it, Feazell shamed the both of them and said that the teenager was “just weak” as GHB was not addicting. Years later, GHB, also known as a “date rape drug”, became illegal as it was horribly addicting and, if your offspring was smart, they can make it at home.

            Two weeks ago, Greg Feazell, now living in Mexico, on Facebook wrote about his battles with drugs, that GHB was the worst thing he ever did and he wished he hadn’t taken it from his dad and tried it. Within minutes, Vic Feazell posted for all to see, that it was NOT him that brought home GHB, no, it was his mother’s boyfriend, Stephen Fletcher who did that not him (Vic). Being Mr. Hero means that much."
          • 2017/12/20 review for Law Offices of Vic Feazell by Bernadette Feazell: "Vic Feazell’s son, Gregory, was hit by a car while on foot in June of 2012. He had to have brain surgery, he had a broken wrist, leg, clavicle and many other life threatening injuries. His Dad, the famous, Vic Feazell was his lawyer. Of course, he got “policy limits”, AND Vic took his usual one third fee. THEN Vic got mad at me, his ex wife, Bernadette Feazell, and had our crooked DA, Abel Reyna put this son, who had been hit by a car in 2012, in the McLennan County jail in 2015. Vic overvalued his property to get his own son on a FELONY. Had Vic wanted his son to go to legal rehab, he could have made it a misdemeanor, he didn’t. He wanted his son in prison for 5 years. The DA crook ultimately dropped the charges after Vic Feazell’s son spent 5 months in jail. Vic Feazell is a terrible person who put his own son in jail in a Breach of Fiduciary Duty. You don’t put your clients in jail, he did."
      • KWTX, "State Bar honors former Central Texas DA who questioned accused serial killer’s claims", 2021/04/23
      • Facebook social media presence
    • Jim Mattox involvement and background
      • D Magazine, "MAD, MAD MATTOX", 1989/10/01
      • Bribery scandal
        • D Magazine, "MAD, MAD MATTOX", 1989/10/01
        • Seattle Times, "Prosecutor has drawn wrath of Dems, too", 2005/09/29: "In the 1980s, Jim Mattox was the attorney general of Texas and one of the most powerful figures in the state — mentioned as a future governor and, maybe, more. Today, he is a real-estate lawyer. A turning point came in 1983, when the district attorney in Austin, Ronnie Earle, indicted Mattox on bribery charges. He was acquitted, but the damage was done. Mattox had spent $300,000 on attorneys. His political career began to peter out. “Ronnie Earle had visions of grandeur,” said Mattox, now 62. “He was using it as a steppingstone.” In 1994, Earle also brought now-U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican, to trial on ethics charges but dropped the case at the last minute — something GOP activists seized upon as proof that he was trying to humiliate Hutchison because of her party affiliation. Now, Earle is going after another powerful Texas politician, and the defense is no different. When he indicted U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay yesterday, the Texas Republican lashed out at Earle, calling him an “unabashed partisan zealot.” Just one hitch: While Earle is a Democrat, so were 12 of the 15 politicians he has indicted over the years, including Mattox. Even Mattox said yesterday that Earle long has targeted people from both parties, roiling the halls of power in Austin — and now Washington — at every turn. [...] Within a year of taking office, Earle indicted former Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Yarbrough on perjury charges; Yarbrough fled to Grenada, and eventually served time in a state penitentiary. Earle also won convictions against a state treasurer, state House speaker and several Democratic legislators. George Shipley — a political operative who worked for the late Bob Bullock, a Democrat and one of the most powerful figures in modern Texas politics — said yesterday that Earle over the years had taken plenty of heat from Democrats in Austin. Earle went after Bullock — who was last elected as George W. Bush’s lieutenant governor — on several occasions, although he never brought an indictment. Bullock routinely described Earle in terms that are “not printable in a family newspaper,” Shipley said."
      • Texas Lawyer, "Politics and Prosecution: Before Tom DeLay, 14 Other Politician-Defendants Tangled With the Travis County DA", 2005/11/07
      • Election fraud investigation - appears to have been unceremoniously dropped with no results
        • New York Times, "TEXAS LOOKS INTO REPORTS OF VOTE FRAUD", 1986/09/23: "The Texas Attorney General is investigating allegations that a number of discrepancies found in the computerized voting records of several recent Dallas elections might have resulted from fraud. At the same time, the State Director of Elections has undertaken an independent investigation to see if additional safeguards should be imposed to assure the integrity of elections in Texas in November. [...] The discrepancies that prompted the parallel investigations by Attorney General Jim Mattox and Elections Director Karen Gladney were presented to both offices by Terry Elkins, campaign manager for Max Goldblatt, an unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of Dallas last year. He lost to the incumbent Mayor, A. Starke Taylor, who avoided a runoff by 472 votes. ''I have spent the last 18 months examining the documents of the 1985 Dallas elections,'' Mrs. Elkins said, ''and on their face they indicate there was fraud.'' [...] Conny B. McCormack, the Dallas County Elections Administrator, who conducted the election last year, acknowledged that administrative and technical problems had produced some discrepancies in the statistical tables published during and immediately after the election. But Ms. McCormack said the votes for each candidate had been counted accurately. Richard H. McKay, president of the election services division of the Business Records Corporation, the company that makes the computer system, said in a telephone interview that although a number of allegations of election fraud involving the system had been made over the years, no case had ever been proved. [...] After receiving Mrs. Elkins's allegations, the Attorney General's office hired an independent expert to assess their merit. One of the expert's findings was that the voting system Dallas used last year lacked adequate safeguards against fraud."
        • Texas Observer, "Democracy in the Computer Age", 1988/11/11: "Since, Meyer said, two of Mattox's campaign workers in a 1980 Congressional election had pleaded guilty to charges that they had illegally witnessed absentee votes of elderly nursing home residents, "asking Mattox to investigate voter fraud is like asking the fox to guard the hen house." [...] "There's a suspicion that there is a second program in the vendor's product," the highest law enforcement official in Texas said last autumn in his official car on his way to attend a picnic under the trees beside the University of Texas School of Law. "The suspicion we're investigating was whether or not they [the vendor] and people working with them had the ability to influence the outcome of these elections and were doing so. Our belief is that the vendor has the ability to influence the elections should they want to, but we could not prove that they have purposely influenced any elections. The suspicions are still there. The people on my staff — we still have suspicions about the security of the individual vote.""
      • 1990 gubernatorial campaign against Ann Richards
        • Los Angeles Times, "Texas Democrats End Lurid Campaign : Politics: Ann Richards or Jim Mattox will be the gubernatorial nominee after today’s runoff. It caps possibly the dirtiest race in state history", 1990/04/10: "At stake in the runoff election today is the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Most recently, the two contenders--state Treasurer Ann Richards and state Atty. Gen. Jim Mattox--have dealt in accusations of illegal drug use, bribery and improper business dealings. [...] Mattox, who has a history of going for his opponent’s jugular, is generally regarded as the candidate who started the campaign on its downward spiral, although Richards quickly responded once the attacks appeared to be working. After the March 10 primary, in which Richards and Mattox received 39% and 37% of the vote, respectively, Mattox began challenging Richards to divulge what illegal drugs she has used. In one recent television ad, Mattox insinuates, without proof, that Richards was a cocaine addict when she was a county commissioner. “Did she use marijuana? Or something worse, like cocaine?” asks the ad. “Not as a college kid, but as a 47-year-old elected official sworn to uphold the law.” Richards, a recovering alcoholic, has refused to discuss the matter, except to say that she has not used any “mood-altering chemicals” in the last 10 years. She retaliated by running campaign ads pointing to Mattox’s 1983 indictment on bribery charges, without including the fact that he was acquitted. She also questioned Mattox’s business dealings, as well as loans received, but without offering proof that anything was amiss."
        • Paley Center for Media overview of the 2012 documentary ANN RICHARDS' TEXAS: "As a result of the speech, many ask that Richards run for governor of Texas, and soon thereafter she announces her candidacy for the 1990 gubernatorial election. Her opponents in the primary are Jim Mattox, the Texas Attorney General and a former friend of hers', and former governor Mark White. The primary proves to be a difficult challenge for Richards, and all sides level a great deal of vitriol against each other during the course of campaigning. Mattox launches a series of advertisements and public statements where he accuses Richards of having a drug problem, particularly with cocaine. Richards retaliates by leveling accusations against Mattox of accepting bribes, and she accuses White of benefiting financially from public funding. The campaign grows so intense that Mattox and White each broadcast advertisements wherein each of them claims to have executed the most people via the death penalty."
  • Lucas defense efforts to get him off death row - led by Feazell from 1991 until 1994
    • Los Angeles Times, "Killer’s Case a True Trial for Texas D.A.", 1991/12/29: "Feazell is setting up his law practice in Austin. And he plans to represent Henry Lee Lucas at no charge."
    • Brad Shellady - private investigator who discredited Lucas's confessions; wrote an article about Lucas in You Are Being Lied To by Russ Kick (2000)
      • River Cities' Reader, "A Different Kind of Dinner Party" by Jeff Ignatius, 2002/10/22: "Brad Shellady first saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when he was about 13 years old, at Milan's Memory Drive-In. [...] Clearly the movie made an impression on Shellady. In the late '80s, he interviewed and filmed the actors who played Chainsaw's family of cannibals under the title The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: A Family Portrait. [...] Shellady grew up in this area and now works here as a surgical technologist, but his employment history is all over the map. He did special-effects work in Hollywood on such movies as The Abyss and was a legal investigator for the defense team of Henry Lee Lucas - who was convicted of several murders but is more famous for confessing to dozens of others, even though he didn't commit them."
      • Murder Auction page for "Bradley Shellady XL Metallica owned shirt he was the lead inspector in the Henry Lee Lucas’s case": "This was worn Mr. Shellady and used to protect a handmade boat by Lucas when it was shipped. The boat was a gift from Henry Lucas to him. It’s considered the largest crafted wooden artwork done by Mr. Lucas behind bars."
    • Phyllis Wilcox hoax of pretending to be Becky Powell - allegedly duped both Feazell and Aynesworth
  • Commutation of Lucas' death sentence by George W. Bush
  • Adam Walsh kidnapping - as explained below, perhaps Ottis Toole and Jeffrey Dahmer worked together on the murder under the auspices of the Hand of Death
  • Dubious "remote viewing" website connects the Hand of Death, Ottis Toole, and Jeffrey Dahmer to "Emilio" in the Johnny Gosch kidnapping

Rafael Resendez-Ramirez

Son of Sam

  • Mae Brussell broadcasts
  • Son of Sam by Lawrence Klausner (1981) - likely to be quite disinformational but worth checking out
  • The Ultimate Evil by Maury Terry (1987, 1989, 1999)
  • Time in the US Army
    • David Berkowitz joined the US Army in 1971, and was stationed in Korea, being honorably discharged in 1974. While serving in the Army, he was known to have used LSD, a drug associated with the CIA's mind control experiments.
    • Following Berkowitz's arrest, the New York Daily News on August 12, 1977 ran a headline story "SAM CHANGED AFTER LSD TRIPS" detailing his "devastating personality transformation" after taking the drug while in Korea. Article is republished here: New York Daily News, "Son of Sam's personality change was documented in letters to friends", 2017/08/03
    • Salt Lake Tribune, "More Indictments Likely In 'Son of Sam' Murders", 1977/08/18: "An army friend said Berkowitz adopted the "Son of Sam" nickname to signify his belief that he was a pawn of the government — symbolized by Uncle Sam. Terry Peterson, 24, McFarland, Wis., said in an interview with the Madison Capital Times he and Berkowitz were "best buddies" when they spent a year together in Korea. "When he'd complain about what the Army was doing to him — and he took a lot of static after he field those conscientious objector forms — I'd just tell him, 'Well, you signed up and now you're just a son of Sam,'" said Peterson. "What I meant was that he was a soldier for Uncle Sam and he was obligated to serve his country. But he took that to mean that he had become a pawn, a tool in some big game that the establishment was making him play. I'm certain that's where the name (Son of Sam) came from. We used to call each other that all the time," Peterson said."
    • According to p.80-81 of Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare by Michael Hoffman, upon joining the Army, Berkowitz became part of a special project for "profiled" candidates, during which he was dosed with drugs: "Terry Patterson, an army buddy of Berkowitz, stated that when Berkowitz said he was the Son of Sam he was trying to say he was the Son of Uncle Sam; a creation of certain elements in the U.S. government. [...] David Berkowitz joined the U.S. Army, entering a special program for "profiled" candidates. Drugs were administered."
  • Work for IBI Security Services Agency
    • ...
  • Relationship with neo-Nazi and murderer Fred Cowan
    • ** From p.303 of The Ultimate Evil: The Truth about the Cult Murders: Son of Sam & Beyond by Maury Terry (1999):

          Mitteager explained that Cassara, from whom Berkowitz rented a room in early 1976, was a coworker of Fred Cowan — an avowed neo-Nazi who murdered six people before killing himself during a daylong siege at the Neptune Moving Company in New Rochelle on Valentine's Day 1977.
          Moreover, Berkowitz kept a file of news clippings on Cowan in his Yonkers apartment and had referred to him as "one of the Sons."
       
  • See the Son of Sam murders page for information on the murders themselves

Monster of Florence

Cary Stayner

Refer to the extensive collection of sources on the Cary Stayner page

Richard Speck

  • Contemporaneous news articles
    • The Capital Journal (Salem OR), "Chicago Police Sift Death Leads", 1966/07/16: ""We've been inundated with phone calls, tips and leads since we added the sketch to our description," said Michael Spiotto, deputy chief of detectives. [...] At least one mystery remained, however, and police shed no new light on it after the interview with Miss Amurao: Why were there no loud screams, no outcries for help, during the time the killer bound and gagged the nine girls, herded them into a back room, and led eight of them out one at a time to their deaths? "There were some light outcries by the girls who came in late, but it wasn't much," Spiotto said Miss Amurao told him. An autopsy report showed the girls had not been drugged to prevent screams. Three of them arrived home after the killer had already gathered the other six into the rear room. [...] The sketch drawn from Miss Amurao's description shows a crew-cut young man with high cheekbones, aquiline nose, jutting chin, narrow-set eyes beneath brows of medium thickness, and thin lips. She said he definitely was a white man and that his hair was "somewhere between blond and black.""
    • Statesman Journal (Salem OR), "Alibi for Speck Provided by Tavern Employe", 1967/04/14: "A tavern employe testified Thursday that Richard Speck left the place at 12:15 or 12:30 a.m. July 14 more than an hour after, the state said, he entered a townhouse where eight nurses were slain. Merle Farmer gave the testimony to a Circuit Court jury trying Speck on charges of murdering the young women July 14, 1966. Corazon Amurao, the only survivor of the massacre and the state's star witness, told the jurors last week that Speck came to the door of her bedroom about 11 p.m. July 13, and stayed in the house until about 3:30 a.m., July 14. [...] Farmer, who works for Kay's Pilot House, about a mile and a half from the nurses' townhouse residence on Chicago's South Side, told his story under questioning by defense attorney Gerald W. Getty. [...] he said Speck came into the saloon around 8 p.m. and ordered a whisky and sat in a booth. Q. How long before he left? A. About 8:30 o'clock. Q. Did you see him any other time? A. Close to midnight. Q. What time was it when he left? A. I fix the time at between 12:15 and 12:30. Q. Did you see the lower part of his arm? A. I noticed a tattoo showing on his left arm. Farmer fixed his right hand at a spot above the elbow of his left arm. Speck has a tattoo on his left arm. [...] Getty also gave the jurors the original of a police bulletin featuring a sketch depicting the slayer as he was described by Miss Amurao. The sketch shows a man with a crewcut. Speck's hair is long. Miss Amurao, during cross-examination last week, said she did not tell the police artist that Speck had short hair."
  • "BORN TO RAISE HELL -- LIFE & CRIMES OF RICHARD SPECK": "In the course of the hour, Speck had systematically tied and gagged each of the women. As author Richard Lindberg has stated: "How he accomplished this with minimal to no resistance is one of the enduring mysteries in the annals of Chicago crime." Why did none of the women try to escape? Why did they not try and overpower Speck as he was tying another victim? Why did none of the women in the other townhouses hear anything that was taking place? No one knows and as Lindberg has noted -- it remains a mystery."

Charles Whitman

"Zodiac Killer"

  • "Programmed To Kill/Satanic Cover-Up Part 39 (The Zodiac Killer)", 2012/01/08
  • Original police reports
    • Napa County Sheriff's Department report on the 1969/09/27 Lake Berryessa attacks: pages 1, ..., 11, ..., 13, ...
  • Thomas Henry Horan theory (Zodiac Killer hoax)
    • The Stones Unturned Podcast, "Episode 1: Zodiac Killer Fraud Robert Graysmith", 2018/01/04
    • The Stones Unturned Podcast, "Episode 7: Zodiac Killer Hoax Part 2", 2018/05/26
    • Ed Opperman interview on 2018/11/09 of Thomas Henry Horan - identifies major California narcotics officer Hal Snook as the author of the Zodiac letters; brings up how Darlene Ferrin married a man named Jim Phillips / Jim Crabtree with whom she traveled around the United States, often ending up near the sites of large French Connection drug busts; claims that some people who knew Jim said he was a Satanist (inspired by the teachings of Anton LaVey); mentions Darlene allegedly witnessing a murder in the Virgin Islands while she and Jim were there
    • Drug motive behind the murder of Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday
      • The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax of 1986 forum post about the drug motive: "In December 1968, Lundblad and Butterbach had received tips that a certain gang of drug dealers may have "bumped off" David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen. Lundblad's investigation immediately came to a halt. In June 1969, a group of young men went on a crime spree, robbing and shooting a series of gas station attendants in Vallejo. David Magris, Matthew Donohue, his brother Robert Donohue, and an unnamed fourth man were arrested. The unnamed man was quickly released. But the young Donohue Brothers, facing a possible death penalty, told Solano County Sheriff's Deputy Terry Cunningham that they had been present at the shooting of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen in December. Unlike the "Zodiac," the Donohue brothers accurately described what the victims were wearing, etc. to Cunningham. They accused a notorious local gang leader nicknamed "Big Red" of doing the actual shooting. They also accused Big Red of bragging about shooting Darlene Ferrin in the parking lot at Blue Rock Springs park. This Big Red was later indicted in absentia for the execution style shooting of Ronald Lee Roy in December 1967. One of his accomplices in that shooting, Rockey Dixon, was also accused by several people of shooting Darlene.

        Big Red was the favorite informant of Solano County narcotics task force officer Ben Villareal. In July 1969, Villareal arrested and associate of Big Red's in possession of the P38 pistol and handed him over to John Lynch who booked him for the murder of Darlene Ferrin. The P38 pistol was tested by the ballistics lab in Sacramento. The results of that test have never been made public. But the last week of July, victim Mike Mageau failed to identify the suspect or any members of Big Red's gang from their mugshots. On July 31, someone started mailing letters to the Bay Area newspapers."
      • Solano County Sheriff's Office report of 1968/12/24 by Sgt. Lundblad and Butterbach - cites information that David Faraday had planned to turn in a marijuana dealer and was threatened over this at the IHOP on Tennessee Street
      • "Now It Can Be Told" by Geraldo Rivera episode on 1992/02/28 - has former Vallejo police officer Steve Baldino acknowledge police corruption within the department, including narcotics trafficking, a burglary ring, and officers who were fired for having sex with a 14-year-old girl; cites Maury Terry as an investigator; interviews former Vallejo Police Department officer John Lynch, who says that David Faraday found out about a narcotics transaction that had taken place and was telling others about it; interviews the Vallejo PD's top suspect Arthur Allen who denies involvement
      • The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax of 1986 forum post describing how Detective Les Lundblad of the Solano County Sheriff's Office publicly promoted the idea that the killer was a "deranged individual" while hiding the links to drug trafficking
    • The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax of 1986 forum discussion on James Phillips Crabtree (pages 1, 2, 3)
      • "Thanks for your comment! What's even stranger is, police didn't even bother looking for Crabtree until January of 1970. They got a "tip" from a "psychic" named Joseph DeLouise, who had been talking to Darlene's family. It seems likely that the tip really came from them. So, why wait six months? Darlene's sister Pam and brother Leo III have both said that they and their family were not totally honest when they gave their statements to police in July 1969. Leo has said that Darlene was out looking to score him a bag of weed that night. Pam has always had a thing for "diet pills." So, it seems likely (and the "Zodiac"letters seem to confirm this) that VPD originally came to the rapid conclusion that the shooting at BRS was related to the rampant epidemic of drug-related shootings in Vallejo at that time. Buuuuuuuuuuuut: Mike's description of the shooter matches Crabtree's photos of that time to a perfect T. Mike also said that, as near as he could tell, the shooter's brown car was very similar to Darlene's brown 1963 Corvair. Guess what? Crabtree owned a brown 1963 Corvair. When asked about the car, Crabtree told police that he had abandoned the car in a parking lot and told the previous owner to come pick it up. This supposedly happened before the shooting. Crabtree told police that he did not even know Darlene was dead until they came to the jail he was locked up in (on another charge) for questioning. But Darlene's family all swear he was at her funeral. People who know Crabtree have said that he is bitter about Darlene to this day and several of them have said they believe he probably killed her. All of which proves zip. By far, the worst, sloppiest, laziest investigation of all of these murders was VPD's investigation of the Ferrin murder."
      • "Based on the ACTUAL witness statements in the files, the man who seemed to have sort of been "stalking" Darlene before her death was most likely Crabtree. But, at least one of those statements is undoubtedly about a young man named Richard Moncur (who owned a white Cougar) who simply lived across the alley and used to sit in his car, smoking and listening to the radio. The alley is very narrow, and it would have looked very much like he was parked more or less "in front of " Darlene and Dean's house."
      • "Soooooooooo...did Hal Snook KNOW Jim? Some of their mutual friends have told me they knew each other. After WWII, Hal got his degree in Journalism from San Jose State University (you will NOT believe who his roommate was...) and then took over two small, bankrupt newspapers in far northern California--near where Diamond lived. Jim would have been a kid then. Hal spent a lot of time with boys, but until Jim himself confirms he was, um, "mentored" by Hal, there is just no way to confirm that part of the story.

        However, everything Jim ever claimed to "know" about the news biz, and all of his "Special Forces" training (according to Jim's brother, Jim never did anything in the Army beyond clerk/typist) he obviously could have learned from Hal. And I have found quite a bit of evidence that Hal also taught Graysmith everything he needed to know to get HIS first job at a newspaper--at age 12--when Graysmith lived with his parents at Tachikawa AFB, Japan. Hal was an AF officer on the same staff with Colonel Robert G Smith, Sr.

        Did anything "inappropriate" happen between Hal and his two young proteges? Only they can say. But several people who knew Jim as a boy say they think he had been sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by Diamond. An allegation that, so far as Diamond goes, fits everything I've learned about HIM. Soooooooo...And Hal was his nephew. Some people who knew Hal as an adult have told me that they believed Hal was some kind of pervert, himself, and certainly spent a LOT of time with adolescent boys. Sooooooo..."
      • "Napa deputy Richard Lonergan, lead investigator (reporting to Captain Don Townsend) on the Berryessa attack, had a prime suspect in the case--Park Ranger Dennis Land. Who looks guilty as hell, according to the files released in 2012 in response to my work. And he is a great suspect in the SRH murders, too. But NOT Allen. The "detectives" who supposedly corroborated Graysmith's book over the years--Mulanax, Narlow, Bawart, etc--were NOT "detectives" on any of these cases. The REAL detectives on these cases ALL repeatedly affirmed what I pointed out--there was no "Zodiac" and no connection between the murders."
      • "Darlene's father Leo II was a pedophile who abused at least some of his kids. Darlene apparently ran away in 1962ish or 1963ish with a man in his 30s who her siblings considered more dangerous than Crabtree. She was gone for about 9 months. Did she have a kid who was sold on the black market? Good question. The Pill was not widely available yet, and it was expensive when it came out. Anyhoo, she apparently never told ANYONE what she and this man did, other than travel across the country. When she turned 18 she ran off again, to the Haight, and married Crabtree. No kids, but again, Crabtree is fundamentally queer, which may be why she married him. Jim and Darlene also hit the road, also apparently up to no good. Darlene's friends say she dropped hints that Crabtree had gotten her involved in drug smuggling and a cult-related murder in the Caribbean, and THAT sounds vaguely like the DeGrimstons and their Process Church. But I can't help wondering if it was DARLENE who got Jim involved, since she and Jim seemed to have been retracing the steps from the first time she ran off. In any case, this time around, Darlene was no longer a juvenile. During this exact period of time, Cheri Jo Bates's father was being threatened in regards to his actions against drug trafficking in Riverside County, and Cheri Jo ended up murdered. Before "Zodiac" took the rap for that one, L Ron Hubbard claimed the DeGrimston mob did it. The funny thing is, there may be something to that."
    • Doreen Heskett kidnapping/murder - disappeared 1963/03/25 in Napa County; found 1963/11/21 by Earl Stewart on his ranch
      • Find A Grave memorial for Phillip E. “Bucky” Stewart deceased 1987/05/28: "He began his law enforcement career with the Napa County Sheriff's Department in September of 1958 and served as a deputy until transferring to the District Attorney's Office in 1963. Mr. Stewart was the first D.A. investigator in Napa County. He was promoted to chief investigator in October 1972. He held that position until he was elected sheriff in November 1978. Mr. Stewart served two terms as sheriff, retiring in January after a 28-year law enforcement career. While in the district attorney's office, Mr. Stewart supervised the child support program and was active in the California District Attorney's Investigators Association, serving as president from 1969 to 1980. During his two terms as sheriff, Mr. Stewart began the use of a crime scene van for investigations, started the Napa River Boat Patrol, the motorcycle program and increased the canine program. He was instrumental in consolidation of communications with the City of Napa and 911 emergency number implementation. Mr. Stewart was active in many law enforcement and civic organizations, including the Calfornia State Sheriff's Association, the Napa County Bay Counties and California Peace Officers assocations, California District Attorney's Investigators Association, Native Sons of the Golden West Parlor 62, Yount Lodge Masonic 12, and the Npaa Valley and California State Horsemen's association."
      • Napa Valley Register, "Cold-case unit looks to wrap up mysteries", 2012/04/22: "In November 1963, a few days before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, a dairy rancher southwest of Napa found the body of 5-year-old Doreen Heskett eight months after she had disappeared. The kindergartner had vanished as she walked home from a friend’s house near Jefferson and Pueblo streets, triggering a massive search involving 2,500 police, military personnel and civilian volunteers, along with tracking dogs. The discovery at the Stewart Ranch shocked everyone. Experts were called in, including the head criminologist from UC Berkeley, but the case was never solved as witnesses either died or left Napa County."
      • Interview with Bucky Stewart molestation victim Matt Newman in March 2014 (2015 reupload): "Hi. In 1956 I was attacked and molested by Napa police officer Phillip Bucky Stewart. I think he also killed Doreen Heskett in 1963. [...] Who do I think this? I was abducted by Bucky Stewart on Jefferson St. In Napa City. So was she. Her body was found on Bucky Stewart's ranch, owned by his father Earl Stewart. Many people know that Bucky and his police buddies were into dark stuff. Read the comments on this article. https://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/cold-case-unit-looks-to-wrap-up-mysteries/article_30b075ac-8c24-11e1-beb2-0019bb2963f4.html Napa County is one of the most corrupt places on earth and I want the attorney general to investigate the city of Napa and look into my allegations and prove Bucky Stewart killed this little girl.Napa law enforcement tried to intimidate me into shutting up. Now I tell my story. Please like, subscribe and spread the word."
      • Crime Magazine, "Forever 5: The Kidnap and Murder of Doreen Heskett", 2014/12/04
        • "On the morning of Thursday, November 21, 1963, Earl Stewart stumbled across the skeletal remains of a child in his South Napa cow pasture. Police were baffled by the location as they had paid particular attention to the field due to its proximity to the South Jefferson/Imola intersection, the last location of a possible sighting of Doreen. Undersheriff Gardner had participated in an aerial search of the field while law enforcement officers and volunteers had combed the field on three separate occasions."
        • "During their initial observation of the remains, investigators noticed some important details. There was a gaping hole in the skull; the missing portion lay about a foot from the body. The body was face down; the right arm under the body, the left arm outstretched with the hand clasped together. Despite the advanced decomposition of the body, the clothing was intact and only slightly faded. Investigators theorized Doreen was the victim of a sex crime as the child’s panties were pulled down to her knees. Missing were Doreen’s stockings and tennis shoes."
        • "One particular suspect, Claude Ray Jr., eventually became the prime suspect. Ray had a history of molesting prepubescent female children. In 1957, he served a one-year sentence in county jail for committing a lewd and lascivious act upon a 7-year-old girl.

          During the course of the investigation, police discovered information that placed the convicted pedophile in close proximity to Doreen Heskett. At the time of Doreen’s disappearance, Ray worked as a laborer on the Ghisletta Ranch, property that adjoined that of Earl Stewart. The Ray family resided in a small house on Lincoln Avenue, within sight of Napa Union High School and three blocks from the Heskett family. Due to their residential location, the Ray children attended Lincoln Elementary School, the youngest daughter a classmate of Doreen.

          Questioned within 48 hours of the abduction, Ray provided an alibi that Assistant Chief of Police Jack Blair was unable to disprove. Eight months later, when police recovered the remains of Doreen Heskett, Ray was again brought into the police department for questioning. Repeating his earlier alibi, Ray failed to convince Detective Earl Randol of his innocence. Unable to make an arrest without an eyewitness account or physical evidence that tied Ray to the abduction or murder of Doreen, Detective Randol was forced to cut his suspect loose."
      • The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax of 1986 forum discussion that mentions Phillip Stewart being part of the same circles as Hal Snook and Dennis Land: "Dennis Land and Phillip Stewart could pass for identical twins. Ray Land and Arthur Leigh Allen could pass for identical twins. [...] As an avid hunter and diver, Allen was well known to the deputies and park rangers of Napa and Sonoma counties. WELL known. Hal Snook, the Land brothers, and Phillip Stewart all knew each other from these activities, and from Snook's sporting goods store in Napa. All but Allen were also familiar with Snook from their classes in Criminal Justice at Napa Junior College. It is highly, highly, highly probable that David Faraday knew Snook. There was no official Scout affiliated Explorer program in the area at that time (there has always been a looseness in their association, anyway) but if there was any kind of Explorers getting off the ground at that time, it would have involved Snook and Faraday. The explorers have always welcomed girls, and David may have been recruiting Betty Lou. I'm having a haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard time getting anyone to say one way or the other if Snook was ever a Scout leader. The question interests me for several very, very good reasons."
      • The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax of 1986 forum post with a photo of Bucky Stewart
    • Dishonesty of Michael Butterfield of the Zodiac Killer Facts website (http://zodiackillerfacts.com/)
      • The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax of 1986 forum discussion mentioning a planned debate against Horan: "FWIW, multiple podcasts have invited Butterfield to debate me (at least Mike Morford tried) and he has chickened out every time. [...] Oh, I almost forgot to pile onto Butterfield: As most of you know, it was Butterfield who published the complete case against Cheri Jo's (sort-of-ex-)fiancee, and he even debunked the "case" against Sullivan. What most don't know, is that he has repeatedly agreed to "debate" me on air, and repeatedly chickened out. And I have repeatedly snickered."
  • Mae Brussell theory (Robert Linkletter son of Art Linkletter)
    • William Weston, "Who was the Zodiac Killer?", 2018/10/23
      • "According to a letter written by a woman who lived in Woodland Hills (near Los Angeles), Dr. Ohta was the man who prescribed the glasses found at the Tate house, and the owner was none other than the Zodiac himself. In late September 1970, less than a month prior to the Ohta slayings, she saw the Zodiac with Frazier in Woodland Hills. They “looked exactly alike” except that the Zodiac wore glasses. The implication is that Frazier was a Zodiac double. If he wore glasses, the resemblance would be greater. Pictures of Frazier at the time of his capture and all during his trial show him without glasses. However, a driver’s license photo released by the sheriff’s department shortly before his capture shows him wearing glasses. Perhaps he needed them to drive a car, yet the weird Zodiac-like appearance is certainly striking.

        The author of the letter goes on to identify the Zodiac by his real name and said that he was a member of a white supremacist organization called the International White Guard."
      • "While relating these conversations on her Dialogue: Conspiracy program on radio station KRLB in Carmel, Brussell never mentioned the name of the woman who wrote the letter and only said that she lived in Woodland Hills and worked as a school bus driver. She did however reveal the name of the Zodiac – after an interval of four years.

        On September 12, 1980, Robert Preston Linkletter, son of television interviewer and Hollywood celebrity Art Linkletter, was at his apartment, where his mother came to visit him. An hour later, he got into his car, a 1979 Saab. With him was his lawyer, Charles Crozier. Shortly after leaving his apartment, as he was driving west on Santa Monica Boulevard near Thayer Avenue, Gracie Jones travelling eastbound in a 1976 Buick crossed the center divider and rammed head on into the Saab. Robert died an hour later at the Los Angeles New Hospital from chest injuries. His passenger, Mr. Crozier, survived the accident, suffering from rib and face injuries. Jones’ explanation was that a car made a U-turn in front of her, forcing her to swerve into oncoming traffic. In January 1981, she pleaded no contest to the charge of vehicular manslaughter and was given a year probation.

        The letter that Brussell read on her program of September 28, 1980 was the second of two letters written by the Woodland Hills woman. Excerpts of the earlier letter appeared in an article on the front page of the Redwood City Tribune, Saturday, November 20, 1971. ["Letter-Writer Links Frazier and ‘Zodiac’" which names the woman as Marie Vigil]"
  • Maury Terry theory
    • "Now It Can Be Told" by Geraldo Rivera episode on 1991/??/?? (parts 1, 2)
    • The Missoulian, "TV show indicts Montana parolee", 1991/11/12 (pages 1, 8): "California authorities felt the [Robert] Salem murder was not connected to the Zodiac slayings, but was the work of a copycat killer. But Maury Terry, a "Now It Can Be Told" reporter and author of a book about the Son of Sam killings in New York, told the Missoulian on Monday that while Salem may not be a direct Zodiac victim, there are ties to the investigation. "There is no doubt that Baker was involved in the Salem case, and we're saying that people involved in Baker's (occult) group are absolutely involved in the Zodiac murders," said Terry, who said Baker was deeply involved in Satanism. Terry offered as evidence of that connection the case of Cecelia Ann Shepard, who was killed in September 1969 by a hooded man with the Zodiac's crossed-circle symbol sewn onto his wind-breaker. In that case, which authorities classify as a Zodiac killing, the murderer told Shepard and a friend, Bryan Hartnell, that he was an escaped convict from Deer Lodge. [...] Terry cited the Deer Lodge reference as circumstantial evidence that Shepard was killed either by Baker, who is from Sheridan, Wyo., or by someone associated with him. [...] Although authorities and author Graysmith tended to believe the Zodiac murders were the work of one person, Terry and Rivera believe at least two people were involved and perhaps more. "I think you had at least one person doing the murders and one person writing the letters (to the newspapers)," Terry said."
    • Note that the murder of Robert Salem was on April 19, 1970 and on April 20, 1970 there was a Zodiac letter (the "blue meannie" letter) sent out which ended with "PS I hope you have fun trying to figgure out who I killed"
    • "Now It Can Be Told" by Geraldo Rivera episode on 1992/02/28
  • Harry Martin theory
    • Napa Sentinel, "UNSOLVED MURDERS OF THE NAPA VALLEY" by Harry V. Martin, 1991 - mentions links to the Presidio military base: the proximity of many of the Zodiac murders to it, that Darlene Ferrin’s first husband was associated with it (ed. note: according to a Zodiackiller.com forum discussion, her former husband Jim Crabtree "spent time in the Presidio mental ward"), that missing woman Donna Lass had worked at the Letterman Hospital on the Presidio; also links in Riverside County, where Cheri Jo Bates was murdered in 1966 one day before Halloween, around the time of Richard Speck and Charles Whitman's rampages that began shortly after Anton LaVey declared the "Age of Satan"; names as a suspect Robert E. Hunter Jr., a director of the California Academy of Sciences and vice president of Crocker Bank
    • Obituary for Robert Hunter Jr. in the San Francisco Chronicle on 2013/10/09: "He graduated from Yale University in 1945 and was a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Marines Corps, where he participated in the occupation of Japan after the Second World War. Hunter began his banking career at Bankers Trust in New York City where he met his first wife, Sylvia Morton. The couple moved to San Francisco in 1949 where he became a banker at the Crocker National Bank, specializing in agricultural loans. His territory included the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii, where he had spent summers as a teenager working at the Parker Ranch on the Big Island of Hawaii. He enjoyed working with his clients, many of whom became close friends, while fishing and hunting. He was also a limited partner at Brown Brothers Harriman, the investment banking firm in New York. [...] He was a lifelong member of the Bohemian Club, where in his earlier years he enjoyed performing on Thursday nights."
  • Alleged suspect Bruce Davis of the Manson Family
    • From p.620-621 of Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry:

          On November 21, 1969, the bodies of James Sharp, fiften, and Dorren Gaul, nineteen, were found in an alley in downtown Los Angeles. The two teen-agers had been killed elsewhere with a long-bladed kniife or bayonet, then dumped there. Each had been stabbed over fifty times.
          Ramparts division Leiutenant Earl Deemer investigated the Sharp-Gaul murders, as did Los Angeles Times reporter Cohen. Although the two men felt there was a good possibility that a Familty member was involved in the slayings, the murders remain unsolved.
          Both James Sharp and Doreen Gaul were Scientologists, the latter a Scientology "clear" who had been residing in a Church of Scientology house. According to unconfirmed reports, Doreen Gaul was a former girl friend of Manson Family member Bruce Davis, himself an ex-Scientologist.
          Davis' whereabouts at the times of the murders of Sharp, Gaul and Jane Doe 59 are not known. He disappeared shortly after being questioned in connection with the death of Zero.
       
    • Discussion of the typed letter found in Gaul's room signed as the Zodiac killer - says "SO YOU THINK YOU CAN FOOL THE OLD KILLER HA HA I KNOW ALL YOUR MOVEMENTS AND THE TIME THEY ARE MADE TIME IS SHORT, ENJOY LIFE WHILE YOU CAN YOU ARE TO BEAUTIFUL TO LIVE AND I MUST KILL YOU. THE ZODIAC KILLER"
    • Allegation that Bruce Davis lived near Cheri Jo Bates in 1966 and dropped off the map shortly after her murder
    • Napa Sentinel, "Zodiac arrest tied to Charles Manson family" by Harry V. Martin, 2005/09/09
  • Alleged suspect Bill Mentzer
  • Lyndon Lafferty theory
    • The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: AKA: The Silenced Badge by Lyndon Lafferty (2005)
    • Real name of Lafferty's suspect is William Joseph Grant
  • Alleged suspect Jack Torrance
    • Rigorous Intuition thread about the CBS 13 article "News Clues Exposed In Bay Area Zodiac Killer Case": pages 1, 2 - finds that Dennis Kaufman, the person implicating his stepfather Jack Torrance, was the member of a Satanic church
  • Alleged suspect Philip Arthur Thompson
    • Zodiackiller.com forum discussion on Philip Arthur Thompson as a potential Zodiac suspect (pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32) - has Dr. Doogie as the main supporter of the theory; notes the fact that Philip Arthur Thompson resided in several California cities where Zodiac crimes were committed, and that some of his murders were initially believed to be done by the Zodiac (like Betty Cloer) or the Symbionese Liberation Army; suggests that the SFPD's inexplicable decision to stop investigating the Zodiac in 2004 was a result of pressure by the federal government following the rumored DNA identification of Thompson

Stanley Baker

  • "BAKER, Stanley Dean" entry in An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers by Michael Newton (Serial Killer Central copy)
  • USA Today, "'I'm a cannibal': victim's neighbor recalls horrific 1970 murder", 2015/07/03
  • SF Weekly, "Yesterday's Crimes: The Zodiac Killer Answers His Copycats", 2016/02/04
  • SF Weekly, "Yesterday's Crimes: The Hippie Cannibal Satanist", 2016/02/11
  • Contemporaneous news articles
    • San Francisco Examiner, "Killer Confesses 'I'm a Cannibal'", 1970/07/14: ""I have a problem. I am a cannibal," police quoted Stanley Dean Baker, 22, of Story, Wyo., as saying. In Baker's pocket, police said they found a human finger bone from which the flesh had been gnawed. They found a second bone in similar condition in the pocket of Baker's hippie-mode traveling companion. Harry Allen Stroup, 20, of Sheridan, Wyo. [...] In Montana, police disclosed that parts of a body had been found in and near the Yellowstone River at the approximate spot where Baker described shooting his victim. The murder victim has been tentatively identified as James Michael Schlosser, a missing Montana social worker. Baker and Stroup had been traveling in a sports car registered to the social worker and it was a minor traffic accident with the auto which led to their arrest."
    • Fresno Bee, "Two Held In Montanan's Murder: 'I'm A Cannibal---I Ate His Heart'", 1970/07/15: "Baker, who said he belonged to a Satanic cult, reportedly told FBI agents and sheriff's officer that Schlosser had .picked them up as they hitchhiked near Big Timber, Mont. Baker also told them he had eaten the heart after shooting the victim, officers added. Stroup refused to talk and patrolmen said Baker tried to clear him of involvement by admitting that he had fired the fatal shot. The Park County, Mont., Sheriff, Don Guintoni said last night a site had been found where he believed Schlosser had been killed. The site, four miles north of Gardiner, was about a mile from where a dismembered body was found last Saturday."
    • Great Falls Tribune, "Great Falls Man Torso Murder Victim", 1970/07/15: "Detective-Sgt. John McMahon of the Monterey County sheriff's office says Baker calls himself "Jesus," and admits to cannibalism, witchcraft and other occult practices. [...] From Park County and California law-enforcement officials, this is the story Baker told: He was hitchhiking and Schlosser, bound for a weekend with friends in Gardiner, picked him up. It is believed they later picked up Stroup. Baker said he knew of a job possibility at a site off the main highway, and Schlosser offered to drive him to the home of the jobsite foreman. "He was a kindly person, always doing favors," a fellow employe said of Schlosser. Schlosser had started work June 22 as a social worker at Roundup. [...] The detective said both Baker and Stroup were long-haired hippie types, and he, McMahon, saw similarities between the Schlosser case and the Sharon Tate murders, where a "family" led by Charles Manson is accused of murdering the Hollywood starlet and others. A California Highway Patrolman said Baker told him he was the victim of an electrical accident at age 17 "and I haven't been the same since." [...] Sheriff's deputies in Sheridan said Stroup had been a "hippie type" but recalled Baker had a good reputation as a youth. Official sources said Stroup has spent much of his time recently in Denver. Baker, a Sheridan officer said, had recently been discharged from the Navy. [...] Schlosser, a 1970 graduate of the College of Great Falls, intended to pursue a career in social work, and the Musselshell County job was his first in this field."
    • Salt Lake Tribune, "2 Wyoming Men Face Charges In Yellowstone Torso Slaying", 1970/07/15: "Park County Atty. Byron Robb filed the murder charges, identifying Schlosser for the first time."
    • Casper Star-Tribune, "Father of Baker Says Son Under Drug Influence", 1970/07/16: "The father of a Sheridan man who claims he is a "witch and a cannibal" Wednesday told the Star-Tribune he believes his son has been using LSD and other drugs. [...] Stanley Baker Sr., a Sheridan barber, said he believes his son's personality was changed by the drugs. Baker said he had heard his son, Stanley, 22, was on an LSD "trip" when he was arrested in California after being involved in an auto accident. [...] He said his son hasn't been home for two or three weeks. A deputy in the Sheridan County Sheriff s office who said he knew young Baker told the Star-Tribune "In the last couple-three years he turned hippy." The deputy also said it was suspicioned Baker was connected with drugs. The deputy said he believes Baker's behavior "stems from a car wreck he had." Following the wreck, in which Baker was badly injured, his behavior changed, he said. He has no full brothers or sisters, the sheriffs office said, but had been living with a step-sister in Story, south of Sheridan. He attended Sheridan High School, where he made good grades freshman year, did worse as a sophomore and earned only two credits his junior year, according to assistant superintendent Jim Isaacson. Isaacson said a check of Baker's transcript shows he left Sheridan in November, 1963, and in 1964 requested his transcript be sent to the high school in Evergreen, Colo."
    • Rapid City Journal, "Attorney says Baker, Stroup will testify", 1970/11/19: "[Defense lawyer Michael] Whalen said Baker will testify that he "shot Schlosser in the back of the head, drug the body out of a sleeping bag, spent the night cutting up the body, threw the pieces in the river, washed himself and headed north to look for Stroup." Baker will testify to his membership in a black magic cult called "The Church of Satan," Whalen said. [...] "I will show," Whalen said, "that on the evening of July 9, 1970, Baker and Stroup were with a man that lived In the state of Colorado." The man was not identified. He said he would show that the three men spent that night a short distance from Gardiner, sleeping beside their car. He added that on the evening of July 10, the Colorado man went into Yellowstone National Park while Baker and Stroup began hitchhiking back through Livingston."
    • Idaho State Journal, "Baker Chills Court with Tale Of Satanic Cult, Cannibalism", 1970/11/20: "Schlosser's headless, heartless torso was washed up at the feet of a fisherman in the Yellowstone River July 11. Baker and Stroup were arrested in California two days later. [...] Baker said he and Stroup had beentravelmg together, but separated before the slaying. Each took an LSD capsule in parting, he said. Baker said it was after the separation that Stroup headed for his native Sheridan, Wyo., while Baker hitched a ride with Schlosser. That night, in an LSD-magnified trance, he shot the gentle, husky, bespectacled social worker and threw the dismembered body into the river, Baker said. [...] "I laid there awhile. I was stoned, but awake," Baker said. "When I woke up there was lightning and things ... There was some thunder too. By that time, it was already done." [...] Baker said he could not recall dismembering the body. [...] "If I want, I can hypnotize myself into not remembering things and won't recall them." Under questioning by Whalen, Baker professed "super-human" mental powers, saying his study of the "bible of the satanic faith" had led him to communication with intercelestial beings and a "direct role" in the death of pop singer Jimi Hendrix in England this fall. [...] Saying it was possible the "reincarnation of Christ was within him, Baker claimed the satanic religion was "something I should have have gotten into." He said he had tried to abandon it, and had consulted a priest." Concerning his claim of a "blackout" on the events during Scholsser's killing, Baker said he sometimes had blackouts under the influence of LSD and sometimes when he had not used the drug."
    • Billings Gazette, "Second Cannibal Slaying By Baker Hinted at Trial", 1970/11/20 (pages 1, 6): "When Whalen asked Baker if he knew a Bobby Salem in San Francisco, Baker smiled and said: "I respectfully refuse to answer on the grounds it might tend to incriminate me." Whalen then asked if Baker had, in fact, killed Salem in San Francisco, cut off his ear, cooked it and eaten it. After a gasp from the rear of the packed courtroom, Baker once again used the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer. "How long had you known Bobby Salem?" Whalen asked. Baker refused to answer. [...] Asked by Whalen if Salem lived in San Francisco, Baker shook his head and again refused to answer. "Was he what you previously referred to as a faggot?" Whalen asked. Baker took the Fifth Amendment again. [...] During a brief mid-morning recess, Whalen refused to elaborate on the time of death of Bobby Salem or to identify the man or his alleged relationship with Baker. San Francisco Police Inspector Gus Coreris confirmed to The Associated Press Friday that a Robert Salem, 40, a prominant San Francisco lamp designer, was found dead April 19 in "a blood-bath." Salem's body, brutally beaten and with stab wounds in the back, was found in his plush apartment on April 19. Salem's throat had been cut and his left ear was missing. Coreris said Salem had been dead for several days when his body was discovered in the apartment. [...] [Harry Stroup] repeated Baker's testimony about the Canadian trip and backed up Baker's account of how they came to Montana. Stroup said he had gone to Canada to avoid serving in the Army. "I don't believe in serving in any army that uses its means to take the lives of other human beings," Stroup said. Stroup said he, Baker and Evan Brohard went to Canada together. Brohard died Aug. 23 in a one-car accident near Roundup, Mont. FBI agent Warren A. Cook took the stand to contradict what Baker said about Stroup's knowledge of Schlosser's killing. [...] He said Stroup told him Baker had admitted killing a man. Cook said Baker told him the day victim had made "sexual advances." Cook said Stroup told him he knew of the crime shortly after Baker picked him up in Schlosser's car. [...] Before describing the thunder and lightning-filled riverbank scene where he killed Schlosser, Baker bragged of his feats of magic, including one which "brought good weather" to a Canadian rock festival in Toronto last June. Asked if he believed he had changed the weather, Baker replied with assurance: "I know I did. I've done it many times." Following the rock festival, Baker said, he and Stroup began a trans-Canada trip which led them to a southern Montana highway overpass where, he said, he and Stroup separated." [...] Baker said he and Stroup had traveled to the town of Big Timber July 10 to talk to Jim Huggins, a timber man for whom Baker had worked in Wyoming. "Huggins told me I was wanted by the cops in Wyoming for some drug sales," Baker said, "and we rapped together and I got mad.""
    • Press Democrat, "Montana Link To Zodiac Killer?", 1970/11/22: "Stanley D. Baker, 22, Sheridan, Wyo., who has confessed to slaying a welfare worker and eating his heart, Friday refused to testify on Fifth Amendment grounds concerning the April, 1970, slaying of Bobby Salem in San Francisco. He was asked if he had cut off Salem's ear, eaten it, and written the word "Zodiac" in Salem's blood. He refused to answer. But Salem is not one of the five victims San Francisco police say was killed by the killer who calls himself Zodiac."
    • Billings Gazette, "California To Charge Baker Next", 1970/11/22: "Lt. Charles Ellis, chief of the San Francisco Homicide Bureau, said charges will be filed against Baker in the blood-bath slaying of Robert Salem, 40, whose lamp designs have been displayed in major art museums. [...] "We have been asked by Montana authorities to hold up on it (charges) but when the trial is over we will take action," Ellis said. San Francisco police said Salem's killer had tried unsuccessfully to decapitate the victim. Salem's left ear was missing from the gory slaying scene when police found the body April 19, horribly mutilated in Salem's plush apartment-workshop in the rear of the San Franciscan Hotel. "Zodiac" had been scrawled on the wall of the apartment, apparently in Salem's blood. But police discount any chance that Baker, a social dropout who admitted spending some time in California before coming to Montana last July for the fateful meeting with Schlosser, could be the "Zodiac" killer."
    • Billings Gazette, "Stroup Kept 'Bad Company'", 1970/11/22: "Harry Allen Stroup spent much of his young adulthood in the shadow of burly Stanley Dean Baker. It was Baker who was an athlete and a leader in Sheridan, Wyo. Stroup, still a string-bean at 20, was an obscure boy. It was Baker, the broad-shouldered society dropout with an affinity for drugs, black magic and the occult, who suffered the companionship of the bearded Stroup when both turned away from society for a murderous trip on the fringes of the hippie movement. [...] "I've had friends," Baker said in a moment of seriousness, "but they always wound up talking about me behind my back." Baker revealed "frequent impulses to dispose of Harry Allen Stroup," but said he resisted them because "good friends are hard to find." [...] Refuting Baker's statement that he could "control Harry Stroup's mind," Stroup said he was not sure whether he believed in what Berger called "Baker's hokey-pokey." "You don't really believe all that crap?" Berger challenged the startled Stroup. "I don't know; I don't discount it," Stroup whispered."
    • The Missoulian, "TV show indicts Montana parolee", 1991/11/12 (pages 1, 8): "On an episode of the television personality's "Now It Can Be Told" show, Rivera claimed that Stanley Dean Baker - paroled from the Montana State Prison after a notorious cannibal murder in Park County - had links to the San Francisco area's even more notorious Zodiac murders. [...] In Thursday's episode of "Now It Can Be Told" Rivera decried the decision to parole Baker, who helped several prisons set up inmate-therapy programs before he was paroled. [...] Baker was the top suspect in the Bay Area murder of lamp designer Robert Salem, whose body was found in his workshop in April 1970, just three months before Baker killed Schlosser. Salem's murderer had tried to cut off the victim's head. Failing that, he cut off Salem's ear, then smeared a crucifixion symbol on a wall in blood. The killer also wrote "Zodiac" in blood. Baker's fingerprint was found at the scene, but he was never prosecuted in California because of his life sentence in Montana for the Schlosser murder."

John Linley Frazier

  • Crime Library, "John Linley Frazier, the Killer Prophet and Hippie Murderer" by Katherine Ramsland: chapters 1, ...
  • Contemporaneous news articles - many on this Poli-con-deaths forum post
    • Santa Cruz Sentinel, "5 SC Slayings; Auto Only Clue" and "Dr. Ohta Settled Here After Air Force Duty", 1970/10/20
      • "Dr. and Mrs. Ohta were scheduled to attend the Founder's Day dinner of Dominican Hospital Monday night. It was speculated that Mrs. Cadwallader may have been engaged by them as a baby sitter for Taggart, a 6th grader at Good Shepherd school, and Derrick, who attended Thorp Manor private school in Santa Cruz.

        But Mrs. Cadwallader's husband, J. A. Cadwallader of 2115 Alice St., told The Sentinel today he did not know why his wife was at the Ohta residence, but that it definitely was not to act as a baby sitter.

        He said his wife did not return home from work Monday night and did not call home."
    • Santa Cruz Sentinel, "Three Sought In Mass Slaying", 1970/10/21 (pages 1, 6)
      • "Three people seen in the vicinity of Virginia Ohta's car while it was parked in Bonny Doon Tuesday and seen later near the tunnel where the station wagon was burned in the Rincon area off Highway 9 are being sought for investigation of murder, Sheriff Doug James said today.

        James said about 40 men were searching the mountainous area near Henry Cowell State Park for two men and a woman, all in their early 20s, all having long hair, one carrying an orange backpack.

        "We are following up every lead we can get," James said. He said deputies have found what appeared to be a campsite used by the trio in Bonny Doon, where the car was first seen.

        Search for the vehicle which began when Soquel Assistant Fire Chief Ernie Negro noticed it missing, at the death scene, ended late Tuesday afternoon when a Southern Pacific train crashed into it in a tunnel near the southern portion of Henry Cowell park. James said the car had been set afire in an attempt to destroy evidence. The car is being checked for fingerprints by state investigators.

        There were three sets of footprints leading from the car to the river James said. One of them was made by bare feet."
      • "An autopsy Tuesday revealed that Dr. Ohta had been shot twice in the back and once under the arm with a .38 pistol. The two women and two boys were shot in the base of the neck with a .22, Sheriff James said. There are indications that some of the victims were alive when they were toppled into the pool, and may have drowned."
      • "Sheriff James issued an appeal that anyone who was in the Rodeo Gulch Road vicinity, or who know of the Ohtas' or Mrs. Cadwallader's whereabouts between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Monday, contact his office, unless they have already done so."
    • Santa Cruz Sentinel, "Slaying Suspect Named" and "Fear Pervades SC Atmosphere", 1970/10/22 (pages 1, 2)
      • "At press time sheriff's investigators and the District Attorney were questioning two persons found in the search area, informed sources said."
      • "Chang, when asked about the persons in custody and the informants' information given him at 2 a.m. today, only said, "Absolutely no comment." At press time it is not known whether the people being detained by the sheriff's office are informants or suspects, although sheriff's spokesmen said no arrest had been made."
      • "Three barefoot, strange-acting people who entered a Monterey restaurant Wednesday night about midnight are being sought by police for questioning in connection with the Soquel mass murder, The Monterey Herald said today.

        Shaken by his experience, the restaurant owner requested that neither his name nor the name of his restaurant be used for fear of reprisal.

        He told police that three people, two men about 26 to 32, and a young woman, about 20, entered his restaurant and asked if he served food in nature's manner.

        The woman was waving a red wand and appeared to be in a semi-dazed condition. The two men asked the owner if he believed in nature. He replied he did.

        In the ensuing conversation the words "Without nature, we're dead" were used.

        The trio left the restaurant in a light colored, imported van."
  • Possible motive for the murder of Dr. Victor Ohta (erroneously called Dr. Vincent Ohta in Programmed to Kill): the pair of prescription eyeglasses found at the scene of the Tate murders, the origin of which authorities were investigating by talking to ophthalmologists
    • William Weston, "Who was the Zodiac Killer?", 2018/10/23
      • "Originally, the police believed the slaughter at the Tate house was the work of one man. A clue to his identity was a pair of glasses found in the living room. A lieutenant for the Los Angeles Police Department, Robert Helder, showed them to the press on October 23 and said that the killer probably lost them during the struggle with the victims. There were fingerprint smudges on it but no identifiable ridges. The owner was extremely near-sighted and could not operate a vehicle without them. An unusual feature was the plastic lenses. Unlike glass lenses, plastic resisted shattering and was the choice of very active people such as athletes. The amber-colored, horn-rimmed frames were of a specific type manufactured by the American Optical Corp. The customized bend of the temple shafts showed that the left ear was about one-fourth to one-half inch higher than the right. Police sent flyers to thousands of eye doctors, hoping that someone might provide information about the man who bought them.

        What the news media hailed as a major breakthrough in October quickly became an almost forgotten loose end in December after the arrest of Charles Manson, Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian, none of whom wore glasses.

        When the case came to trial, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi feared that defense attorneys might bring up the glasses and make the reasonable assertion that at least one killer was still at large. From that standpoint, they could argue that the wrong people were on trial. [6] Augmenting the effectiveness of this strategy would be to identify and locate the doctor who prescribed the glasses. That man, as will be shown below, was Dr. Victor Ohta, a wealthy ophthalmologist in the town of Soquel in the Santa Cruz area, 350 miles north of Los Angeles. As one of the state’s busiest eye surgeons, he specialized in the removal of cataracts. He and his family lived in a secluded mansion designed by Aaron Green, a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, on a hilltop ten-acre site overlooking Monterey Bay."
      • "On October 19, 1970, three days before the glasses came up during the testimony of prosecution witness Roseanne Walker at the Manson family trial, [7] Mrs. Ohta was driving her green Oldsmobile station wagon home at about 5:00 pm. Calvin Penrod, a sales manager for mobile home parks, who knew Mrs. Ohta, was driving in close proximity to her car and noticed she had three passengers, young people with long hair. Behind Mrs. Ohta in the back seat was a man with a moustache; next to him was a woman with straight, long black hair; and a second man sat in the rear compartment behind the back seat. As it shortly turned out, the three passengers were highly trained, well-prepared killers. At the house they bound, blindfolded, and shot from behind Dr. and Mrs. Ohta, their two young sons, and the doctor’s secretary. Then they set fire to the house. The fierce blaze attracted the attention of two sheriff’s deputies, who called the fire department. Firemen attempting to reach the scene found both driveways blocked, one by Dr. Ohta’s Rolls Royce and the other by the secretary’s Continental, with the ignition keys snapped off in both locks. By the time they could push the cars aside, the mansion had already suffered extensive damage. While looking for a source of water, they found five bodies in the swimming pool.

        [...]

        Mrs. Ohta’s station wagon served as the getaway car, driven wildly, nearly running other cars off the road. Witnesses saw three long-haired people in the careening car. At a campsite in the Bonny Doon area, witnesses saw three long-haired people, one of them a woman, near the station wagon. The following day the car was about a mile inside the Rincon railroad tunnel. An off-schedule Southern Pacific switch engine banged into it at 4:45 pm. Someone had driven it into the tunnel and set the seat cushions on fire (a destructive act similar to what happened to Kathleen Johns’ car). The engineer put out the flames with a fire extinguisher and then used his engine to push the car out of the tunnel. The motor was still warm from recent use. Three sets of footprints led from the spot where the car was abandoned to outside the tunnel.

        Alerted by a tip from “three long-haired persons” who provided the address of a woman who in turn gave directions to her husband’s tiny ramshackle hut in a wooded area in the Santa Cruz Mountains, sheriff’s deputies arrested John Linley Frazier, an auto mechanic who had dropped out of society and was living the hippie life-style. As soon as they took him into custody, the search for more suspects was discontinued. When newsmen asked District Attorney Peter Chang how one man could have bound, blindfolded, and shot five people with two pistols, a .38 and a .22, he said, “It sounds ridiculous, but it’s possible that it happened.”

        Originally, Frazier denied killing the Ohtas. He said that three persons went into the Ohta house while he waited outside at the driveway entrance. He changed his story later, confessing to a psychologist that he killed the Ohtas single-handedly. The original story is probably the correct one, and his role that day was to serve as lookout."

Herb Mullin

  • Mind control program at a Hawaii mental hospital
    • Interview of Mae Brussell by Tom Davis on 1980/12/08: "Hawaii has been the scene of many clandestine operations. Many CIA Vietnamese and members of the Special Forces, now safely removed from Vietnam, were assembled in Hawaii. The Nugan Hand Bank, an Australian conduit for CIA "black money", actually assassination funds, kept a branch in Hawaii. Herbert Mullen, convicted of mass murders in California, appeared perfectly normal until he was sent to a military hospital in Hawaii. It was in Maui that he went through his "religious thinking" and evolved as a killer. Ed Sanders, author of The Family, a book about the Manson Family, obtained documents regarding a mysterious trip Mullen took to Hawaii before he later became a programmed killer."
    • From p.133 of The Covert War Against Rock by Alex Constantine (2000), citing a footnoted source: "In 1974, Ed Sanders, poet and author of The Family, a book that explores the totalitarian fantasies of Charles Manson, wrote a letter to the late political researcher Mae Brussell, describing federally-sponsored mind control operations in Hawaii, Chapman's home, conducted by the US military, most notably the creation of serial killers. [8] Northern California mass murderer Herbert Mullen, Sanders wrote, worked at a Holiday Inn and flew to Hawaii in 1970 with Patricia Brown, a much older woman, against the wishes of his family. She told him that they would stay with a “church group,” but Mullen was committed the day after his arrival to a mental hospital operated by the U.S. Army instead. He was given generous servings of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs, not exactly standard therapeutic practice. In her December 20, 1980 broadcast, Brussell related that Sanders informed her how Lawrence Quong, a raving gunman who shot at a San Francisco radio personality while on the air, “was taken to Hawaii by a woman and brought back to San Francisco with a mysterious gun placed in his hand.” The gun was unregistered, its origin unknown. Quong “went to a private detective many times and said he’d been programmed with electrodes and he was directed to this radio station. He couldn’t control himself.” Others, Sanders insisted, did."

Edmund Kemper III

  • Military family
    • Obituary for Edmund Emil Kemper, Jr. (father): "Edmund enlisted in the Army on June 21, 1939. He served in World War II during his enlistment. After the war he tested atomic bombs in the Pacific Proving Grounds ... Edmund later stated that "suicide missions in wartime and the later atomic bomb testings were nothing compared to living with [Clarnell]" and that she affected him "as a grown man more than three hundred and ninety-six days and nights of fighting on the front did."
    • 1991 interview with Ed Kemper by Stéphane Bourgoin, 1:19:29: "... [M]y father was in the first Special Service Force in World War II [and] they did a book and a movie called The Devil's Brigade. He was a combat sergeant in that group and he volunteered for that as a single man. They would not take married men. That's how my parents met. She was working as a secretary in Helena Montana, the capital city [and] he's a few miles out of town at an old retired closed-down cavalry fort for the U.S. army that was reopened as a secret base for these guys to train out of at Fort William Henry Harrison just outside of town. They got to know each other, they quite, quite, it wasn't secretly but it was very quietly got married because if they didn't know when he got married he had been kicked out of the group. This is what was described as a "suicide brigade" - 5,000 men trained in addition in all this devastation (inaudble), he goes off to war and he does some horrible things he can't talk about those things."
      • Encyclopedia Brittanica, "Edwin Anderson Walker": "Edwin Anderson Walker ... served in World War II as the leader of the "Devil’s Brigade" commandos [...] but he later resigned (1961) from the army with the rank of major general after receiving a public admonishment for circulating right-wing literature to his troops in Germany and publicly asserting that former U.S. president Harry Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and former secretary of state Dean Acheson were all "definitely pink." [...] later he was the target of an unknown assassin (later identified as Lee Harvey Oswald), who fired a bullet that narrowly missed Walker’s head as he sat in his study."
    • Rex Stage (maternal uncle) - Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces
      • UP, "Approve Punishment for Decapitation," 1944/07/27: "President Roosevelt has approved the punishment prescribed by a court martial for 2nd Lt. Rex A. Stage, a bomber pilot who flew so low over a Texas highway that the landing gear on his plane struck the roof of a bus in which 28 persons were riding, it was announced to day by the Second Air Force. Lieutenant Stage was ordered dismissed from the army, with total forfeiture of all pay. Stage was stationed at the Pyote, Tex. Army Air Field at the time of the offense, March 20."
      • UP, "Pilot's Sentence in B-17 'Bounce' Upheld", 1944/07/27: "At his trial at Biggs Field, El Paso, he offered no excuse for his stunting except that he was "prompted by an irrepressible desire to experience the behaviour of a B-17 at an extremely low altitude," the Army announced. He denied that he deliberately struck the bus, which was traveling from Pecos to San Antonio when the bomber struck it, damaging the top. No one, either in the plane or bus, was injured. The Air Force did not reveal Stage's home address."
  • Psychiatric and / or correctional facilities
    • Front Page Detective Magazine, "Edmund Kemper Interview", Mar. 1974: "Kemper spent five years at Atascadero after he murdered his grandparents in 1964 at the age of 15. He recalled with pride the job he'd held there as head of the psychological testing lab at the age of 19 and working directly under the hospital's chief psychologist. [...] [Ed] explained, "I grew up there. That used to be like my home." [...] Because of his intelligence and ability, he apparently was a valuable aide in psychological testing and research. "I helped to develop some new tests and some new scales on MMPI... You've probably heard of it ... the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory," he said with a chuckle. "I helped to develop a new scale on that, the 'Overt Hostility Scale'..."
  • Law Enforcement ties
    • KSBW 8, "Santa Cruz Serial Killer Spotlighted In TV Documentary", 2011/10/11: "Kemper became buddies with local law enforcement officers. He hung out at a bar, the Jury Room, across the street from the Santa Cruz County Courthouse because cops hung out there."
    • Crime Library, "Edmund Kemper: The Coed Butcher" by Katherine Ramsland: "As part of his parole requirements, Kemper went to a community college and did well, but he hoped to get into the police academy one day. When he learned that he was too tall, his consolation was to hang out in the jury room where the police gathered and listen to their stories. They knew him as "Big Ed" and generally thought of him as a polite young man. [...] He got several different jobs and finally ended up with the California Highway Department [later to become the California Department of Transportation]."
  • Jaycees
    • Oxygen, "The Disturbing True Story Of John Wayne Gacy, The Original Serial Killer Clown", 2018/11/07 - "John Wayne Gacy joined the United States Junior Chamber, also known as the Jaycees, a national civic group which, in an odd coincidence, fellow serial killer Ed Kemper also belonged to. He [Gacy] was named “Outstanding Vice President” of the Waterloo Jaycees in 1967." [Other Jaycees include Presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon, Vice Presidents Al Gore, Walter Mondale, and Hubert Humphreys, billionaires Bill Gates and Howard Hughes, and aviator Charles Lindbergh.]
    • Front Page Detective Magazine, "Edmund Kemper Interview", Mar. 1974 - "It was there [Atascadero State Hospital] that he became a member of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. During his trial, he wore his membership pin in his lapel, apparently with pride. [...] Kemper said of [Bruce] Colomy [Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputy], only a few years older than himself, "He's more like a father to me than anyone I have ever known ... He's like the father I wish I had had." (Deputy Colomy told me later that one of the last things Kemper did before he left the Santa Cruz courthouse for state prison was to remove his cherished Junior Chamber of Commerce membership pin from his coat lapel "and give it to me." The deputy said, "Ed looked at it for a long time and tears came to his eyes. Then he handed it to me and said, 'Here, I want you to have it.'")"
    • Subsequent Parole Board Consideration Hearing, 2017/07/25, p. 72-73
      • PRESIDING COMMISSIONER FRIZTZ: Okay, all right, thank you. Um, all right. In part of this, um, discussion with the psychologist, you went into things about when you were younger how you were a voting member of the Board of Directors, and the youngest Jaycee in America, but this was all at point where you were actually at Atascadero -- INMATE KEMPER: Yeah.
      • INMATE KEMPER: They have a Jaycee local[e] there [Atascadero State Hospital] [...] And I was, uh, at one point I was allowed to be an associate member, non-voting member [...] when I first got involved with them. By a year later, I not only had a vote, I was external director.

Richard Chase

Hillside Stranglers

  • The Hillside Stranglers by Darcy O'Brien: chapters ..., 30, ...
  • Contemporaneous news articles
  • Double initial murders a.k.a. the Alphabet murders - from 1971 to 1973
    • From p.81-82 of Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare by Michael Hoffman:

          This writer regards Son of Sam cultists Michael and John Carr as strong suspects in the highly-symbolical "Double Initial" murders of children in Rochester, New York; a highly charged occult series with a connection to the U.S. Secret Service and Hillside Strangler Kenneth Bianchi, formerly of Rochester.
          According to information published in the Rochester Times-Union, the Secret Service, for no discernible reason, was present in the vicinity of the home of the first "Double Initial" murder victim, Carmen Colon, before she was murdered.
          This presence—never officially accounted for in this still unsolved murder-series—is reminiscent of a macabre execution in Houston, Texas in 1983. United Press International reported that two Secret Service agents watched the shooting of Gregory D. Chafin and did nothing to prevent it or apprehend the killer. Viewing this crime from another angle, we might speculate that the Secret Service was somehow possibly even supervising this murder.
          The presence of the Secret Service agents in the neighborhood of Carmen Colon in Rochester in advance of her death, is justifiably suspicious given the depth of police coverup of leads in those Double Initial slayings of which her murder was a part. Son of Sam cult members John and Michael Carr and Hillside Strangler Kenneth Bianchi—all of whom were in the region at the time—were all protected by the police from interrogation in these crimes, even after a retired Rochester policewoman linked Bianchi with the Double Initial serial murders.
          Maury Terry, in his book The Ultimate Evil, places Michael Carr in Rochester during the Double Initial murders and cites Michael's brother, alleged Son of Sam killer John "Wheaties" Carr, as a man who dated thirteen year old girls and who was known in the Sam cult as a rapist and suffocater of young girls. But Terry never once suggests any possible link to Double Initial which involved the rape and murder of four girls and about which this writer informed Terry in correspondence in 1979.
          Terry, on p. 455 of his book, in what may be a macabre hint of his own, says-apropos of nothing—that he has his "eye" on the Hillside Strangler file. Indeed. That file leads to Kenneth Bianchi of Rochester, N.Y., and Kenneth Bianchi leads to the Double Initial occult ritual murders in Rochester, a case severely obstructed by police coverup. Terry's book contains both genuine information as well as a farrago of uninformed speculation and even deliberate disinformation.
       
    • From p.19 of The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton: "Born in May 1951 to a prostitute mother in Rochester, New York, Ken Bianchi was given up for adoption as an infant. By age 11, he was falling behind in his schoolwork and was given to furious tantrums in class and at home. He married briefly at 18. Two years later, he wrote to a girlfriend, claiming he had killed a local man. She laughed it off, dismissing the claim as part of Ken's incessant macho posturing, but homicide was clearly preying on Bianchi's mind. By 1973, he was certain that police suspected him of involvement in Rochester's brutal "alphabet murders," though in truth, it took six more years before detective realized his car resembled one reported near the scene of one "alphabet" slaying."
    • DNA elimination of other suspects - why has Bianchi's DNA not been tested?
  • Medical treatments received by Bianchi
    • ...
  • Bianchi multiple personality disorder
    • From p.167 of Programmed to Kill, there is definite evidence that Bianchi had a strong tendency to dissociate: "As a child, Bianchi frequently lapsed into trance-like states, during which time his eyes would roll back in his head. [...] Perhaps not surprisingly, Ken had gaps in his memory, and would sometimes find himself walking down a street with no memory of how he got there or what he had been doing immediately prior. Such episodes are clear signs of a dissociative disorder, a category that includes fugue states and amnesia, as well as MPD/DID."
    • UPI, "Confessed Hillside Strangler Kenneth Bianchi, who earlier testified he...", 1982/06/29: "Testifying Monday in Buono's murder trial, Bianchi, 31, said he made up his multiple personalities at the urging of his former lawyer and a social worker who were trying to establish an insanity defense for the sex killings. [...] Bianchi, supposedly under hypnosis, had told psychiatrists in Bellingham, Wash., that he had an evil alter-ego named Steve Walker. In those taped conversations he also named Buono as his accomplice in the so-called Hillside Strangler killings of 1977-78."
  • Child prostitution ring
    • Names of the victims: Sabra Hannan; Rebekah Gay Spears / Rebekah Spears / Becky Spears; Antoinette Lombardo
    • From p.112 of The Hillside Stranglers: The Inside Story of the Killing Spree That Terrorized Los Angeles by Darcy O'Brien: "When Angelo and Kenny arrived at the box factory with Sabra and Antoinette, seven men awaited them, swarthy fellows congruous with the odor of cardboard. They included the box moguls and assorted civic dignitaries: Pete Werrlein, revered city councilman from the city of Bell; Red Fertig, the police chief of Huntington Park; and Warren Schmucki, chief aide to a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Angelo and Kenny ordered the girls into separate offices and directed traffic."
    • Los Angeles Times, "Ex-County Aide Tells of Talk With Bianchi Prostitutes Link Bianchi, Buono to Two Officials", 1980/04/07
    • San Bernardino Sun, "Testimony links prostitutes with officials", 1980/04/08
    • Santa Cruz Sentinel, "Prostitutes Feared Buono's Connections", 1980/04/16 (pages 23 OCR): "A teen-age prostitute who said she worked for confessed Hillside Strangler Kenneth Bianchi and his cousin Angelo Buono for fear rather than money, told a Grand Jury she believed the two had connections to the Mafia and to local police departments. "If I rode in a car with Angelo and he saw a pretty girl, he would write down the license plate and run it and find out where she lived," Sabra Hannan said in a grand jury transcript made public Tuesday. "Through his friends in law enforcement," she was asked by the prosecutor. "Yes," Miss Hannan replied. Another witness. Rebekah Spears, who was 15 at the time she said Miss Hannan recruited her to work for Bianchi and Buono, recalled: "They told me they were backed by the Mafia. They referred to them as "the boys.'" Both women said that Buono had told them he would kill them, cut off their limbs and ship them out of the state in a box if they disobeyed him. Miss Hannan told the grand jury that she was tricked into prostitution. She said Bianchi had offered to help her find a modeling job, that he had paid for her plane flight to Los Angeles from Texas,, and that Buono had given her $100 for clothes. "They told me. I'm theirs for a year now and I owed them a plane ticket and $100 and either way I would have to do it," said Miss Hannan. She said she lived in Buono's house in Glendale where he has an upholstery shop. "He told me that he had friends in the law enforcement and if he was to do something...like it was legal if somebody came into your home and you shot them while they were in the house, that he could get away with it." She said that Bianchi had beat her with his hands and a wet towel and both women said they were sexually abused by Buono when they were living in his house. Miss Hannan said she was taken by Bianchi and Buono to a paper recycling factory in Cudahy where she was told to commit acts of prostitution with several men. She said the factory belonged to two brothers, Dennis and Carl Abajian. She identified a former Huntington park police chief, a Bell city councilman and a former chief deputy to county supervisor Pete Schabarum as being at the stag party. All the men testified before the grand jury. They all denied having sexual relations with anyone at the factory and most denied any knowledge about such activity by each other. However, Carl Abajian, who was appointed by Schabarm to a county commission, said he heard rumors about such activities the next day and told Buono not to bring girls to his factory again. But he said that during the visit he was outside showing antique cars to Bianchi. Warren Schmuki, Schabarurn's former chief deputy, said he too had once discussed antique cars with Bianchi, when he brought his car to Buono's shop for a minor repair. He said Bianchi noticed the county sticker on his car window and wanted one for an antique car he planned to display. Schmuki said he talked to Bianchi for three minutes and sent him the county sticker. Asked repeatedly by Deputy District Attorney Roger Kelly if he would do the same for anyone who talked to him for three minutes, Schmuki repled 'no.' But he had difficulty explaining why he had done it for Bianchi. He said he received nothing in return, not even a "thank you." Police believe Bianchi used the sticker on his car to make his victims believe he was a law enforcement official."
    • UPI, "A former prostitute testified that she fled the state...", 1982/03/11: "Sabra Hannan, 21, told a Superior Court jury Wednesday that she went to Wisconsin because she was 'tired of getting beat up, tired of all the threats and tired of engaging in prostitution' for Buono and confessed Hillside Strangler Kenneth Bianchi. 'I was worried about Angelo finding me,' she said. Miss Hannan, who lived in Buono's Glendale home for about three weeks in mid-1977, said she was virtually a prisoner who had to get Buono's permission to leave the house. 'Ken (Bianchi) beat me two or three times,' once with a wet towel, she told the jury."
    • Trash Menace, "The Bounty Hunter and the Hillside Strangler(s)", 2014/03/01 - discusses Buono and Bianchi sexually blackmailing a Los Angeles attorney, who hired William Boyles a.k.a. "Tiny" Boyles to threaten the pair
  • Additional suspects
    • Ned York - an actor who was the first suspect arrested and gave a rambling confession
    • Unnamed actor - ran a film studio said to be used for hardcore S&M films
    • Unnamed producer - enjoyed the company of young girls; was stopped by police while driving the car of a convicted rapist with a young girl inside and while in possession of a phony police ID
    • Unnamed police officers
      • From p.176 of Programmed to Kill: "Many believed that a police officer was directly involved. Several were questioned during the course of the investigation, and a few who were conclusively linked to the times and places of the disappearances and/or the body drop-sites could not account for their time."
    • George Shamshak - escaped from a Massachusetts prison when the killings began and recaptured after they ended; gave a confession to the murders - and Peter Mark Jones - a Beverly Hills resident named by Shamshak as an accomplice, who was arrested and then released
      • Note that Shamshak only confessed to the murders of Jill Barcomb and Kathleen Robinson, who were subsequently taken off the Hillside Strangler victim list even though Shamshak was never charged. The murders of Barcomb and Robinson would remain officially unsolved for decades, and in 1995, the LAPD reported that records on both cases were "destroyed in an earthquake" after Jones requested them. (Michael Newton, The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, p.30-31) DNA ultimately linked Barcomb's murder to Rodney Alcala. Per Shamshak's confession, he was the chauffeur for three people -- Peter Mark Jones, another man, and a woman -- who actually committed the murders. So it is possible that Alcala was one of the men in this group.
      • ABC Evening News, "HILLSIDE STRANGLER SUSPECTS" by Harry Reasoner and Bill Stewart, 1978/03/31
      • New York Times, "Handyman Booked in Hillside Strangler Case on Coast", 1978/04/01
      • Washington Post, "2 L.A. Arrests Cast Doubt on Single 'Strangler' Theory", 1978/04/01: "Recently installed Police Chief Daryl Gates said information provided by George Francis Shamshak, 27-year-old Massachugetts convict who is serving a bank robbery term, implicated both men in the two kiilings. Gates, who headed the 92-member Hillside Strangler Task Force before his appointment as chief March 24, claims that the arrest of the two men is "major breakthrough" in the long investigation. If he is right - and neighbour Jones nor Shamshak has formally been charged in any of the murders - it means police were wrong in linking the 13 deaths to a single killer or murder team. Police emphasized yesterday that Jones is not a suspect in 11 of the 13 killings. [...] Police here linked all the crimes because of the method of killing and because of the method of killing and because victims were mutilated in a way that police consistently have refused to disclose. [...] However, the arrests Thursday cast some doubt on past official versions of the killings. Shamshak reportedly told Massachusetts investigators that Jones had bludgeoned one of his victims to death. One of the murders for which the pair is being investigated is the Nov. 10 slaying of Jill Terry Barcomb, whose nude body was found along a roadway in West Los Angeles. Barcomb, who came to Hoolywood after a New York conviction for prostitution, was the supposed fifth victim of the Stangler. An autopsy after her death provoked an unusual feud between the police and the Los Angeles County coroner's office, which said the victim had been bludgeoned to death and not strangled. According to police sources Friday, Shamshak made statements to Massachusetts investigators in which Jones claimed to have hit one of the women on the head with a blunt instrument. He is also supposed to have said that he strangled one victim and stabbed another. There's no record of any stabbing victim. The strangling killing for which Jones is under investigation is the Nov. 18 murder of 17-year-old Kathleen Robinson - the supposed sixth victim of the strangler. [...] Shamshak, serving a four-to-five year term for armed robbery, escaped last October from a minimum security prison in Masschusetts and came to Los Angeles where he renewed his acquaintance with Jones, a boyhood friend from the working-class Roxbury section of Boston. Shamshak returned to Massachusetts where he was recaptured last month in Cambridge."
      • Clovis News Journal (from Associated Press), "Evidence Checked", 1978/04/02: "Two days after Los Angeles police called the arrest of a Beverly Hills man “a major break” in the Hillside Strangler case, they were still trying Saturday to determine if enough evidence exists to seek a murder complaint. “We need more time,” a police spokesman said as the 93-member Hillside Strangler Task Force checked evidence and chased down leads involving Peter Mark Jones, a handyman arrested at his apartment Thursday. Jones, 37, was booked for investigation of murder in two of the 13 killings attributed to the strangler The arrest came after Jones’ friend, prison escapee George Francis Shamshak, told police officials in Boston that he drove Jones’ van while Jones murdered two girls in the back of the vehicle."
      • Tampa Times, "Hillside strangler suspect's neighbors express surprise", 1978/04/03: "From the outset, Jones' neighbors couldn't believe that the quiet, courteous, easy-going man in Apartment 15 could possibly be the notorious Hillside Strangler. No one felt more certain of Jones' innocence than Frank Flynn, 69, who lives downstairs. Flynn had lived around the corner from the Jones family during the 1950s in Norwood, Mass., about 15 miles south of Boston. Flynn and Jones' father, Robert, who died a few years ago, had worked together for about 10 years in the Boston book printing firm of Berwick and Smith. [...] According to Flynn, Jones had been working as a maintenance man at a playhouse in New England where he met Sam Shamshak, a veteran actor and acting instructor in his 40s. The two men. became friends and about a year ago decided to head west in Jones' Ford van. When they arrived in Los Angeles, they wound up by sheer coincidence at the same apartment house. At first, they shared the same $150-a-month bachelor apartment but after about a month, Flynn said, Jones and Shamshak each found jobs and were able to afford separate apartments in the building. Shamshak later took over as manager of the building Things seemed to be going well for both, he said, until last fall when Shamshak received word that his brother, George, was coming to Los Angeles. "Sam was very unhappy with George coming out," he said. "Sam had come out here because he wanted to get away from his family. But he always took care of them." At the time, George Shamshak was a fugitive from Walpole State Prison in Massachusetts but, according to Flynn, Sam Shamshak had been led to believe that his brother had been freed on parole for good behavior."
      • New York Times, "‘Hillside Strangler’ Suspect Is Freed", 1978/04/04
      • Daily Iowan (from UPI), "Suspect tries to sell killing tape", 1978/04/13: "Shamshak last week was termed by Gates a "prime suspect" in the sex slayings because he had information that logically could only be known by a participant or detectives investigating the murders of young girls and women going back to last September."
      • Detroit Free Press (from Associated Press), "Tape of strangling offered", 1978/04/14 (pages 16c OCR): "A Massachusetts prison escapee says he has a tape recording made during the murder of Kathleen Robinson, one of the 13 Hillside Strangler victims, a newspaper reported Thursday. The Los Angeles Herald Examiner reported that George Shamshak told the paper in a phone call from prison Saturday that the tape was made in a van while Miss Robinson, 17, was being strangled last Nov. 16. He wanted to sell the tape to the newspaper. Shamshak said he possesses five tapes relating to the murders and that their contents show three persons were involved in the slayings one of them a woman who later became a strangler victim herself, the paper said. Shamshak's attorney, Henry Wynn, denied that his client had any tapes, however. SHAMSHAK SAID the tapes would clear him of any involvement in the murders. "I have never killed anyone in my life," he is quoted as saying. "I just happened to be a willing dupe a pawn. Somebody held something over my head." Shamshak, who was serving a prison term for armed robbery in Massachusetts when he escaped last fall has been questioned by Los Angeles police in at least two of the strangler murders. Police say he had special knowledge in the cases. The convict said he offered the tapes to police but "the police didn't want to offer me the deal I wanted. I wanted immunity, but they want to prosecute me now, from what I understand, for two murders." The paper said negotiations with Shamshak bogged down when prison officials refused to permit any more calls to Shamshak and the newspaper's editor, James G. Bellows, decided "not to get into checkbook journalism.""
      • Google Books review of The Hillside Strangler: The Three Faces of America's Most Savage Rapist and Murderer and the Shocking Revelations from the Sensational Los Angeles Trial! by Ted Schwarz (2004): "The informant, George Shamshak, older brother, Sam Shamshak, lived in the same apartment house as me and was known as women beater who regularly beat his live in girl friend, Myrna, disturbing the other residents who threaten to call the LAPD! I know for a fact Sam picked up prositutes. I told the LAPD this info on day one of my arrest and stated, "If George was killing women with someone in LA, it was most likely his violent older brother, Sam Shamshak!" It was obvious to me George was just substituting my name for his brother's. Years later I learn from Sam Shamshak's closet friend in LA that Sam Shamshak was rumored to have killed women in Boston and New York and that is why he left Boston. I passed all this information along to the LAPD who NEVER detained Sam Shamshak for questioning! Peter Mark Jones"
      • IMDB page for actor Sam Shamshak - born 1937/05/23; died 2017/01/15 in West Hollywood CA; appeared in numerous TV series, movies, and videos including NYPD Blue, Seinfeld, and Ghost Whisperer
    • Rodney Alcala
      • As mentioned below, DNA evidence implicated Alcala in the murder of Jill Barcomb, who was initially thought to be a Hillside Strangler victim and was a friend of Strangler victim Judith Miller killed 10 days earlier on Halloween. If George Shamshak's confession was largely accurate (aside from substituting the name of Peter Mark Jones for that of his brother), it may well be the case that Alcala was the accomplice to Sam Shamshak and the unidentified woman who later became a victim of the group.
    • Peter Howard Denton - suspect in the Boston Strangler case
      • As mentioned below, Denton was a suspect in the Boston Strangler murders, and after living in Ann Arbor when a woman turned up similarly strangled, he then turned up in Los Angeles while the Hillside Strangler murders took place. This is an especially interesting coincidence given that the Shamshak brothers also came from the Boston area to Los Angeles in the same timeframe.
    • "Greg" - named as an accomplice by Bianchi in the Washington murders; killed in a purported motorcycle accident shortly after Bianchi's arrest
  • Bianchi claims of innocence

John Wayne Gacy

Refer to the extensive collection of sources on the John Wayne Gacy page

Dean Corll

Refer to the extensive collection of sources on the Dean Corll page

Ted Bundy

Refer to the extensive collection of sources on the Ted Bundy page

Thomas Creech

Sunset Strip murders

Bobby Joe Long

  • Overviews of the case
  • Contemporaneous news articles
  • Possible involvement in the Hand of Death
    • Though rarely reported in the media, Bobby Joe Long was a cousin of Henry Lee Lucas, through his mother Louella Lucas
    • According to Henry Lee Lucas, the Hand of Death was involved in running the (CIA-backed) Salvadoran death squads. Long entered the Army in 1972 and began his training at Fort Benning in Georgia, home to the School of the Americas which trained many death squad members such as Roberto D'Aubuisson a.k.a. "Blowtorch Bob".
    • From p.219 of Programmed to Kill: "While continuing to await his new trial on the battery charges [following an accusation by his girlfriend on August 21, 1981], Bobby Joe embarked on an extended cross-country trek. He traveled first to West Virginia, and then on to Southern California, where he stayed for at least six months. At around that same time, cousin Henry was living in Hemet, California. While in California, Long purportedly signed up for a $9,000 commercial diving class. How the chronically broke and under-employed Long was able to finance the diving lessons, as well as the trip itself, has never been explained—nor has his sudden interest in diving, which was apparently of no interest to him before or after his trip to California. Those with whom Long socialized during his time in California later recalled that he frequently went out by himself and refused to talk about where he had been. These witnesses also described Bobby as being prone to headaches, wild mood swings, and the use of racist terms."
    • Interesting note: Don Meteric, who was described by Henry Lee Lucas as a cult recruiter for the Hand of Death, might have ran a diving school
  • Connection to a nationwide sex slavery ring spanning from Los Angeles to Tampa
    • From p.220-221 of Programmed to Kill: "Lana Long, who was of Asian descent and not related to Bobby Joe, had recently come to Tampa from Los Angeles in the company of her boyfriend. Both Lana and her boyfriend had been associated with the owners of several L.A. nightclubs, including Eddie Nash, at whose former club Lana had danced. An associate of Lana’s had also recently left Los Angeles for Tampa, purportedly to pursue a film role, although you would normally expect that someone pursuing a career in film would head for L.A. Of course, this may not have been a typical film role; there was much talk among Tampa’s exotic dancers at the time of unidentified men recruiting women for nude modeling jobs and then using them in the production of snuff films. In the last hours of her life, Long was reportedly desperately trying to raise money to get out of town. Needless to say, she did not make it. After she vanished, her boyfriend did not bother to report her disappearance until he was forced to do so by friends, who threatened to report the disappearance themselves if he did not."
    • From p.221 of Programmed to Kill: "Next to be discovered was Michele Denise Simms, found two weeks after Lana Long’s remains were discovered. Michele had also just made the journey from Southern California to Tampa, and she had spoken to friends of doing some modeling work. Like Lana, she was known to be a heavy drug user. She was also the product of a seriously dysfunctional family. Michele’s mother had died very young, and her father had later been imprisoned for holding Michele and her babysitter at gunpoint."
    • From p.221-222 of Programmed to Kill: "Elizabeth Loudenback was next to go missing, on June 8, 1984. She was found just over two weeks later. Loudenback had apparently been in fear for her life and had, just two days before her disappearance, left a note affixing blame should anything happen to her. Her efforts were in vain. Her note included the name of a man who claimed that he was an informant for both the police and the DEA. Also provided was a description of his vehicle. On other occasions, Elizabeth had reportedly expressed fear of another man as well. Both of these men failed polygraph examinations. Nevertheless, both were cleared as suspects and Bobby Joe was ultimately blamed for Elizabeth’s death."
    • From p.223 of Programmed to Kill: "Chanel Devon Williams, the next victim, was unlike the others in two significant ways: she was killed by a single gunshot wound to the neck, rather than being bound and strangled, and she was the only black victim. Friends said that she had been forced into prostitution and was planning to leave town to escape from her pimp. Her body was found on October 7."
    • From p.223 of Programmed to Kill: "Kimberly Kyle Hopps’ mummified and headless corpse was found on Halloween day alongside a road that had been bulldozed just the day before. The circumstances of the discovery suggested that her remains had just been dumped there, though she had been missing since October 4, and had obviously been dead for quite some time. Just before she disappeared, she had had a fight with her pimp/boyfriend Donald Jones, who waited three days before bothering to report her disappearance."
    • From p.227 of Programmed to Kill: "In a letter that Bobby wrote during his incarceration, he referred to others who may have been involved: “I talked, but never mentioned my kinky friends. They’re all gone, her back to California, him back to Miami.”"
  • Unidentified surveillance team trailing Long and talking to witnesses before the police
    • From p.224-225 of Programmed to Kill: "Interestingly, it was reported in the local press that a group who claimed to be investigators from Tampa had been tailing Long for several months before his arrest, from long before he was ever considered a suspect. Members of this group apparently questioned witnesses in the case before police arrived to do so. Though locally reported, the matter was never investigated. Who these men were remains a mystery."
  • Law enforcement officers involved in the investigation (emphasis added)
    • Tampa Bay Times, "Two Hillsborough colonels retire with 72 years combined experience", 2009/04/29: "When the two colonels retire from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office this week, they will take 72 years of departmental experience with them. Col. Gary Terry is leaving Thursday after 38 years with the department; Col. Carl Hawkins is leaving Friday after 34 years. At least one of the positions will be filled, though not for at least a month, Sheriff David Gee said. Their departure will leave the sheriff's office with just two colonels. "Both of these guys, at one time, have been my boss, and I have a lot of respect for both of them," Gee said. [...] Terry, meanwhile, has known since he was 12 or 13 that he wanted to give back by spending a life in law enforcement. His two older brothers were both in the business, and he got a chance to ride in their cruisers while he was growing up in Tallahassee. He attended Florida State University, then joined the Army before becoming a deputy in 1971. He graduated from the University of South Florida in 1976. In addition to being the lieutenant in charge of the Bobby Joe Long investigation and the captain in charge of the Oscar Ray Bolin investigation, he has overseen several corruption cases."
    • From p.245 of Green River, Running Red by Ann Rule: "At the request of Captain Gary Terry of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in Tampa, Florida, Reichert and Keppel also asked Ted questions about a Tampa man who had been arrested only that week as a prime suspect in the serial killer murders of nine young women who worked the streets of Tampa and St. Petersburg. Bobby Joe Long, a technician in the medical field, later admitted to multiple rapes and murders in a forty-five page statement."
    • Florida Association of Licensed Investigators, "Tampa Bay Area FALI Networking Meeting, Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - 6:00PM, TGI Friday’s": "Royce Wilson proudly worked in law enforcement forensics for more than 35 years, retiring in 2012 from his position as the Forensic Services Bureau Commander for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. He has been involved in countless homicide and other suspicious death investigations, including three different notorious serial murder investigations. [...] Was involved in three serial murderer investigations: Bobby Joe Long in Tampa, Oscar Ray Bolin in Tampa and Pasco County, and Danny Harold Rolling in Gainesville, Florida."
    • Tampa Bay Times, "Four-term Hillsborough Sheriff David Gee to retire Sept. 30", 2017/05/19: "Gee's first assignment put him on patrol in the same rural southeastern areas where he grew up. He became a detective at 22, investigating robberies and burglaries and, finally, homicides. One of his first big cases was Bobby Joe Long, a serial killer who murdered nine women and is now on death row."
    • St. Petersburg Times, "Reports highlight more tainted testimony" by Sydney P. Freedberg, 2001/05/03: "But prosecutors expect a new challenge from Bobby Joe Long, the serial killer. The problem in his case concerns fiber evidence. At the time, [FBI Special Agent Michael] Malone said tests proved that fiber from the carpet in Long's car matched fibers found on several of his murder victims. It was the key evidence tying the homicides. Long pleaded guilty to the Hillsborough County murders in September 1995 after detectives confronted him with the evidence. But the Justice Department review raises the possibility that the fibers, which had color differences, came from different sources." and see more in the forensic science section below
    • From p.222 of Programmed to Kill: "The profiler assigned to the case, Stan Jacobson, had been a member of the team that engineered the illegal incursion into Panama to capture Manuel Noriega."
  • Physical evidence
    • From part II of "There's Something About Henry" by Dave McGowan: "The body of one of Bobby Joe Long's victims, for instance, yielded semen showing both A and B blood types, indicating at least two perpetrators. A later victim also yielded semen evidence which did not match that obtained from the previous victim. And none of the samples proved to match the samples taken from their alleged killer."
    • TODO: Is the fiber evidence convincing, and did it even exist before Long was arrested?
  • The defense attorney representing Long, who put up an inept "defense" that involved admitting to all the murders, was Ellis Rubin, also known for his representation of the Watergate burglars and the Collier brothers of Votescam fame (who unearthed Rubin's likely CIA affiliation)

Richard Ramirez

  • Contemporaneous news articles
  • Possible accomplice in 1984 murder of Mei Leung
    • KCAL, "Notorious ‘Nightstalker’ May Not Have Acted Alone In At Least 1 Killing", 2016/03/14: "more than 30 years after the last murder, San Francisco’s police chief says there is evidence suggesting that in at least one killing, Ramirez may not have been acting alone. Chief Greg Suhr says a handkerchief was found near one of the murder scenes containing the bodily fluids of Ramirez and another man, as well as the blood of the victim. [...] Suhr said they know the identity of the second person but did not disclose that information. The murder in question was the first killing linked to Ramirez, that of 9-year-old May Leung, who was found raped, beaten and stabbed to death in 1984. Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department detective Lt. Gil Carrillo was the lead investigator in the serial murder case and said that Ramirez never mentioned a second person. “And at no time in our investigation did we ever find any evidence of a second person,” Carrillo said."
    • New York Post, "Mystery ‘second suspect’ tied to infamous Night Stalker serial killer", 2016/03/14: "Semen from a second man — a convicted felon — was found on a handkerchief that included the same bodily fluid from Ramirez when it was found in the boiler room of an apartment building in San Francisco, where little Mei “Linda’’ Leung’s butchered body was discovered draped over a drain pipe on April 10, 1984, sources close to the matter said. Mei’s blood also was found on the cloth. While authorities were able to identify Ramirez’s DNA on the handkerchief in 2009, it took them several years to finally finger the second man, a source said. Multiple sources told The Post that authorities now know the man’s identity because — while a juvenile at the time of Mei’s murder — he went on to commit other felony crimes. [...] “The stain that produced the hit was a mixture of three people, two different semen sources. One of the sources matched Ramirez, and the other source linked the second male to the handkerchief by the stairs,” Harmon told The Post."

Leonard Lake and Charles Ng

  • Southern California pedophile ranch - likely adjacent to Fort MacArthur in Los Angeles County
    • From p.98 of Programmed to Kill: "[Gordon] Thomas has also written [most likely in his book Enslaved] of another ranch, in Southern California, that evidence collected from a variety of sources indicates caters to powerful pedophiles. The ranch is located immediately adjacent to one of the numerous U.S. military bases that pepper the southern half of the state. The property has a rather ominous history, having previously served as a concentration camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, and later as a ‘deprogramming’ center for returning Korean War veterans who it was said had been brainwashed. According to witness statements, children from around the country have been abducted and transported to the covert location, never to be heard from again. Once there, they are held as slaves to feed the depraved desires of powerful, well-connected pedophiles who torture, abuse, and at times kill their young victims. One man who may have worked at the ranch, according to reports cited by Thomas, was serial killer Leonard Lake."

Bob Berdella

Refer to the extensive collection of sources on the Bob Berdella page

Gary Heidnik

  • Mind control experiments while in the military
    • Vancouver Sun, "Army drugged client, says murder case lawyer", 1988/03/26: "A lawyer for a man accused of murdering two women and shackling four others in a basement torture chamber says he has obtained files that show his client was the subject of U.S. army LSD experiments in the 1960s. [...] Defence lawyer Charles Peruto said he plans to argue during the trial, set to begin April 4, that Heidnik was insane and that the hallucinogen LSD had aggravated his schizophrenia. Peruto said that army and Veterans Administration documents show Heidnik was the subject of LSD tests between 1961 and 1963 although an army spokesman said records did not show such testing."
    • ...
    • Dr. Clancy D. McKenzie, "NOT GUILTY: THE EXECUTION OF GARY HEIDNIK": "From Gary Heidnik's history it was clear that his first psychosis was facilitated by a near-lethal dose of hallucinogenic substance given to him while he was in Germany in the military - at the time when the CIA reportedly was conducting human experimentation on our servicemen."

Jeffrey Dahmer

  • True crime books
    • The Milwaukee Murders by Don Davis (1991) - cited by McGowan
    • The Jeffrey Dahmer Story: An American Nightmare by Don Davis (1995) - update of the 1991 book
  • Early childhood abuse
  • White House visit
    • From p.28 of The Jeffrey Dahmer Story: An American Nightmare: "What was not mentioned was the senior class trip to Washington, D.C., a trip during which Jeff proved his mettle as a prankster to impress his classmates. While the rest of the seniors made the usual tourist stops at the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian and trekked up to Capitol Hill, Jeff hit the telephones. Using the charm that he could summon when needed and a bit of midwestern twang, and by laying a guilt trip on a governmental aide, Dahmer engineered a visit for himself and his pals to the Office of the Vice-President of the United States of America. Walter Mondale wasn't in at the time, but the group had a good time anyway. Then Jeff got them in to see the office of Art Buchwald, the writer who coats his satire with humorous barbs."
    • New York Times, "17 Killed, and a Life Is Searched for Clues", 1991/08/04: "He had a glib side, talking his way into Vice President Walter F. Mondale's suite and the office of the humorist Art Buchwald on a school trip to Washington."
    • Vulture, "Jeffrey Dahmer’s Childhood Friend Talks About His Graphic Novel My Friend Dahmer and Its New Movie Adaptation", 2017/04/20: "On the eve of its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival, we caught up with Backderf to talk about his memories of Dahmer, the people he blames for Dahmer’s crimes, and the time he and Dahmer entered the office of Vice-President Walter Mondale. [...] One of the most striking scenes comes when you, Dahmer, and your friends go on a school trip to Washington, D.C., and Dahmer talks his way into getting you all a private tour of Vice-President Walter Mondale’s office. I mean, for Pete’s sake, Jeffrey Dahmer meeting the vice-president — it’s really something. In the movie, he talks to you guys, but in the book, you just see him working in his office. You didn’t speak to him in real life, right? No. And you were okay with that change for the movie? Yeah, you know, there’s a few little changes in the film. It didn’t really bother me. Overall, the film is very true to the book."
  • Satanic practices
    • ...
    • Connection to John Paul Ranieri a.k.a. Brother John of the Process cult in New York
      • Comment on 2019/04/09 by Jeremy James about the connection: "I can link Jeffrey Dahmer to the process church via a man named Brother John Paul Ranieri. He was in Maury Terry’s documentary on Berkowitz, he was also the same man in Milwaukee who told police he frequently talked to Dahmer in the gay bars and claimed that Dahmer was killing because he hated gays even though Dahmer was one. Also when Dahmer left the military he went to Miami beach. There was a chapter of the Process church that was founded in Miami in the early 70s. Dahmer was there in 1981 I believe. On google images you can see Ranieris “church” he constructed in his back yard. It had a cross with a curtain draped from one side to the other along with an alter. This was in Milwaukee. He claimed to have been a “street preacher”. Ranieri is mentioned in a few books written about Dahmer. [...] Also Ranieri claims to have been the person who threw the first bottle during the Stonewall riots in 1969. Ranieri was gay as was many of the son of Sam cultists."
      • New York Times, "17 SLAYINGS TIED TO MILWAUKEE MAN", 1991/07/26: "John Paul Ranieri, a street minister who said he had met Mr. Dahmer in a tavern in the last month, said the suspect hated homosexuals and blacks and suffered from problems with alcohol."
      • Racine Journal Times, "Milwaukee Mayhem", 1991/07/26: "A man accused of strangling and dismembering 11 men and storing severed heads in his apartment hated homosexuals and blacks, a street minister who recently befriended the man said Thursday. John Paul Ranieri said he had long talks with Jeffrey Dahmer, 31, at a Milwaukee gay bar, twice within the past four weeks. "He hated the gay community with a passion and most gay people, calling them "(expletive) faggots," Ranieri said. Yet, Dahmer cruised the bar, trying to pick up men, including Ranieri, the minister said. [...] Ranieri said he is a former New York male prostitute and recovering drug addict. He has had a street ministry in Milwaukee, serving the gay community, for more than 10 years, he said. Barb Klauber, a secretary for the Episcopal Diocese, said Ranieri's ministry is financed with donations from Milwaukee area churches, including the Episcopal Diocese,and he has a reputation for ministering to homosexuals. Dahmer disliked blacks and expressed hatred toward them, Ranieri said."
      • Orlando Sentinel, "NOW EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT WAS WRONG WITH APT. 213", 1991/07/28: "Jean-Paul Ranieri, a former drug addict and male prostitute who now runs a street ministry, said that when Dahmer became quite drunk he talked of his hatred for homosexuals. "This guy was sexually frustrated and very, very angry at himself and a lot of other people," Ranieri said."
      • From p.??? of Dahmer Detective: The Interrogation and Investigation That Shocked The World by Patrick Kennedy and Robyn Maharaj (2016):

            Detective Murphy held in his hand a copy of the Milwaukee Journal. There was an article regarding a self-styled street preacher, who said he ministered to the homosexual population. In the paper, he claimed that he knew Jeffrey and tried to council him in the way of the Lord. There was a picture of the preacher and Murphy showed it to Dahmer. ‘’Do you know this guy?’’ Dahmer took the newspaper and studied the picture. His eyes widened as he viewed it. ‘’Wow, I can’t believe it. Yeah, I met this guy once.’’
            On Thanksgiving night of 1990, Dahmer went to a local West Allis bar, where he drank heavily. From there he took a cab to the gay strip south of downtown Milwaukee. There he met the ‘’preacher’’ depicted in the newspaper article. He said that the two hit it off right away and they began drinking Jim Beam. The preacher invited him to his place where they continued to drink until Dahmer passed out. When he came to in the morning he found himself hog-tied, with his hands tied behind his back, face down with both feet bound by rope and spread apart. The rope connected to some hooks fastened in the ceiling and he was slightly elevated from the bed. The preacher was standing next to him and ramming a long white candle up his anus. It was painful and he began to scream and holler at the top of his lungs, struggling with the ligatures. The preacher became alarmed at the commotion, quickly untied him, and let him down form the apparatus. The preacher tried to calm him down and offered to make breakfast. He was afraid of being reported to police and wanted him to stay and talk about the incident. Dahmer said he was too freaked out by the whole experience and once untied, quickly dressed and left without saying a word. He continued on. saying that about two days after this encounter, he excreted a six-inch portion of candle. He said that he never reported this experience to the police.
         
      • From p.1060-1065 of The Ultimate Evil: The Truth about the Cult Murders: Son of Sam & Beyond by Maury Terry (1999):

            In 1992, another ghost from the past materialized, this time in the New York phase of the Son of Sam inquiry. He described himself as "an old alley cat with seven of its nine lives gone."
            He was called Brother John, and in the 1960s he was a close friend and classmate of none other than John Carr. He was also the first admitted member of the Westchester cult to step forward. He said he was part of the group's early era before he fled New York "to save my life" in early 1973 — three years before the .44 shootings began.
            [...]
            Brother John's last encounter with the group took the form of a rendezvous with his old pal John Carr in a Manhattan bistro in the summer of 1972. Carr was in the air force, and the pair hadn't talked for several years. Brother John was better served by the lack of communication because what Carr told him that night would propel Brother John from the sidewalks of New York to a new life in the Midwest.
         
      • OnMilwaukee, "Urban spelunking: Wells St. Bridge house & a backyard chapel", 2015/12/15: "Recently, while scouring newspapers online searching for something else, I stumbled across a February 1984 photo of a Kramer Construction crew using a crane to load the old bridge tender's building onto a truck. "The shack has been bought by John Paul, a Milwaukee artist, who plans to use it as a studio and gallery," the caption read. A year later, the Journal reported that the bridge house had been installed in Jean-Paul Ranieri's backyard, atop a foundation built by his house mate Jeffrey Hicks. [...] Back at the house, as the amiable Hicks and I talk, I see the chapel and Hicks is eager to tell me about it. And rightly so. It's beautiful and, with the help of a few others, he built it himself – from those pieces listed above and others – over the course of a few years in the first half of the 1980s. Definitely something to be proud of. One of his collaborators was Ranieri, who Hicks met while working as a theater rigger in New York in the 1970s. Later, back in Milwaukee, Hicks was working as master of properties at the Milwaukee Rep and Ranieri began doing good deeds, including providing shelter to the homeless and preaching at bars. Ranieri briefly made the papers after Jeffrey Dahmer's arrest, because he had seen Dahmer in bars and was suspicious, warning potential prey to steer clear. A newspaper article of the era called Ranieri "an unlikely saint in sinner's garb," discussing his own struggles with addiction as well as his work in the community. In 1983, Ranieri went to Rome and shook the hand of Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square."
    • According to Jim Rothstein, Vernon Seitz had some knowledge concerning Dahmer (as well as the Son of Sam cult)
  • Military background - likely that Dahmer was "profiled" for an intelligence, cult, and/or mind control role
    • From p.329 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016): "But Billy now thinks his Army unit had some sort of military-intelligence role. He had told me about a visit to his room from two guys in suits with non-military haircuts who'd demonstrated survival techniques in extreme conditions. He assumes they were CIA or something like it. Dahmer acted like he was friends with them."
    • From p.193-198 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016), Harris explores the idea given to him by Billy Capshaw that Dahmer killed people to sell their organs while in the military, and possibly continued doing so during his Wisconsin murder spree. Capshaw noted that Dahmer had far more medical knowledge than would be expected at age 19 or 20, kept large amounts of cash hidden in his locker, and would often disappear overnight which would have required "official passes" from their military superiors. Indeed, Harris quotes Capshaw as saying that the procedures of the unit he and Dahmer were in "were not military". Harris goes on to point out how evidence from the Wisconsin cases indicating that Dahmer took careful tissue samples to determine transplant viability was played down, and that in general the Wisconsin trial was "a mostly orchestrated whitewash" designed to establish that Dahmer "was a loner and acted alone".
  • Adam Walsh kidnapping - as explained below, perhaps Ottis Toole and Jeffrey Dahmer worked together on the murder under the auspices of the Hand of Death
  • Parole history of Dahmer
  • Ernest Miller murder
  • Konerak Sinthasomphone murder
    • New York Times, "Family Sought New Life Only to Find New Pain", 1991/07/31: "Neighbors called the police on May 27, when saw a young boy, now identified as Konerak, on the street near Mr. Dahmer's apartment building. He was naked, bleeding and disoriented, apparently because he had been drugged. Witnesses said the police returned the boy to Mr. Dahmer after Mr. Dahmer told the officers that they quarreling lovers. Konerak's death, family members said, has been all the harder to bear since the family had been victimized before by Mr. Dahmer. An older brother, now 16 years old, was sexually molested by Mr. Dahmer in 1988. Mr. Dahmer, who is charged with four counts of murder and is likely to charged with more, was convicted of that crime in 1989, but his eight-year prison sentence was stayed by State Judge William Gardner after Mr. Dahmer wrote a remorseful letter apologizing for the incident. He was released in early 1990 after serving one year of his sentence and put on probation."
    • Washington Post, "OLD QUESTIONS HAUNT MILWAUKEE POLICE AFTER GRUESOME KILLINGS", 1991/08/01
    • New York Times, "Officer Defends Giving Boy Back to Dahmer", 1991/08/26: "A police officer suspended for returning a 14-year-old Laotian boy to Jeffrey L. Dahmer, who has since admitted killing 17 people, said he had agonized over how he might have prevented the boy's death. "God as my witness, I just didn't dump a little boy in the hands of a murderer. That's not what happened," the officer, Joseph T. Gabrish, told The Milwaukee Journal in a story published today. [...] Officer Gabrish, 28 years old, a patrolman for seven years, said he and the other officers believed there was a caring relationship between Mr. Dahmer and the Laotian boy and saw no reason to intervene. "We're trained to be observant and spot things," he said. "There was just nothing that stood out, or we would have seen it. I've been doing this for a while, and usually if something stands out, you'll spot it. There just wasn't anything there." There was no reference in the Journal article to anything the officers saw or to the smell that Mr. Dahmer has said filled the apartment because of the body in the bedroom."
    • Associated Press, "Mother of Dahmer Victim Sues Police", 1991/11/25: "The mother of a man Jeffrey L. Dahmer admitted murdering has sued three police officers, saying racism contributed to their failure to arrest the accused serial killer two months before her son’s death. Catherine Lacy’s lawsuit said the officers decided not to arrest Dahmer on May 27, when they returned a naked Laotian boy to Dahmer’s apartment, and ultimately led to the death of her 23-year-old son, Oliver Lacy. Two of the officers have been fired over the return of the 14-year-old boy. The third was suspended. [...] The lawsuit names police officers Joseph T. Gabrish, John A. Balcerzak and Richard Porubcan. Police Chief Philip Arreola fired Gabrish and Balcerzak on Sept. 6 for returning the naked boy to Dahmer after rejecting witnesses’ complaints the boy was endangered."
  • Trial proceedings
    • UPI, "Dahmer to face more charges, waive preliminary hearing", 1991/08/21: "Dahmer was scheduled for a preliminary hearing at 8:30 a.m. CDT Thursday. Attorney Gerald Boyle said late Wednesday Dahmer would waive the hearing, which would mean he would be bound over for arraignment on the charges."
    • Defense attorney Gerald Boyle background
      • New York Times, "Dahmer's Lawyer Is Comfortable in the Heat", 1991/08/02: "In legal circles here, it was no surprise when Gerald P. Boyle emerged as the lawyer representing Jeffrey L. Dahmer, the man the police say killed as many as 17 men over 10 years. Mr. Boyle, 55 years old, who represented Mr. Dahmer in a 1989 conviction for molesting a minor, has long thrived on high-profile cases. A former Milwaukee County deputy prosecutor, he successfully prosecuted a man in 1967 who murdered a girl, a young woman and tried to kill another young woman in what has been called this city's first serial murder case. [...] And in the past few years he also defended police officers in two brutality cases, including one in which a man died in police custody."
      • Wisconsin Super Lawyers, "Milwaukee's Prosecutor", 2005/11: "It is the life of a big-city district attorney, a life that [E. Michael] McCann knows better than anyone in America. McCann has served 37 years as the district attorney in Milwaukee County, the longest active stretch in the country. [...] In 1968, at the age of 31, McCann was elected district attorney, defeating Gerald Boyle for the Democratic nomination and Republican David J. Cannon in the general election. [...] While McCann has prosecuted a number of high-profile cases, none have drawn more publicity than the 1992 trial of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. [...] As McCann’s former rival, defense attorney Gerald Boyle, mounted an insanity defense, McCann and his staff prepared to prove that Dahmer was of sound mind when he murdered (and then cannibalized some of his) 17 victims."
      • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "State Supreme Court suspends law license of Gerald Boyle", 2015/12/23
  • Ernest Smith ritualistic murder in 1999

Herb Baumeister

Albert DeSalvo

  • The Boston Stranglers by Susan Kelly (1995)
  • Crime Library, "The Boston Strangler" by Marilyn Bardsley and Rachael S. Bell: chapters ..., 8, ...
  • The Stones Unturned Podcast, "Episode 8: The Boston Stranglers w/Susan Kelly", 2018/06/25
  • Contemporaneous news articles
    • Indianapolis Star, "Strangler Kills Boston Secretary", 1963/01/01: "LIKE MOST of the other victims, she lived alone. There were no signs of forced entry and the killer apparently locked the door behind him when he left the first floor room. Miss [Patricia] Bissette worked as a secretary-receptionist for Engineering Systems Inc., [ESI] of Boston. The janitor. Christian Van Olst, was asked to open the girl's apartment by Jules A. Rothman, treasurer of Engineering systems. He said he became worried when Miss Bissette did not report for work and failed to telephone that she would be absent."
  • Disinformational book by Gerold Frank
    • From Probe, "James Earl Ray Did Not Kill MLK" by Lisa Pease" (included on p.433-449 of The Assassinations edited by Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease), citing p.53-54 of Orders to Kill by William Pepper (1995):

          Fauntroy was most likely correct in his charge, if the history of this case means anything. One of the earliest books written on the James Earl Ray case was one by Gerold Frank. William Pepper, Ray's attorney, in his book Orders to Kill, quoted from an FBI memo from Assistant Director Cartha DeLoach to Hoover's close confidant, Clyde Tolson:

                      Now that Ray has been convicted and is serving a 99-year sentence, I would like to suggest that the Director allow us to choose a friendly, capable author or the Reader's Digest, and proceed with a book based on the case.

      The next day, DeLoach followed up on his own suggestion with this:

                      If the Director approves, we have in mind considering cooperating in the preparation of a book with either the Reader's Digest or author Gerold Frank. ... Frank, is a well-known author, whose most recent book is The Boston Strangler. Frank is already working on a book on the Ray case and has asked the Bureau's cooperation in the preparation of the book on a number of occasions. We have nothing derogatory on him in our files, and our relationship with him has been excellent. [Emphasis added]
       
  • George Washington University investigation
  • Boston Globe, "Ames Robey; psychiatrist argued DeSalvo was innocent", 2004/10/13
  • 2013 DNA match - quite possibly either non-incriminating or fraudulent
  • Alternate suspects in the "Boston Strangler" murders
    • George Nassar - resembled one of the sketches and was identified by two witnesses
    • William Ivey - former boyfriend of Mary Sullivan
    • Jules Rothman - defense contractor boss of Patricia Bissette, with whom he was having an affair
    • Albert Williams - likely murderer of Sophie Clark; received a medical discharge from the Army and suffered blackouts
    • Bradley Waring Schereschewsky and William Axel Lindahl and Peter Howard Denton
      • From p.283 of Programmed to Kill:

            The more intriguing suspects identified by Kelly are three men who had connections to several of the killings. They were, perhaps, the real ‘serial killers.’ The three had been friends and classmates at Harvard. One was Bradley Waring Schereschewsky, the son of a controller at what Kelly refers to as a prestigious New England prep school—very likely Phillips Academy considering that the Schereschewsky family lived in Andover. Andover and Philips Academy were just a few miles from two of the death scenes. Bradley was first incarcerated on September 22, 1951, for the Oedipal crimes of savagely beating his father and attempting to rape his mother. Since 1959, he had been in and out of various mental hospitals. When not institutionalized, he reportedly worked as a gravedigger.
            Friends with Schereschewsky was fellow suspect William Axel Lindahl, the son of a Boston cop. Lindahl’s mother died when he was just an infant, and he was subsequently raised by his physically abusive father. At Harvard, he joined the naval ROTC, where he tried to strangle his drill instructor. He also tried to strangle his girlfriend. He later obtained a teaching job at Lake Forest Academy in Illinois, and he was said to be fluent in fourteen languages. In 1970, the wife of one of his Harvard friends, who had long suspected Lindahl of being the Strangler, turned up dead. Her husband was tried and convicted for her murder. That same year a reporter for the Boston Globe, who was another of Lindahl’s college chums, was also accused of killing his wife.
            The final member of the trio was Peter Howard Denton, the genius son of a doctor and a nurse. Denton won a congressional appointment to West Point and from there went on to Harvard. His first arrest came on April 19, 1961, when he and four other Harvard men were found to be in possession of high explosives. What he and his cronies were planning to do with the explosives on the eve of the Fuhrer’s birthday is unknown. Three years later, Denton wound up in a place well known to Albert DeSalvo and George Nassar: Bridgewater State Hospital. Still later, he set up a drug lab and was reportedly a heavy drug user himself, with a particular fondness for hallucinogens. Violent murders seemed to follow Denton wherever he roamed; he lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan when a string of girls turned up dead there, and he was in Los Angeles during the reign of the Hillside Stranglers.
         
      • Except from The Boston Stranglers about these three suspects: parts first, second, third
        • "The wife of one of Lindahl's Harvard friends—the two men had belonged to the Fox Club—was convinced that Lindahl was the Strangler. She found his consuming rage against women terrifying in its force and scope. This woman would die in 1970. Her husband would be charged with her murder, tried, and convicted of manslaughter."
        • "He was first arrested a little before three in the morning on April 19, 1961, in Newton, Massachusetts, along with four other Harvard students. The charge was possession of high explosives. (Burton apparently had an affinity for things that went boom in the night.) Burton had built a bomb out of gunpowder taken from seven high-velocity twelve-gauge shotgun shells, a flashlight bulb, a cast-iron pipe, a battery, and some wires. The five pranksters had planned to detonate the gadget somewhere along Route 128 but were balked by a mechanical failure."
        • "He was a heavy user of drugs, particularly mescaline and LSD—which in the early 1960s were substances unknown to the general public. He told people that he made the drugs himself and sold them to students in the Harvard Square area. He ingested the LSD and mescaline in triple doses."
        • "Burton's stay at Bridgewater had overlapped with that of Albert DeSalvo by five weeks. And, in an ironic turn of events, Burton had been represented by Paul Smith, the attorney for George Nassar before F. Lee Bailey had taken over Nassar's case. Smith would also counsel Bailey when Edward Brooke enjoined the latter from visiting Nassar or Albert DeSalvo at Bridgewater in March 1965."
        • "In late June 1967, Robey became director of the Center for Forensic Psychiatry for the state of Michigan. Throughout the summer he commuted back and forth between Ann Arbor and Wellesley, Massachusetts, where he and his wife and daughters made their home. Shortly after Robey's arrival in Michigan, young women in the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti area began dying in various hideous ways. Over a period of two years seven of them, aged thirteen to twenty-three, would be sexually mutilated and shot, beaten, or strangled to death. One of the victims would have the branch of a tree shoved eight inches into her vagina; police fervently hoped that she had been dead, or at least unconscious, when this atrocity had been inflicted on her. Robey's family had joined him in Michigan in October 1967. The murders of young local women continued. One day in early April 1969, shortly after the discovery of yet another violated female corpse, Robey picked up a copy of the Ann Arbor News. In it he saw a story about a rent strike being led by a University of Michigan student who happened to be named Peter Burton."
        • "Robey continues: “Nothing came of this. Peter immediately vanished [right after he spotted Robey walking across the university campus]. He was next noted to be out in Los Angeles just at the time the Hillside Stranglings started. Interestingly enough, they subsequently got somebody on one of the Ann Arbor killings. And while I don't think this guy confessed to the rest, it was sort of assumed because the modus operandi was so similar that he had committed the rest of them. And as you know they got two people out in L.A. for the Hillside Stranglings. But one wonders.”"
        • "Burton was reported to have bragged to university acquaintances that he had been a suspect in the Boston stranglings. And even before Robey had gone to the Ann Arbor detectives, he had come under police scrutiny. His drug activities and involvement with the local underground had brought him to their attention."
      • There are two Ann Arbor murder sprees of girls that fit the timeframe implied by McGowan: the Michigan Murders / Ypsilanti Ripper / Co-Ed Killer from 1967 to 1969 attributed to John Norman Collins / John Norman Chapman and various murders of young girls from 1970 to 1982 that might be attributable to Arthur Ream (MLive.com, "Ann Arbor girl missing since 1970 tied to search at killer's rural grave site", 2018/05/11; Detroit Free Press, "Suspected serial killer wants an apology from Warren police", 2018/05/21)
      • Suggestion that the murder of University of Michigan law student Jane Mixer, first thought to be a victim of John Collins and later attributed to Gary Leiterman, may have involved Peter Howard Denton, who was living in Ann Arbor at the time
      • Claim that Peter Denton was identified in true crime books as David Parker and Peter Burton - ed. note: this is true of Susan Kelly, who uses the name Peter Howard Burton
      • Commenter on a John Norman Collins post claims they saw somebody in a green station wagon dump a body at Denton cemetery
      • Albany Democrat-Herald, title unknown, 1972/06/20: "Two men are in Linn County jail on charges of criminal trespass. Peter Howard Denton, 31, of Cambridge, Mass. and Saul David Levine, 34, of Boston, Mass. were arrested early this morning by Linn County's sheriff's deputies."
      • Albany Democrat-Herald, title unknown, 1972/06/30 - this newspaper in Albany OR mentions "Peter Howard Denton" of "Cambridge, Mass." alongside "Saul David Levine, 34, Boston, Mass."
      • Friday Night Writers bio of Peter Howard Denton (same person?): "Peter Denton is a molecular immunologist. In 1976, he sailed a 60-foot gaff-rigged schooner across the Pacific Ocean. Peter and members of his Oregon commune built it. He traveled widely in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia. He ran scientific expeditions throughout the area. His stories are based in real locations, and as in this instance, based on real people. His boat, Endurance, was lost in a hurricane. Putting his high-sea adventures behind him, Peter returned to the USA to obtain his PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He writes full-time."
    • Charles E. Terry - committed murders elsewhere that matched the M.O. of the first six slayings; lived in Boston during those six and left immediately after
  • Reddit thread on the apparent ritual murder of Harvard student Jane Sanders Britton - draws potential connections to a Boston Strangler victim, a FBI and CIA informant, and a major drug trafficker

Arthur Shawcross

Danny Rolling

Adam Walsh kidnapping

  • John Walsh connections - perhaps he was targeted for some reason
    • Sun Sentinel, "10 YEARS LATER, THE SEARCH GOES ON", 1991/07/27: "They agreed on John Monahan, Walsh's friend and boss."
    • Palm Beach Post, "FILES ON UNSOLVED ADAM WALSH SLAYING TO OPEN FRIDAY" by ELIOT KLEINBERG, 1996/02/12: "Police also suspected Michael Monahan, son of John F. Monahan, Sr., John Walsh's boss. The senior Monahan had identified Adam's head. Three days after Adam's abduction, police took a machete from Michael Monahan, then 20, after a bizarre attack on another youngster at a Broward County skateboard park. Police now say they don't consider him a suspect in the Walsh case. John Monahan was out of town last week and could not be reached. His son could not be located for comment. From the beginning, police investigated rumors that Walsh, an executive at a Hollywood resort hotel with business connections to Bahamian casinos, had mob ties and that Adam's slaying was some sort of retaliation or related to drugs. But none of the rumors was ever proved true. One detective told The Miami Herald in 1982, ``This is a family with no skeletons in its closet."
    • From p.284 of Tears of Rage: From Grieving Father to Crusader for Justice : the Untold Story of the Adam Walsh Case by John Walsh (1997): "At that meeting, Dick Witt, the Hollywood police chief, was asked point-blank if there was any official suspicion that I was somehow affiliated with the Mafia. We were all sitting there, expecting him to say how ridiculous even the idea of that was. Instead, what Witt said was, "Anyone who goes to [here he mentioned a well-known Fort Lauderdale restaurant] for lunch has something to do with the Mafia.""
    • From p.392-394 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016) - more information on the page about Allen Rivenbark:

          Monahan had his own reasons to be upset at Grelen. He'd first reported that his son Michael had once been a suspect in the murder, and as well that John Monahan himself was linked to a suspected Miami drug smuggler.
          In addition to being a friend of the Walsh family like his father, Michael Monahan was also a close friend of Jimmy Campbell. But in 1990, Michael had been convicted in federal court in Tampa along with three others of extortion to collect a $40,000 debt on a loan from a man who was found shot dead after he'd gone to police. A codefendant was the son of a reputed captain in the Lucchese crime family of New York, who lived in Hollywood.
          In 1981, three days after Adam's abduction, in the Broward County city of Oakland Park there was an argument over a skateboard. Michael was carrying it, another young man claimed it was his and took it from Michael, then ran into the office of the skateboard park and locked the door. Minutes later, Michael returned with a machete and began hacking at it.
          “He was outside the door telling me if I didn't open the door that he was going to cut me up,” Grelen quoted the other young man telling an Oakland Park policeman. Soon, he saw the blade coming through the door. “I was in fear for my life. I thought he was going to kill me. He was enraged, like he was under the influence or something. You just don't get that mad over a skateboard.”
          Monahan took back his skateboard and left. That evening, Oakland Park police confiscated his machete and later had the Broward Medical Examiner test it to see if it matched the cuts in the neck of the found child. The result wasn't conclusive.
          In November 1981, three months after John Monahan identified Adam, he arrived at another morgue, in the Rocky Mountains, Grelen reported. A private turbojet had crashed carrying seven bound from Opa-locka airport in Dade. All had been killed and body parts were scattered, even in trees. One victim was Monahan's twenty-three years younger fiancée.
          Another was Allen Rivenbark, who at the time of his death six federal and state law enforcement agencies were investigating for suspected drug smuggling, money laundering, and harboring fugitives, the Denver Post reported in January 1982. The story said that Rivenbark owned a secluded mountain ranch thirty miles from Vail which was suspected of being a “hideout” for East Coast mobsters as well as a distribution point for drug trafficking in Colorado resort areas. The seven crash victims were all headed there. Rivenbark was also the jet's owner and part-owner of a coffee plantation in Colombia, Grelen reported.
          The Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune had it too, a UPI story published November 22, 1981: Airplane in Colorado Crash Was Being Watched by DEA. The story said the plane “was under surveillance by officers monitoring a cocaine smuggling operation, a federal agent said.”
          Said Wayne Valentine, chief of the DEA's Denver office, “It is a very likely possibility the plane was carrying cocaine” from South America to the United States.
          At the crash site investigators had found thirty handguns—one holstered to a victim's leg—and $50-60,000 in cash in the fresh snow, Grelen wrote.
          He quoted Bill Bachman, the chief investigator in 1981 for the sheriff's office of Eagle County, Colo., that when Monahan arrived, “He had a bodyguard with him that was a gorilla.” Monahan claimed and identified six of the bodies, excluding only a man with a Japanese name who was thought to be Rivenbark's bodyguard.
          “He made arrangements for dental records. He kind of took charge of the whole situation. That was kind of unusual,” said Bachman.
          Bachman added that as he investigated the crash, he received death threats by telephone.
       
    • Reddit comment by MandyHVZ in 2020: "He was most assuredly not lying about them being connected only by Adam, at the time, and then by the crusade in Adam's name. I can confirm from inside sources at NCMEC that they remained married in name only, essentially for the "brand", and didn't live or even travel together at all by the time I was working at NCMEC-- even for big deal stuff like the NCMEC board meeting, they were never even so much as entering the building on the same day. Reve was the one who came for the board meeting, fundraisers, actual work stuff. John would only show up when there could be a camera counted on to be there. I couldn't stand him, he was so cold and rude to everyone in the building except for the 3 top executives. It was the biggest letdown of working there, when I finally met him and found out who he was when he wasn't in front of a camera."
  • Ottis Toole evidence
    • Bringing Adam Home by Les Standiford and Joe Matthews (2011): chapters ..., 24, ... - mentions Toole's sister Vinetta Syphurs and her husband (plus alleged Hand of Death member) Rodney Syphurs
  • Jeffrey Dahmer evidence
    • See the work of Arthur Jay Harris
  • Man claiming to be Adam Walsh - often identified as A. W. or A.W.
  • Possibility that both of the accused killers (Ottis Toole and Jeffrey Dahmer) were involved
    • Suggestion that Ottis Toole and Jeffrey Dahmer worked together to murder Adam Walsh
    • From p.56 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016):

          "Within an hour of their arrival, A. W. said he saw Ottis Toole. And later, Ted Bundy. I quickly found that Bundy, who had abducted young women in Miami, had been in custody since 1978. Black mark. Toole and Dahmer, simpatico? Because Mary Hagan had said she'd seen Toole at Sears, Willis and I had joked, what were the odds that two famous killers coincidentally had gone to Hollywood Mall at the same time? Who got to Adam first? We'd never considered they could have been in league together. (Like Broward State Attorney investigator Phil Mundy, we simply dismissed William Mistler. Willis thought Hagan actually saw Dahmer but when she watched America's Most Wanted show video of Toole she overwrote her memory and put Toole's face and movements on Dahmer—just like what we believed happened to Bowen.) A. W. said he didn't see Toole at the mall, but couldn't say he wasn't there.
          Inside the apartment, as he referred to it, A. W. said there were other captors too. They were holding about twelve children, ages 4-7, all but two of them boys, intended to be sold into "the flesh market," which he described as prostitution, slavery, and the organ trade. I had trouble believing that until two months later when I read stories in the wake of the 2010 Haitian earthquake that Haiti has an active trade in child prostitution and slavery. A. W. had said that one of his other captors had taken him to voodoo rituals (South Florida has a large Haitian community), and he'd described an altar in the apartment that included his "Missing" picture. I also saw a Miami Herald story quoting a local child advocate and former state prosecutor: "Miami is known as a destination city for human trafficking."
       
    • From p.267 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016): "Look at the dates, the end of 1980 and the spring of '81. Now add that in May they were in Dade County. [...] Now that I think we're safe in establishing that Lucas and Toole really were killers, and they'd been in South Florida at least the end of May 1981, we can say for sure that three serial killers at the same time had been in the same place: Sunny Isles."
    • From p.268 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016): "Aside from A. W. saying that Dahmer and Toole were together on July 27, could I objectively show that Dahmer, Toole, and Lucas knew each other?"
    • From p.270-271 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016), it is mentioned that Lucas saw Toole in the company of a "friend" in Miami who resembled Dahmer:

          There was also a reference to something that sounded like the killing of Haack and Karbin, but it was written in the author's narrative, not Lucas's: "Henry's memory didn't reveal that he'd killed and robbed two women during his blackout... Leaving Ottis and his friend in Miami, he drove north." Call published in 1985, Dade County had indicted Lucas for Haack and Karbin's murders in 1984.
          Who was Ottis's friend? A few paragraphs earlier, Call described him and the scene:
          "Getting ready to leave Miami, Henry ran into Ottis in a bar. This wasn't unusual because it was a common hangout for members of the Hand. It was a contact point where orders for contract killings could be picked up, or simply a place where superiors could find loyal and willing servants for Satan.
          "Ottis was traveling with an effeminate friend, but the man's pale blue eyes were cold as ice."
          Eyes cold as ice? Let's review some of the observations of Dahmer I gathered:
          Willis: "He had a look on him, like the Devil was in him." Ken Haupert, Sr.: "I saw hell in his eyes once." Billy Capshaw: "An expression like he just wasn't there... If you've ever seen that—I promise you, you will never forget that eye contact." Linda Swisher: "his eyes were like ice."
          Were Dahmer's eyes blue? That's what the FBI wrote in a narrative document dated August 16, 1991.
          I read the line in Call's book to Billy, and he reacted, "Wow, that's good." He said Jeff's eyes changed colors depending on the light and maybe even the season. "I looked at his eyes a lot. They're not a deep blue, not the kind of blue that jumped out at you, a beautiful blue." Instead, he called them "grayish-blue," or "fluffy-blue." "Between pale blue and grayish-blue," he said.
          I asked the same to Preston Davis, who had also been in Billy and Jeff's barracks in Baumholder, except that Preston had left in the beginning of 1980 and Billy had replaced him, so they had never met until recently, on the phone, then later in person. "Blue eyes," he said. Were they pale blue? "Light blue," he said. He said Jeff's gaze, when he was drunk, could be "intimidating."
          Was Jeff effeminate? Not in his TV interviews. Billy said Jeff usually would hold himself in "a manly way. But around the right people, that might have changed." Privately to Billy, he "prissed around, happy-prissy" when he was drinking. He'd shake his butt, drop his hand in a limp-wristed way, and turn his head "the way a gay man does," as well as be "happy and jumpy." Jeff didn't show that to most people, "but if you were around him a lot," as Billy was, you would have seen it, he said. When I asked that to Davis, he said he'd never seen it but he didn't doubt what Billy said.
          I asked A. W. if he'd seen it. Yes, he said. "The way he'd move his hands, like an Egyptian"—his actual reference was the song "Walk like an Egyptian." He saw it "when he'd try to minimize my pain.
          "He had a gay voice, when he started to get aroused, I guess. He descended into this gay persona" as well as cross-dressed, he said. "He seemed like a tough kind of person, then he'd become this wacky kind of gay person when he got behind closed doors."
          After first publication of this book, another man found me on Facebook and said that Dahmer had tried to pick him up using an obviously gay voice.
          Sean Adams said the incident had occurred in Morgan City, Louisiana, a bayou town, where Adams grew up. He was eleven at the time. He knew of my Dahmer books but had not read them.
       
    • From p.275-276 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016):

          Lucas told the FBI in May 1984 that after his initial training in the Everglades with the cult he occasionally renewed it, the last time being in 1981. Some cult gatherings, he said, were at night on a deserted beach just south of Fort Lauderdale, held annually he thought in June or July. (That sounded to me very much like John U. Lloyd State Recreation Area, just south of Port Everglades, on the barrier island dividing the Intracoastal Waterway from the ocean. Its only land access happens to be a mile or less from where Flo Ella Miller's body was found in a canal, two days after Adam disappeared. That or Hollywood's North Beach, then undeveloped, which is also within about the same distance as where Miller was found. Every other beach possibly fitting that description had homes, apartments, or hotels on it.) Dahmer was in South Florida starting at the end of March '81. Maybe for some of his poorly-accounted time here from then to when Ken Haupert saw him go through his dumpster looking for food, in May or June, he was training with the cult. Whomever Lucas is describing with Toole, he's implying he's a cult member, hanging at a cult hangout bar.
          [...]
          Might it fit that Dahmer was part of the Hand? As Lucas had it, they murdered for Satan, trained how not to leave clues of their crimes, and practiced cannibalism. To the Milwaukee Police, Dahmer had admitted checking out Satanism while he was living with his churchgoing grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin, in the early 1980s: "He stated he felt he did this because he felt that since religion wasn't working, maybe he should just delve into the occult and to Satanism. However, after reading several books and dabbling in it, he realized this was not for him."
          That Dahmer's dabble with devil-worship was brief isn't credible. His father Lionel wrote in his book that when Jeff was 18 in 1978, Lionel broke up a seance party at their house and found a chalk pentagram drawn on a table. Also, in 1991 in his Milwaukee apartment police found an occult altar that included skulls. Exactly where Dahmer would have made the connection to the Hand, who knows? But I'll toss this out: after he left the Army, did he come to Miami not because, as the Milwaukee Police says he told them, "he thought it would be nice with the warm weather all the time," but because he already was part of the cult?
       
    • Later in the chapter (starting on p.279), Arthur Jay Harris mentions being contacted in November 2014 by a witness named Charles Sutera who claimed to have seen Jeffrey Dahmer and Ottis Toole together at Hollywood Mall when Adam Walsh was kidnapped. He attempts, with some success, to reconcile Sutera's story with the recollections of other witnesses, some of whom saw both a blue van (owned by Dahmer) and a white car (perhaps owned by Toole).
    • From p.361-362 of The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Book Two: Finding the Victim by Arthur Jay Harris (2016), there is a reference to Lawrence E. King (a.k.a. Larry King) from the Franklin scandal being the boss of Dahmer and Toole in their child trafficking enterprise:

          There is a statement on the record in the Walsh file about Toole going to Miami in around 1976.
          In 1996, fishing for information, Phil Mundy had asked Toole's niece Sarah Patterson (Frank and Frieda Powell's older sister) if Ottis had ever mentioned a man named Larry Waldo, who had come up in the investigation but was ultimately dropped. Patterson didn't know any last names but responded, “Whenever he used to go up to Miami he would always tell me I am going to see Larry.” She didn't know much more, except that Ottis had first mentioned that name around the time Patterson had first gotten married, in 1976.
          A. W. had told me that when he was tortured in Miami Beach, Dahmer and Toole had a boss who was present. Without getting into it—I have never been able to confirm this, except that the man has a federal criminal record and was separately alleged to have led a pedophile ring elsewhere that kidnapped children and adolescents—A. W. said his name was is Larry, his surname not Waldo.
       

Ed Gein

  • "Programmed To Kill/Satanic Cover-Up Part 14 (David Parker Ray & Ed Gein)", 2011/05/03
  • Wikipedia article on Ed Gein - has some provocative details about his background:
    • "Around this time [after his mother's death], he became interested in reading death-cult magazines and adventure stories, particularly those involving cannibals or Nazi atrocities."
    • "A 16-year-old youth, whose parents were friends of Gein and who attended ball games and movies with him, reported that Gein kept shrunken heads in his house, which Gein had described as relics from the Philippines, sent by a cousin who had served on the islands during World War II."
  • Grave robberies
    • Terre Haute Star, title unknown, 1957/11/22: "[...] residents said they could not believe the 140-pound bachelor had the time or strength to be a grave robber. Pat Danna, the elderly sexton of Plainfield Cemetery, said it takes him a half day to dig a grave, even with help. He said in tombs with vaults, a "body snatcher" would need a block and tackle to get at the body—and vaults are standard equipment in Plainfield because of the sandy soil in the area. MISS ADAMS was not buried in a vault. But funeral directors also pointed out that a grave robber would have had to shore up any excavations to keep the tomb from collapsing on him. And Danna insisted he had never seen evidence of grave-tampering in his cemetery since Gein started his head-hunting career in 1944. Kileen and Schley said they had no plans to solve these and other mysteries."
    • Indianapolis Star, title unknown, 1957/11/22: "Plainfield residents said they could not believe the 140-pound bachelor had the time or strength to be a grave robber. Pat Danna, the sexton of Plainfield Cemetery, said it takes him a half day to dig a grave, even with help. He said in tombs with vaults, a "body snatcher" would need a block and tackle to get at the body and vaults are standard equipment in Plainfield because of the sandy soil in the area. Miss Adams was not buried in a vault. But funeral directors also pointed out that a grave robber would have had to shore up any excavations to keep the tomb from collasping on him. Danna insisted he had never seen evidence of grave-tampering in his cemetery since Gein started his head-hunting career in 1944."
    • From p.264 of 50 Wisconsin Crimes of the Century by Marv Balousek:

          Others found his grave-robbing tales hard to fathom: How could the slight, spindly-legged, 140-pound farmer dig up a grave, open a vault and remove a body? Portage County Sheriff Herbert Wanerski said he didn't believe the human remains came from grave robberies.
          Pat Danna, the elderly sexton of the Plainfield cemetery, said it took him half a day to dig a grave with someone helping. A body snatcher would need a block and tackle to lift a body out of a vault, he said, adding that he'd seen no evidence of grave tampering at the cemetery in thirteen years.
       
  • Mary Hogan murder
    • From p.89 of Edward Gein by Robert H. Gollmar (allegedly): "In 1954, Ed committed the first murder he admits to. Mary Hogan, the owner and operator of a local tavern was killed. She was shot and her head was possibly cut off at the scene. At the scene, the police found a large pool of blood but no drag marks. Therefore Mary Hogan had been carried from the bar. After Gein had been caught, the police realized he was too small too carry the large stature of Mary Hogan from the scene and believed he may have had an accomplice for this murder and the grave robbings, but Gein constantly denied this."
    • From p.45 of Edward Gein by Robert H. Gollmar (allegedly): "Ed Gein had few close friends. However, after he was caught a man who was believed to be Gein's best friend became violently mentally ill and was committed to a mental hospital. He died in the hospital a short time later. The police think he may have been Gein's accomplice in the murder of Mary Hogan."

Patrick Kearney

  • "Programmed To Kill/Satanic Cover-Up Part 115 (William Bonin/Randy Kraft/Patrick Kearney)", 2018/09/07
  • New York Times, "Coast Killings: Bizarre Case Widens", 1977/07/11: "In 1962, at about the time Mr. Hill moved to California. Patrick Kearney, fresh from a hitch in the Air Force, took a job as an electrical engineer with the Hughes Aircraft Corporation a major defense contractor that specializes in building military satellites. He held the job until six weeks ago. One Hughes official said that Mr. Kearney, a native of Los Angeles, had obtained a government security clearance and described him as “an extremely diligent worker” who kept to himself. Someone else who knew him said that, although he had never earned a university degree, Pat Kearney had a reputation as “a real electronics whiz.”"
  • Studio 10, "Serial Killer Patrick Kearney Reveals Details About Lee Harvey Oswald", 2017/10/29 - has true crime author Amanda Howard excerpt a letter from Kearney where he alleges that he knew Lee Harvey Oswald
    • "WE HAD BOTH ATTENDED MILITARY LANGUAGE SCHOOL AND HAD BEEN IN TOP SECRET MILITARY LANGUAGE OPERATIONS. IN FACT, I MET OSWALD THROUGH A FRIEND WHO HAD ALSO DONE THOSE THINGS."
    • "LHO SAID HE WAS GOING TO HITCHHIKE TO MEXICO CITY... BUT AFTER MEXICO HE RETURNED TO THE USA AND THEN HE MADE A SECOND VOYAGE TO MEXICO CITY LATER... I NEARLY WENT WITH HIM."
    • "OSWALD SOMETIMES AFFECTED A FALSE GERMAN ACCENT AND TRIED TO PRETEND THAT HE WAS SOME SORT OF SPY."

Gerard John Schaefer Jr.

  • Crime Library, "All about Gerard Schaefer" by Michael Newton, 2003: chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
    • "Pamela Sue Wells and Nancy Ellen Trotter were lucky to be alive, police said later. The two attractive teenagers, 18 and 17, respectively, were thumbing for a ride in Stuart, Florida, their second day in town on July 21, 1972. Deputy Sheriff Gerard Schaefer stopped in his police cruiser, took their names and told them that hitchhiking was illegal in Martin County (it isn’t). He drove the girls back to a halfway house where they were staying, then offered them a ride to the beach the next morning. Trusting him as an officer of the law, Trotter and Wells agreed.

      The next day the sheriff’s deputy kept their date, but instead of heading for nearby Jensen Beach, he drove to swampy Hutchinson Island, off State Road A1A, telling the girls he wanted to show them a Spanish fort. Once there, the 26-year-old lawman started making sexual remarks, then drew a gun and told the girls he planned to sell them as white slaves to a foreign prostitution syndicate. Forcing them out of the car, he handcuffed and gagged both girls, leaving them balanced on tree roots with nooses around their necks, at risk of hanging if they slipped and fell. Still making threats, Schaefer left them there, promising to return shortly, but while he was gone the girls managed to escape."
    • "When he returned to find them missing Schaefer telephoned his boss, telling Sheriff Richard Crowder, “I’ve done something foolish. You’re going to be mad at me.” Schaefer had “overdone” his job, he said, trying to scare the girls out of hitchhiking for their own good."
    • "Two months after his arrest for the Trotter-Wells assault, on September 27, two more girls--17-year-old Susan Place and 16-year-old Georgia Jessup--had vanished from Fort Lauderdale. Susan’s parents said the girls were last seen at her house, leaving with an older man who said his name was Jerry Shepherd on their way to play guitar at a nearby beach. They never returned. Susan Place’s mother Lucille had been suspicious and had written down the license number of Shepherd’s blue Datsun. Unfortunately, she copied the tag’s prefix as “4” (Pinellas County) instead of “42” (Martin), and six months passed before she realized her mistake. A new trace led her to Schaefer. On March 25, 1973, she arrived at the Martin County jail carrying a photo of her daughter. But Schaefer denied ever seeing the girls."
    • "Prosecutor Robert Stone didn’t buy Schaefer’s explanations. On May 18 he charged Schaefer with two counts of murder, telling reporters the case might represent “the greatest crime in the history of the United States.” Schaefer declared, “I’m sick and I hope to God you can help me.” [...]"
    • "The Schaefers moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1960, promptly joining the local yacht and country clubs. [...]"
    • "Mostly, he preferred solitary pursuits, especially hunting in the Everglades. [...]"
    • "Schaefer’s parents finally divorced in September 1969, as he returned to Florida Atlantic University. Three days after classes convened, on September 8, a mysterious fate overtook a former neighbor, the object of his teenage lust and rage.

      Lee Hainline had married Charles Bonadies on August 21, 1969. It was a rocky union from the start, with frequent quarrels. One bone of contention was Leigh’s announcement that her childhood neighbor and sometime tennis partner had offered her a $20,000 salary to join the CIA. Charles laughed at the idea and told her to forget it. On September 8, he came home to find a note from Leigh, saying the she had gone to Miami. She never came back, and her car was later found in a Fort Lauderdale parking lot. Leigh’s brother called Schaefer and heard a strange story: Leigh had phoned him, Schaefer claimed, to say that she was leaving Charles and asked him for a ride to the airport, where she meant to catch a flight to Cincinnati. Schaefer agreed, but Leigh never called back with a departure time. Charles filed for divorce on October 6, his petition granted on March 10, 1970. Nothing more was heard of Leigh Bonadies until her jewelry surfaced at Doris Schaefer’s home, in April 1973. Her fate remains unknown."
    • "The next to vanish from Broward County was Carmen Marie Hallock, a 22-year-old cocktail waitress. She had lunch with her sister-in-law on December 18, 1969, discussing a date she had planned for that evening. Hallock said she was meeting a teacher who had offered her a job involving “some kind of undercover work for the government.” The position featured international travel and “lots of money.” Hallock missed work the next night and when she had not been seen by Christmas Day, her relatives used a spare key to check her apartment. They found the bathtub full and her dog unfed. Hallock’s car found in a nearby parking lot a few days later. When Schaefer’s stash of souvenirs was seized in 1973, police recovered two of Hallock’s gold-filled teeth and a shamrock pin identified by her family. Her body has never been found."
    • "By October 1970, to make tuition money, Schaefer was working as a security guard at Florida Light and Power. There, he met secretary Teresa Dean and they became engaged, tying the knot soon after Schaefer’s August 1971 graduation from FAU, with a bachelor’s degree in geography. It was useless without a teaching credential, but Schaefer had chosen a new career path.

      Having failed to “do right” as a priest or teacher, he set his sights on law enforcement. Hired by the Wilton Manors Police Department on September 3, 1971, Schaefer was sent back to Broward Community College, this time to the school’s police academy. He graduated on December 17, 1971 and hit the streets to begin his six-month probationary term. Schaefer was on the job barely three weeks before another local woman disappeared."
    • "[Wilton Manors police chief Bernard] Scott was ready to fire Schaefer on March 16, 1972, when Schaefer surprised him by winning a commendation for a drug arrest. It saved his job, but only briefly. [...]"
    • "Teresa Schaefer made her one and only prison visit on November 17, 1973, to serve Gerard with divorce papers. Outside the walls, reporters trumpeted that lawyer Elton Schwarz, age 45, was “dating” Schaefer’s 21-year-old wife. He also handled Teresa’s divorce and they were married on November 30 with Schwarz announcing that his client had suggested the arrangement. Inmate Schaefer, undismayed, maintained correspondence with Schwarz for several years afterward, waiting nearly a decade to charge the attorney with legal malpractice."
    • "Meanwhile, Schaefer was busy exposing another conspiracy, claiming that he had been framed by drug-dealing lawmen and Martin County prosecutors. (This despite his statements to psychiatrists that he enjoyed working for Sheriff Crowder “because everybody was honest.”) In Schaefer’s new scenario, he was framed for killing “two narcotics informants” because he refused to play ball with powerful drug lords. Ironically, one of Robert Stone’s aides was convicted of drug trafficking in the 1980s, but no evidence linked the case to Schaefer’s crimes."
    • "When not scamming “freaks,” Schaefer worked as a jailhouse lawyer--with a twist. While writing briefs for fellow cons, he milked his “clients” for information on their cases, then sold them out to authorities. One such inmate, awaiting trial for murder, told Schaefer where his victim’s body could be found and Schaefer relayed the directions to police, landing his client on death row. [...]" - ed. note: this is probably illegal
    • "In 1986, collaborating with police from North Miami, Schaefer adopted the guise of “Dee Dee Kelly,” a 14-year-old prostitute who offered nude photos to pedophiles. Responses to his ads were collected by U.S. Postal inspectors, but none of Schaefer’s correspondents were prosecuted. Instead, authorities discovered he was working with another inmate, Mervyn Cross, to run a child pornography network from prison. Cross paid Schaefer’s father a monthly stipend for use of his telephone line, to communicate with Filipino colleagues. Prosecutors convicted Cross, adding time to his sentence at Starke, but no charges were filed against the Schaefers."
    • "The bizarre flip-side of that pious façade was Schaefer’s effort to pose as a leader of organized crime. On March 21, 1989 he wrote: “I am, factually, a captain of the Dixie Mafia...I have, factually, the power to have you killed. I have, in the past, used these powers.” Three days later he added, “I am a Syndicate man... When I put on my [mob] subchief’s hat I am ‘Don El Tigre’...and I can scare the living shit out of you.”"
    • "[In his June 19, 1992 letter to Sondra London] Schaefer could not resist signing off with a warning: “The very next time you say or do anything that causes me problems...I am going to encourage my dope addled Satanist pals in Georgia to go pick up your slut daughter and teach her some sex education.”"
    • "[...] Forensic dentist Richard Souviron, who identified Carmen Hallock’s teeth in 1973, received a summons for providing photos and fragments of Schaefer’s writings to a British magazine. [...]"
    • "[...] Finally barred from writing to London directly, Schaefer penned a furious letter to her publisher on December 5, 1993. Referring to a fellow convict--“an Anointed Fourth Prince of the Hand of Death”--he raved: “All I need to do is ask this gentleman to have SL and her kid murdered and it would be done. SL is alive at this moment because I choose to allow it.”"
    • "On Sunday, December 3, prison guards found Schaefer slaughtered in his cell. His throat was slashed and he had been stabbed 42 times around his head and neck. A bloody handprint on the wall of Schaefer’s cell appeared to be the only clue.

      Two months later, on February 1, 1996, prison officials filed a murder charge against 33-year-old Vincent Faustino Rivera, confessed slayer of two Hillsborough County victims, who had begun serving a sentence of life plus 20 years in January 1991. According to the state’s scenario, Rivera and Schaefer had quarreled after Schaefer took the last cup of hot water from a dispenser on their cell block. Rivera had brooded a while, then settled the argument with a homemade shank."
    • "In November 1996 Rivera wrote to Sondra London, pleading innocence and claiming that the bloody print from Schaefer’s cell matched neither Schaefer nor himself. Schaefer’s mother and sister accused Ottis Toole of the murder, alleging that Toole had felt threatened by Schaefer’s ongoing efforts to help the Walsh family recover young Adam’s remains. The National Enquirer reported that Schaefer had arranged to speak with detectives concerning the case, angling for a transfer back to Avon Park if he could produce Adam’s bones. [...]"
  • JR Bruun, "Beauty & the Sex Beast"
    • "In 1973 he was sentenced for the mutilation murder of Susan Place and Georgia Jessup, two girls he claims were narcotic informants for the Fort Lauderdale Police Dept."

Kenneth McKenna

  • FDLE information on sex offender Kenneth Mckenna - DOC number is 047365; date of birth is 1942/12/09; aliases are KENNETH ALVIN CLOOLEY and Kenneth Alvin Mckenna; address is Department of Corrections at an unknown location; offense, for which he was convicted on 1988/05/06 in Manatee County FL, is SEX BAT BY ADULT/VCTM UNDER 12; F.S. 794.011(2) with court case number 8702388; victim was indisputably a minor
  • List of court cases in the Manatee County FL (county seat Bradenton FL) Circuit Court
    • 1983 Domestic Relations: 1983DR002573AX on 12/14/1983
    • 1987 Felony: 1987CF002388AX on 09/04/1987 and 1987CF002502AX on 09/14/1987 and 1987CF002544AX on 09/18/1987 and 1987CF002866AX on 10/23/1987
    • 1995 Criminal Traffic: 1983CT002821AX and 1984CT000315AX on 06/10/1995
  • Fatal Vision Vol. 14, "HOWLING in Hell" interview of Mad Dog MacKenna by Gerard John Schaefer, 1992 (pages 36 and 37, 38)
    • "MD: [...] Ten years ago I was hired to execute Caeser and Patty Vitale who were involved in a million dollar drug scam. I drove out to their fancy digs in an expensive bedroom community West of Fort Lauderdale and when Caeser came to the door I put a dozen slugs into the fat bastard; then I ran down his cutie pie wife, Patty, and put about another dozen bullets into her. [...] Caeser Vitale had a partner, Mike Papa, and Mike was told to make good on the scammed cash or he and his fancy wife, Carla, would get what Caeser and Patty got. Mike Papa was connected with the Luchese Syndicate; in fact it was Mike's uncle, Vinnie Papa, who was the brains behind the 50 million dollar "French Connection" heroin heist in New York City. The South Americans felt that Mike could get up the money from the Luchese Syndicate but he either couldn't do it or he didn't care; so about six months after I blasted the Vitales I flew up to New York, drove out to Queens and executed Mike and Carla Papa. [...]"
      • South Florida Sun Sentinel, "DEAD END IN SUBURBIA", 1992/02/09: "Caesar Vitale, 35, was an interior decorator who regularly visited a manicurist and drove a Mercedes-Benz. His wife Patty, 33, was a rental manager at Inverrary in Lauderhill. She had her own Mercedes, a fine wardrobe and nine credit cards. The couple enjoyed dining out and buying expensive gold jewelry. They lived in a three-bedroom, two-bath, 2,400-square-foot lakefront home which they had bought new in a peaceful neighborhood of Plantation. [...] 10 years ago, on Feb. 15, 1982, the Vitales' veneer of upscale normalcy came to a savage and bloody end. On that evening, a Sunday, somebody entered the Vitales' home as they sat in the family room watching Channel 10. As Caesar, clad only in blue corduroy shorts, walked toward the door, the intruder mowed him down with a .380-caliber semiautomatic or automatic weapon. He was shot 12 times. The killer then chased Patty, shooting her 11 times. Next he stabbed Caesar four times and his wife 11 times. Then he slit their throats. [...] Most law-enforcement officers believe the murders were drug-related. "It was a dope deal that went bad," says former Fort Lauderdale FBI agent Al La-Manna."
        • "Vitale grew up in Brooklyn across the street from Joseph Colombo, don of the New York-based Mafia crime family that still bears his name nearly 14 years after his death.

          Vitale was a pal of Colombo's three sons, Joe Jr., Anthony and Vincent. When he was in his early 20s he was appointed secretary-treasurer of the Italian- American Civil Rights League, an organization founded by Colombo in 1971 to counter what he said was the maligning of Italian-Americans in unfounded stories about the Mafia. Vitale also served for a time as Joe Colombo's bodyguard, according to New York Police Department intelligence files."
        • "After Joe Colombo was critically wounded in an assassination attempt and replaced as boss of his crime family, his sons moved to Florida. Here they hoped to start a Florida-New York narcotics network, according to New York police intelligence reports.

          Vitale, a graduate of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, was not far behind them in moving here."
        • ""Caesar was involved in drug traffic with the (Colombo) family on a large scale," New York cops said in a report to Plantation police after Vitale's murder.

          According to Al LaManna, the ex-FBI agent, Vitale was placed in charge of a furniture store in Oakland Park owned by the Colombo crime family. Law- enforcement agencies suspected that heroin was being smuggled in with furniture imported by the store from overseas.

          One of the store's customers was the Fairways at Inverrary, and it may have been at this time that Caesar and Patty renewed their friendship." - note that heroin being smuggled in furniture resembles the trafficking ring of Ike Atkinson and perhaps Michael Hand through Nugan Hand
        • "Vitale subsequently left the furniture store to manage the West End restaurant at the Sunrise Musical Theatre. A short time later he became manager of the Executive House hotel at Inverrary. Now, more than ever, he was mingling with mobsters.

          [...]

          "Caesar Vitale ran the Executive House, and during this time it became one of the principal places for various organized-crime figures of the Colombo family," stated a Plantation police report."
        • "Authorities had a spate of rumors, but still no evidence. Then in September -- seven months after the Vitales were murdered -- came a new development. Michael Papa, a 33-year-old New York mobster, and his wife, Carla, 26, were shot and killed in their Queens apartment. Carla Papa, a model, was six months pregnant.

          Papa was the nephew of Vincent Papa, onetime head of the Luchese crime family suspected of masterminding the $70-million "French Connection" heroin theft in New York City.

          Two days after the Papa murders, the New York Daily News reported that it was told by unnamed police sources that Caesar Vitale was Papa's partner in an international cocaine smuggling and distribution ring. Vitale reportedly received shipments smuggled into Florida from South America and arranged for their transfer to New York."
      • New York Times, "THE CITY; Couple Found Slain", 1982/09/08: "A Queens couple were found shot to death in execution style yesterday in their home in Whitestone, the police said. They said the couple's home contained drug paraphernalia and had been ransacked. The victims were Michael Papa, 33 years old, and his wife, Carla Ann, 30, of 208-28 15th Drive. The police identified Mr. Papa as a nephew of Vincent C. Papa, a major drug dealer who was stabbed to deathin 1977 in the Federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Vincent Papa had been linked to the theft in 1972 of $70 million worth of drugs from the New York City Police Department's property clerk's office. The drugs had been seized earlier in the so-called French Connection case."
      • UPI, "Investigators suspect the cousin of 'French Connection' mobster Vincent...", 1982/09/08: "Investigators suspect the cousin of 'French Connection' mobster Vincent Papa and his pregnant wife were shot and killed execution style because of a bad drug deal. The bodies of Michael Papa, 33, and his wife, Carla Ann, 30, were found Tuesday morning in their rented home in a quiet residential neighborhood. [...] Papa, who had been shot once the head, was lying in the doorway while his wife, a former model, was in an upstairs room with gunshot wounds to the head and body. Drug paraphernalia was found in the house and Detective John Fitzgerald said it appeared the the killings were the result of a 'drug deal that went bad.' Police said Papa was unemployed, but that he owned three expensive cars -- a Lincoln Continental, a Mercedes Benz and a DeLorean. [...] Vincent Papa was killed in a federal prison in Atlanta in 1977 while serving a 22-year term for drug trafficking."
    • "MD: Yes, it's true that I handled a good deal of kiddie porn, we'd refer to it as KP on the streets. I was one of the primary outlets for the Florida child pornographer Mervyn Cross, who, like Hitchcock, always managed to get himself into the picture."
    • "MD: My personal hero in the crime profession is Tony Accardo. [...] [Al Capone] got busted by the Feds and Tony Accardo took over Chicago in about 1931 but Tony also had gambling connections in South Florida. I saw him down in South Florida often. He used to hang out at the Greenacres Club in Hallendale. He had a place out in Barrington Hills in Illinois. [...]"
  • From p.281 of Killer Fiction by G. J. Schaefer: "My closest associate in this slimepit [Kenneth "Mad Dog" McKenna] is an Anointed Fourth Prince of the Hand of Death who was a contract killer for the Mafia. He is serving a 125 year minimum mandatory life sentence for crimes too revolting to discuss here. This man has gunned down mobsters from Miami to New York and can give names and dates. He is one of the most honest persons in this prison. All I need to do is ask this gentleman to have SL [Sondra London] and her kid murdered and it would be done. SL is alive at this moment because I choose to allow it."

Robert Charles Browne

  • Websleuths thread on Robert Charles Browne as a serial killer (pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ...)
    • "Browne is taunting LE with letters back in 2002. He offers two letters with criptic information about "seven virgins, entombed side by side,those less worthy, are scattered wide." He originally says there are 9 victims in Colorado. If you buy the "seven" stuff, the other two would be Church and Sperry."
    • "DENVER (AP) -- Robert Charles Browne says he shot some of his victims and strangled others, in one case with a pair of leather shoelaces. He knocked out one woman with ether, then used an ice pick on her. He put a rag soaked in ant killer over another victim's face and stabbed her nearly 30 times with a screwdriver. If Browne is telling the truth about killing 49 people across the country, his crimes practically constitute a manual on the many ways in which to kill. In fact, it may have been the variety in his methods that kept authorities from connecting the crimes until Browne sent a taunting letter to prosecutors six years ago."
    • "Personally, I'm a little suspicious about the "facts" in his writings and confessions. [...] Browne's recollections and writings seem to surround the reality of the crimes with his bizarre fantasies. The news said he was also on new "medication" during his adjustment from isolation to the general population in jail. Maybe he has schizophrenia or some personality disorder? Some of this stuff might be delusional fantasy Browne is confusing with reality."
    • "What about all the murders in the gulch canyon in colorado"
  • Early life background
    • Colorado Springs Gazette, "Devil-possessed? Hometown faces questions", 2006/07/30: "How could a respected sheriff’s deputy and his hard-working country wife have spawned an apparent monster? [...] If there’s one thing that stands out about Browne, it’s that few seem to really have known him. His schoolmates shrug and say they only vaguely recollect him. They can’t describe his personality or relate any anecdotes. [...] Of course, she and everyone else remembers the Brownes as a family with three sets of twins. “(His father) told me one day, ‘Mr. Worsham, I believe I got a parish record.’ I said, ‘How about a national record?’” Worsham said. [...] Then it’s back to the blank memories. It’s been too long, people say, since they saw Browne. Then there’s the fact that his family still lives here. People are afraid, one woman confided, of saying the wrong thing. [...] To be sure, there are a few people around who might be able to shed some light, but they’re not talking. One is Donald Browne, Robert’s brother, a former state trooper who has used a wheelchair since an off-duty shooting, the sheriff said. He’s not answering the phone or the door."
    • TODO: could Browne have been part of the Hand of Death, which had a base of operations in nearby Shreveport LA?
  • Apple Dumpling Gang investigation of Robert Charles Browne - by infamous Colorado Springs homicide detective Lou Smit (most notable for his work on the JonBenet Ramsey murder) and former CIA agent Charlie Hess from the Phoenix Program
    • New York Times, "The Confessor", 2007/04/29
    • Description of Hello Charlie: Letters from a Serial Killer by Charlie Hess (2008): "The 1991 abduction and murder of thirteen-year-old Heather Dawn Church baffled police for three agonizing years, and became one of the most infamous murders the quiet and scenic city of Colorado Springs had ever seen. It was legendary homicide detective Lou Smit who finally broke the case, sending Robert Charles Browne, a forty-three-year-old Louisiana drifter and career criminal, to prison for life.But the savage saga of Robert Browne did not end there. In 2000, Smit, now retired, joined forces with Charlie Hess, an ex-FBI agent and former CIA operative, to reexamine the cold-case murder files of the local Sheriff's Department. With the addition of amateur forensics buff Scott Fischer, the Apple Dumpling Gang was born.As their volunteer work continued, Smit, Hess, and Fischer came upon a taunting letter written by Browne, hinting that the death of Heather Church was only the tip of the iceberg. What other law enforcement officials had simply ignored, the Apple Dumpling Gang took on with single-minded determination. Charlie Hess began a correspondence with Browne in which, over the course of dozens of letters, the killer teasingly spun out the details of a horrific killing spree spread over thirty years and nine states. The tally, according to Browne: forty-nine deaths, making him one of the most prolific serial murderers in the annals of American crime.Hess's unique insight into criminal psychology, honed over his years developing informants and working as a polygraph operator, made him uniquely suited to match wits with the cagey and canny killer. But Browne was every bit the retired cop's equal: quickwitted, mercurial, and charismatic, with a penchant for riddles and a lifetime full of grisly secrets.A riveting account of the complex and chilling cat-and-mouse game Hess and Browne played over five years,Hello Charliedetails Browne's bloody swath of murder -- by strangulation, poisoning, and dismemberment -- even as it explores the special bond forged between the cop and the killer, allowing Hess unprecedented access into the mind of a remorseless psychopath.As compulsively readable as any crime novel,Hello Charliepicks up whereThe Silence of the Lambsleft off, with the incredible true story of one man's search for justice with a murderer as his guide."
  • Faye Aline Self disappearance - in 1983 from Coushatta LA
    • KSLA, "Victim's sister alleges cover up", 2006/07/29: "Kathy Cole is raging, not only about how her sister was murdered, but even more about how she believes authorities handling the investigation, in the earlier eighties, tried to cover up the crime. [...] Flash back to March 30, 1983; Faye Aline Self disappears. Now, fast forward to Thursday, authorities say Robert Charles Browne confesses to murdering Self. He lived next door to her in Coushatta Louisiana, at an apartment complex owned by his brother, where he worked as the maintenance man. "I think the level of incompetence at the Sheriffs office at the time she disappeared is criminal," says Cole. She claims the people leading the investigation knew the suspect, a little too well. "I'm talking about Kerwin Browne, who was the Sheriff at the time, who told me to my face she probably ran off with some guy. I'm talking about Ronald Brown, who was the investigator who investigated the murder that his son has now admitted to doing. Now, what better way to cover up evidence than have your father investigate it on the property owned by your brother."
  • Rocio Chila Sperry a.k.a. Rocio Sperry a.k.a. Rocio Delpilar Sperry disappearance - in 1987 from Colorado Springs CO
    • Charley Project page on Rocio Chila Sperry
      • "Rocio was last seen in Colorado Springs, Colorado on November 10, 1987. She was driving a gray and white Pontiac Grand Am at the time. Her husband, Joseph A. Sperry, a soldier stationed at Fort Carson, was visiting family in Florida at the time of Rocio's disappearance. He had also taken their three-month-old daughter."
      • "Joseph stated Rocio called him at 4:45 a.m. to tell him she loved him and there would be a surprise waiting for him when he returned home, something his mother had sent her. He asked her if everything was okay, and she reassured him that everything was fine. He tried to call Rocio back, but he got no answer.

        Joseph was gone for six days. Rocio was supposed to meet him him at the airport upon his return on November 14, but she never showed up and he attempted to report her missing. Many people theorized that Rocio either left her husband voluntarily, or was murdered by him."
      • "Joseph searched for his wife himself among prostitutes, theorizing she was kidnapped by a pimp and forced into prostitution. He stated he had a "miserable" life after Rocio vanished, lost custody of their daughter, and became addicted to heroin. He is now in recovery."
      • "Robert Charles Browne confessed to Rocio's homicide in court in 2006, and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in connection with her death. He stated he took Rocio to the movies, strangled her afterward, dismembered her body and put it in a trash bin. He also stole her car, wedding ring and television set.

        [...]

        Authorities believe he was a prolific serial killer with victims in several states. He has claimed responsibility for at least one murder in South Korea and forty-eight murders in the United States, including the 1983 murder of Faye "Aline" Self, whose body was never found. Most of his alleged victims were women, but there were some men also.

        Thus far, Browne has only been charged in connection with Heather and Rocio's cases. He will be eligible for parole in 40 years in Rocio's murder, but he not eligible for parole in Heather's case."
    • Affidavit of El Paso County Sheriff's Office detective Jeffrey B. Nohr describing the investigation of Rocio's disappearance
    • Rocky Mountain News, "'87 slaying 'ruined a family'" by Dick Foster, 2006/07/28 (original at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4876223,00.html now 404s): "Rocio Delpilar was 15 years old and had recently arrived in Florida from her native Cuba when she was taken from a mother who beat her and placed in foster care, Sperry said. While there, a friend introduced her to the 21-year-old Sperry. "I fell in love with her, her beauty and her sweetness," he said. She told Sperry that she didn't want to be moved to another abusive foster home, so they married. Rocio gave birth to Amie and the couple moved to Colorado Springs after Sperry joined the Army and was sent to Fort Carson. Unable to support his family on his Army private's salary, he flew to his mother's home in Florida with Amie in November 1987. Rocio was to follow, Sperry said. [...] Sperry said that police suspected him of killing his wife after he reported her missing. He struggled emotionally through the weeks at Fort Carson before finally exploding at his first sergeant and being given a discharge."
  • Possible Goleta CA murders
    • Poli-con-deaths board, "Robert Charles Browne and Charles J Hess", 2018/01/06: "I wonder about his connections to the Goleta and the couple he says he murdered while they camped on the beach. It seems similar to the couple murdered there in Goleta or Torrey Pines."
    • ZODIAC CIPHERS, "Santa Barbara Murders 1970": "On Saturday February 21st 1970, John Franklin Hood (24), who had served decorated time in Vietnam in the 64th Armoured Division and Sandra Garcia (20), who worked in the California Department of Motor Vehicles, decided to visit the quiet retreat of East Beach, Santa Barbara one evening, where unfortunately they fell victim to a knife-wielding assassin [...] John F Hood and Sandra Garcia were shortly to be married and were enjoying the evening tranquility lying on a blanket under a full moon, when a man armed with a bone handled 4" blade approached them and shattered their dreams. Despite apparently fighting back against their attacker, both unfortunately had their lives cruelly snatched away on the remote Santa Barbara beach."
    • ZODIAC CIPHERS, "The Sleeping Bag Murders": "On July 5th 1970, three young men, Thomas Victor Dolan (17) of Manhattan Beach, Thomas Hayes (19) of Hermosa Beach and Homer Clyde Shadwick (19) of Saginaw, Michigan were discovered by a passer by on a beach in Santa Barbara, that straddled the University of California Santa Barbara building at Campus Point. Two of the young men had succumbed to their injuries, while the third, Thomas Hayes had been rushed to hospital in nearby Goleta in critical condition, after the three appeared to have been subjected to a frenzied attack with a bladed weapon while camping out in their sleeping bags on the night of the July 4th 1970." - note that Shadwick was "an Army deserter" carrying the identification of his close friend and lookalike Larry Steve Hess

Gary Addison Taylor

  • Detroit Free Press, "Hunt for More Bodies Halted at Sniper Home", 1975/05/24 (pages 1, 7): "Houston, Tex., authorities are holding Taylor without bond on charges of raping a child and four other sex offenses, including three counts of sodomy. Houston police supplied the information that led to discovery of the bodies in Michigan. Taylor's wife, Helen, who now lives in San . Diego, told Houston authorities through her attorney that her husband buried four bodies when they lived in Lenawee County from mid-1973 to early 1974. Taylor bought and lived in the $42,000 brick-and-wood ranch house while he was on convalescent leave from the Center for Forensic Psychiatry near Ann Arbor, which now lists him as an escapee. Taylor was not listed as an escapee until Nov. 1, 1974, although he had quit reporting to the forensic center more than a year earlier. Forensic center Director Dr. Ames Robey attributed the delay to a clerical error. Since leaving the center, Taylor has been linked with the disappearance of a woman near Seattle, Wash., and with the five sex crimes that led to his arrest last week in Houston. Two bodies, both white females, were dug up in Lenawee County Thursday, and sheriff's deputies and jail inmates, using a mechanical digger and spades, worked most of the day Friday digging for more corpses. [...] Taylor had not lived there since about March 1974, [Sheriff Richard L.] Germond said. [...] Neighbors who knew Taylor were shocked by the discovery of the bodies, dug up directly beneath the window of the master bedroom. "You couldn't talk to a nicer guy (than Taylor)," said Mrs. Doris Lauer, who lived across the street from the Taylors. "You never would have thought he had mental problems," she said, asking not to be identified. In early 1974, Taylor "just picked up and left," said Mrs. Lauer."
  • Detroit Free Press, "Mental Home Freed Suspect", 1975/05/24 (pages 1, 5): "A former Michigan mental patient who has been linked with the disappearance of five persons and a series of sex crimes was released from a state institution in 1972 because its director said he was not mentally ill. Dr. Ames Robey, director of Michigan's Center for Forensic Psychiatry near Ann Arbor, said Friday that he thought the patient, Gary A. Taylor, would be dangerous only if he failed to take his medication. Robey's conclusion conflicted sharply with that of another psychiatrist who examined Taylor in 1959 and said he would "require lifelong incarceration" unless there were a dramatic breakthrough in psychiatric treatment. [...] Taylor had been confined in Ionia State Hospital for most of 13 years when he was transferred to the Forensic Center in 1970. He was released on convalescent status in July 1972 with the provision that he would return for periodic treatment and examination. He stopped returning to the center in mid-1973, however, and since then he has been linked with the disappearance of five persons and with the five sex crimes that led to his arrest Tuesday in Houston, Tex. [...] Taylor previously had been diagnosed as a paranoid Schizophrenic, but Robey insisted Friday that Taylor "was never mentally ill." Robey described Taylor as someone with definite anti-social tendencies, but said his affliction — known as a "character disorder" — is not a form of mental illness. Robey added, "He was in sufficient control when he was on medication. All of his trouble seemed to come when he was drinking." [...] He was first sent to Ionia in 1957 when he was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial in the shooting of a 19 year-old Bloomfield Hills girl. In 1960 he was transferred to the Lafayette Clinic in Detroit and received weekend passes. He was returned to Ionia the next year, however, after he allegedly attacked two women with a machete. HE WAS finally found competent to stand trial on the sniping charges in 1966 and admitted shooting the girl. He was acquitted by reason of insanity, however, and was returned to Ionia on the basis of reports to the court by Dr. Gordon and two other psychiatrists. Gordon said Taylor refused an examination in 1966 and indicated that his report was based on his 1959 examination. One of the other psychiatrists, while sharing Gordon's contention that Taylor should not be released, diagnosed Taylor much the same way Robey did in 1972."
  • Note that Taylor appears to have been operating in the Pacific Northwest during a timeframe (early/mid to late 1974) that partially overlaps both Ted Bundy and Thomas Creech

Bernard Hunwick

  • South Florida Sun Sentinel, "Infamous Fort Lauderdale hitman dies in prison", 2013/02/15: "Bernard "Barry the Bear" Hunwick, an infamous 1980s hitman and one notoriously bad dude on the rough beach bar scene in Fort Lauderdale during the 1970s, has died in North Carolina while serving a life sentence. He was 67. Mr. Hunwick died Jan. 2 at the Butner Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. [...] Mr. Hunwick received two life sentences in 1999 after being convicted in federal court in a murder-for-hire sting, then pleading no contest in state court to a 1982 murder. Mr. Hunwick's tough-guy reputation at beach hangouts was sealed in 1982 when police fingered him as the leader of a six-man hit squad responsible for as many as 300 murders across the country. Prosecutors were able to pin only one death – 17 years later – on Mr. Hunwick, when he pleaded no contest to the murder of convicted cocaine smuggler and bail bondsman Richard Diego Messina. Messina's throat-slashed body was found stuffed in the trunk of a stolen car in Wilton Manors. [...] "He was one of those guys that was a stone-cold killer," said Pete Magrino, formerly a Broward assistant state attorney who prosecuted the Messina case. [...] Police arrested Mr. Hunwick in 1982 when Allen Chafin survived a hit and pointed out Mr. Hunwick as one of two men who tried to kill him, shooting him and leaving him for dead near a canal along State Road 84. The arrest created an international stir when investigators said Hunwick had possibly committed more than 100 murders. But Mr. Hunwick was acquitted. Several Broward Sheriff Office deputies were later demoted for lying at trial when they said they had obtained a search warrant before finding silencers, brass knuckles and an explosive device linked to Mr. Hunwick inside a locker. More than 15 years later, the other hitman identified by Chafin, Reid Robert Hawley, became an informant for local and federal authorities in the murder-for-hire sting." - note that Pete Magrino was later an assistant state attorney under Brad King who showed up in the Jessica Lunsford murder case; worth asking if the 1982 prosecution was intentionally thrown
  • Contemporaneous news articles
    • Collection of old news articles on Hunwick - one article notes that Hunwick lived in Plantation FL just like Caesar Vitale (and at the same time), and that Allen Chafin claimed drug dealers had hired Hunwick to murder race car drivers Bill, Don, and Dale Whittington
    • Fort Lauderdale News, "Cops nab alleged leader of 'hit ring'", 1982/06/09 (pages 1, 9): "Bernard Barton "Barry" Hunwick, 37, of 600 SW 101st Ave., was charged with attempted murder, kidnapping and armed robbery in the May 19 abduction-shooting of Allen Chafin, 34, from the Banana Boat Lounge, 2650 State Road 84. Police said Hunwick is a convicted felon who was on parole at the time of the arrest. Police also have an arrest warrant on the same charges for Reid Robert Hawley, 29. Hawley and three other men who police did not identify are believed to work as hit men for Hunwick, police said. Statements from Chafin, shot five times and left to die near U.S. 27 and State Road 84, as well as from other informants and from letters found in Hunwick's home and car when he was arrested Tuesday night implicated Hunwick's hit men in 100 to 300 homicides nationwide, police said. [...] [Broward Sheriff's Detective Sgt. Dale Adams] said some of those murders were in Boston; Lafayette, Ind.; and New Jersey. Adams said Hunwick also was named by Chafin as the man who drug dealers paid to kill Bill, Don and Dale Whittington. The Whittingtons, of Fort Lauderdale, were all drivers in the Indianapolis 500 last month. [...] Wilton Manors Detective Ron Shearhouse said he was there because Hunwick is the prime suspect in the May 15 murder of Diego "Richard" Messina. Messina, 45, of Levittown, N.Y., was found stuffed in the trunk of a car parked at 2020 NE Third Terrace. He had been stabbed to death. Adams said Hunwick also has been linked to the March 6 murder of Sheldon Levy, of 8432 Forest Hills Blvd., Coral Springs, who was found shot to death outside a Lauderhill warehouse. Other South Florida murders tied to Hunwick are in Boca Raton, Dade County and Fort Lauderdale. Adams said Hunwick and his men worked as debt collectors and hit men on a free-lance basis. [...] Hunwick was arrested in the living room of his home, which was described as extremely well-furnished. Police found seven handguns, silencers, a "hit kit" containing an automatic pistol and brass knuckles, $12,000 in cash, a small amount of heroin, a pipe bomb and plastic explosives. His wife, Patti, a former Playboy bunny who owns the exclusive Patti Bernard's clothes shop on Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, and their two children were also in the home at the time of his arrest."
    • Fort Lauderdale News, "'Hit squad' planned war on mob, cops", 1982/06/10 (pages 1, 14): "Police said Hunwick was planning to kill an unknown number of Mafia "soldiers" on instructions from the renegade Mafia member, who officers believe heads a 55-member "mini-mob" outside the traditional structure of organized crime. "The investigation indicates since May 15 . . . that (Mafia) organized crime operatives ... in South Florida have in fact been selected (as) targets by the renegades," said Detective Sgt. Ken Kreulen of the Wilton Manors police force. "They are going to hit known organized crime soldiers to show how big and bad they are and how they're going to take over extortion and cocaine" [...] "(Hunwick) is South Florida's answer to Murder, Inc," said an agent for the Florida Division of Alcholic Beverages and Tobacco. Kreulen said detectives have already linked the "hit squad" to the May 15 murder of Diego "Richard" Messina, 45, of Levittown, N.Y. Messina, whom Kreulen identified as a member of New York's Colombo Mafia family, was found stuffed in the trunk of a car parked at 2020 NE Third Terrace. His throat had been slit. The renegade Mafia member, whom police refused to identify, was said to be a disgruntled member of Chicago's Giancana/Accardo family who now lives in Broward. "He lost a power struggle in Chicago," said the beverage agent. "He was invited to move here." The squad of hit men, which police said ran the Mafia renegade's extortion and enforcement "division," are believed to be responsible for murders all over the country. [...] Some of the murders Adams and the state agent linked to the hit squad include: * Robert Keith Surgeoner, 37, and Jean Capella, 24, whose bodies were found in Surgeoner's home at 1702 SW Ninth Ave., Deerfield Beach, Jan. 28. 1980. Surgeoner, a reputed drug dealer, had been shot five times in the head and body with a 22 caliber handgun, and Ms. Capella was shot three times in the head. Deerfield police confirmed Hunwick is a suspect in the killings. * Sherry Denise Hyde, 34, stabbed to death in her home at 3601 NW 84th Terrace, Coral Springs on Sept. 4. 1981. Coral Springs police said they had no knowledge of Hunwick or his group. * Joseph Oliveti, 43. who was shot three times in the head outside a construction company at 441 S. Federal Highway in Deerfield Beach on Sept. 30. 1980. Oliveti, who knew Miss Hyde, had at one time been a suspect in her killing. Deerfield police said they did not know of a connection in that case to Hunwick or his group. * Joseph D. Testa, 53, killed when a bomb exploded when he started his car to leave the Tamarac Country Club at 2400 W. Prospect Road, Oakland Park, on June 6, 1981. Testa was reputed to be associated with some Chicago-based organized crime figures. Oakland Park investigators could not be reached for comment. * Caesar Vitali and his wite, Patricia who were shot several limes in the living room of their home at 680 E. Plantation Circle, Plantation, Feb 16. Plantation police said they were not aware of any connections to Hunwick or his alleged hit squad. * Sheldon Levy, who was found shot to death outside a Lauderhill warehouse at 1881 NW 38th Ave. in the early morning hours of March 6. Levy lived at 8432 Forest Hills Blvd., Coral Springs. Adams said Hunwick was a suspect in the killing. [...] The beverage agent, who said he first learned of Hunwick more than a year ago, has been conducting an investigation into extortion at bars in Broward. The agent said Hunwick, a former manager of the now-defunct The Monk bar in northern Broward County, was being sought for questioning "about his possible investment in or extortion of bars.""
    • Florida Today, "Alleged hit man teamed with mob in South Florida", 1982/06/11: "Investigators said material from Informants and papers seized from Hunwick's home and his Lincoln Continental led them to link Hunwick to as many as 100 [contract murders]. Broward authorities, working from informant tips and alleged "hit lists" seized after the arrest, were trying to gather information on other slayings. Some materials seized mentioned possible victims in New York, Boston, Lafayette, Ind., and elsewhere, investigators said. Fred Haddad, Hunwick's attorney, said: "I think he'll be vindicated at trial." "I've represented him before, but nothing like this," added Haddad, who said he has been Hunwick's attorney since 1977. The attorney said Hunwick worked in an exclusive dress shop owned by his wife on Fort Lauderdale's Las Olas Boulevard. In a news conference Wednesday, Broward County officials said Hunwick didn't accumulate his wealth from selling fine dresses, but rather by buying underworld debts for 50 cents on the dollar, then collecting. [...] Chafin told detectives that Hunwick and his colleagues have killed 12 to 14 people in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties since 1978. Chafin also told investigators "he personally knows since 1978 that (Hunwick) and his crew are responsible for more than 300 homicides," Adams said. [...] In 1974, U.S. Drug Enforcement agents looked into allegations about Hunwick's involvement in drugs, but no charges were ever filed, said DEA spokesman Brent Eaton. In 1979, he was sentenced to five years in prison for violating his probation on an aggravated battery charge. He has yet to begin serving that sentence because appeals arid motions are still pending."
    • Wisconsin State Journal, "'Hit man's' good life based on death", 1982/06/13: "Hunwick attracted the attention of state Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco agents, whose investigation led to the revocation of the liquor license on a bar Hunwick had managed in Pompano Beach. The bar, the Monk, was being "used as a front for Hunwick and other criminals in 1980 to 1981," the agent said. An associate of Hunwick's who worked at the Monk was killed by Drug Enforcement Administration agents in 1980, the state agent said. Walter Bostic died in a shootout after he and other drug dealers handcuffed DEA agents during an undercover drug sale. Reid Hawley the other man sought in the Chafin shooting was associated with Bostic, DEA agent Eaton said. [...] Hunwick had more victims lined up, detectives say. Two south Florida businessmen and two local organized crime associates were marked by the group, Kreulen said. Three other supposed targets were race car drivers Don, Dale, and Bill Whittington. [...] "We're trying to give the Whittington brothers the benefit of the doubt," Adams said. "We have no reason to believe they are involved in drugs."" - worth asking if the Monk could be the Hand of Death cult meeting bar where Henry Lee Lucas, Ottis Toole, and Toole's "effeminate friend" (possibly Jeffrey Dahmer) met in 1981 or 1982

Golden State Killer

  • "Programmed To Kill/Satanic Cover-Up Part 112 (The Golden State Killer - Joseph James DeAngelo)", 2018/07/29 - mentions how one of the victims, Sgt. Brian Maggiore, was a military policeman at Mather Air Force Base during a drug trafficking investigation, in which several other MPs would be implicated; says that over half the victims had a direct connection to the medical field: doctors, nurses, medical students, pharmacists, people who had just undergone surgery, etc.; mentions an article reporting that DeAngelo witnessed his 7-year-old sister get raped by two airmen in Germany at an Air Force base warehouse when he was 9 or 10; notes that DeAngelo's father was a gunner in World War II who got wounded and DeAngelo served in the Navy in Vietnam; ends on the curious note that Kippi Vaught, who was loitering outside the home during EAR attack #28, was murdered by Gerald and Charlene Gallego 10 months later
  • Sudden Terror by Larry Crompton (2010)
  • Casefile magazine on the EAR/ONS case from 2017
  • Contemporaneous news stories - many on the GOLDENSTATEKILLER.com library of news articles and documents
  • EARONSGSK board, "Just talking out loud on a possible connection...", 2015/09/29 (pages 1, 2)
    • "Charlene and Lyman Smith had a finger print of FBI witness protection person and Charlene had a ex brother in law who was killed. Someone not EAR ONS may have confessed to being responsible but wasn't the killer. Serious events of a potentially criminal nature revolve around Lyman and past drama revolves around Charlene. Stan Los a FBI agent was giving protection to his neighbors and a FBI agent possibly Los connected an alarm system to protect his neighbors. Very witness protection esque. Harrington seemed to be hiding from someone in his fathers house. Maggiore was a person in conflict with a crime faction at work. Oh ya and it was pretty obviously a hit. Cruz was accusing someone of rape with a military background. Prime time for a hit. Glasby was framed by EAR ONS and just happened to be in a gang that robbed a drug farm and finally he is killed in Mexico. Manning just had his work broken into potentially by Glasby see below so there was supplementary drama in his life. Are these the kinds of people for whom hitmen are hired to kill? Oh ya and the police knew he was coming to southern cali? How do you think that happened? I think they had some form of information from within a criminal enterprise and knew that group was behind EAR ONS. You may disagree. But the case is a strong one. EAR ONS may have been criminal element muscle from the start but especially at the end he appears to be killing with purpose."
    • "Philip Arthur Thompson was a professional contract killer who killed for money, but also a brutal serial rapist and bludgeon murderer on the side."
    • "Ear wasn't just a serial rapist. He was also an accomplished cat burglar. Maybe even a student of the criminal sciences? Did he steal cars? He also displayed knowledge of weapons. He seemed to have a knowledge of technology. And he was the author of a poem which comes close to mentioning that he was available for hire. Maybe ear's real fantasy was to become a "hitman"."
    • "I still find it odd that while he taunted LE, he never attacked an LE family. And that a large percentage of those he attacked were military. Maybe that was a function of the neighborhoods he attacked. Or maybe that was why he chose the neighborhoods he attacked. Some have assumed that was just a statistical blip. But what if it wasn't. Maybe that is another assumption that needs to be rethought."
  • EARONSGSK board, "albion's material, articles and websites of interest...", 2015/11/04
    • "I wouldn't call it a "desire" to find corruption or conspiracy. I spent a great deal of time accepting the facts of the case as they stood before I began to question the actions of various agencies. By itself, the inability of LE to catch earons isn't a deciding factor for me. There are plenty of cases where the perp hasn't been caught. More so it is how it happened. Losing rape kits, throwing out evidence, not chasing down leads, not investigating the telephone calls that Janelle Cruz' family received after the 2001 announcement, not being able to identify him but then being able to predict with in a block of his next attack, removing a stake out only to have him attack after the guard had left, Manier dying in lock up and then his car being seen and let past, earon's repeated ability to out run LE, and in particular the proximity of Stan Los to the HH attack. there more instances but these all seem important. If you couple that with the what the ONS victims had going on in their lives at the time, it seems even more significant. And if you consider the connections between Glasby, drugs, and the Sheriffs; Janelle Cruz, Kenji Gallo and his drug and LE connections, Lyman Smith and his drug connections via Maverick Air; Brian Maggiore and the rumored smuggling at Mathers; Robert Offerman and the break in; Manier and his drug connection; And I have three more instances but I can not mention them on the board."
  • EARONSGSK board, "A new approach", 2016/05/30
    • "Is there an assumption, that all cover-ups and conspiracies, are done intelligently, logically, and with extreme organization? Or are some, and possibly this one, if there was a cover-up, done in a grab-ass, whatever might work fashion? The Maggiore murders seem to be part of a cover-up. Janelle Cruz might have been murdered to stop her from bringing charges against an alleged marine rapist. Lyman might have been murdered because he had stolen money from a CIA front or cut-out company. But sometimes there are people that you cant murder, that is if you want to get what you want. But you can threaten their children and those close to them. The Harringtons might have been murdered as a message for the Irvine family to cease and desist. And the Goleta crimes might have been done for the same reasons. D/S and O/M had a connection to the people across the street on Toltec. And H/H lived next door to the FBI agent who was responsible for the that jurisdiction. Additionally, resposibility for the cries were being directed AS and Glasby. One was a teenager, and the other a known thug and military washout who had connections to a state senator who also prior connections to the FBI agent.

      WE know that there was gun smuggling going on at Mathers. We know that there was drug smuggling going on at El Toro. We know that Santa Barbara had the reputation as the center of Cocaine smuggling during this time period. We know that the IPD had drug smuggling going on and that the VIP's had some culpability. We have Blanco, Avilez, Hetrick, and Jones all loosely on the fringes of this cases. There is Manier, Glasby, Kenji, Abbott, PAT,and Phelan as well.

      If people like Abbott, Siemers, or Braun were involved, then the advances in DNA wasnt a big mystery. And I ask this also, if the rape kits werent being held for DNA, why were they taken? Was it for secretor status? Or blood type? Couldnt those have been the reason why they might have been purged? Take for instance, the IPD cop who had been a Ventura Sheriff prior to transferring. He was also responsible for the collection of bodily samples. Wouldnt he be aware of the new advances in the science? How hard would it be to take a sample from Ventura or another crime and add it to the Irvine crimes? He could have had 15 years to accomplish it? I am not saying he did, but that it is a possibility. I wonder what the OC DA's office has to say about it? Or their investigators. Or the family of the alleged marine rapist. Or the investigators who investigated Janelle, who worked for the OC DA's office, and was family of alleged marine rapist."
    • "If we are going outside the box, wasn't there a fingerprint in one of the later attacks that was found to be of someone in witness protection? Is that correct? I assume being in witness protection would be somewhat helpful. Has this been checked out already? If please so disregard" followed by "The guy was dead and so Pool had his body exhumed in 2001. No match."
  • EARONSGSK board, "Ear Targeting People With Links To The Medical Field?", 2017/11/16 (pages 1, 2, 3) - also many real estate links
  • VIP suspect "Mr. Y" who was allegedly protected by law enforcement - real name Terry Boyer
    • Terry Boyer background
      • P.O.W. Network info on Terry Lee Boyer - retired from the Air Force as a Lt. Col.
      • Veteran Tributes page for Terry L. Boyer: "After spending 1,915 days in captivity, Capt Boyer was released during Operation Homecoming on March 14, 1973. He was briefly hospitalized to recover from his injuries at Travis AFB, California, and then received an Air Force Institute of Technology assignment to complete his master's degree at the University of California at Santa Barbara from September 1973 until he left active duty on May 22, 1975. Maj Boyer returned to active duty on February 21, 1976, and then served as Section Commander with the 454th Flying Training Squadron at Mather AFB, California, from June 1976 to July 1978. He attended Armed Forces Staff College at Norfolk, Virginia, from July 1978 to January 1979, and then served as Assistant Operations Officer with the 454th Flying Training Squadron at Mather from January 1979 to May 1981. His final assignment was as a Professor of Aerospace Science at the Air Force ROTC detachment at San Diego State University from May 1981 until his retirement from the Air Force on July 1, 1984."
      • Military Times Hall Of Valor page for Terry Lee Boyer
      • Los Angeles Times, "Names of POWs From California", 1973/03/12: "Here is a list of servicemen from California to be released Wednesday by North Vietnam. The Pentagon provided the man's name, rank, service and home town of record. [...] In some cases the home town of record differs from the current residence of his wife or parents, from his birthplace, or from his last duty station. In these instances, other communities where the man has ties are listed after the home town of record. Names are listed alphabetically. [...] Capt. Terry Boyer, Visalia"
      • Santa Maria Times, "36 Freed Prisoners Dine With Reagans", 1973/04/11: "To the last arriving POW, Capt. Terry Boyer of Visalia, held since 1967, Mrs. Reagan said: "You're absolutely lovely.""
      • El Paso Times, "Former POW Pilot Requalifies", 1976/02/26: "Capt. Terry Boyer, 37, has become the last Air Force pilot captured in Southeast Asia to requalify for flight status. Officials at Randolph Air Force Base here said Boyer of Visalia, Calif., was the 147th and last former POW pilot to requalify. [...] The former POW was to report to Mather AFB, Calif., to complete training as a T43 pilot. The T43 is a navigation trainer aircraft."
      • Harry Parmer, "A SPECIAL LITTLE KNIFE", 1977
      • Reno Gazette-Journal, "$20 million lawsuit filed", 1980/11/11 - unsure if same person: "The accident happened Nov. 5, 1978, a mile north of Del Puerto Canyon in Stanislaus County, Calif. [...] The Jeep was driven in a designated hill climb area by Terry Lee Boyer, the suit says. The accident claimed the life of passenger David Alan Barrows, 15, whose estate is in probate in Santa Clara County, Calif., Superior Court."
      • Visalia Times-Delta, "Plaque honors POW", 2009/09/18
      • Elsagate videos (or similar in style)
    • EARONSGSK board, "Newspaper Article suggests EAR/ONS was caught..then released", 2014/02/14 (pages 4): "I have the Ransacker suspect list. All were young men. Military man is not on the list and please do not say the list was falsified at a later date. McGowen described a completely different shooter and we have multiple descriptions of the Ransacker. McGowen attended school with military man and obviously should have had no problem identifying someone he knew within inches of his face. I have no idea what four DNA clearings of military man you are talking about. MM was cleared by two different jurisdictions and if you are referring to a third garbage run- sorry GIGO- garbage in garbage out. [...] you, guessting, and Arch have posted numerous times that whom you refer to as military man was his primary VR suspect. It is indicative of what I have said some LE have claimed about records being lost or altered about him if he isn't on the list. [...] I'm not sure if mm was on the vr suspect list that port is referring to. What I do know is mm was Mcgowens main suspect per his files. So, that leads to the question of how is mm Mcgowens suspect but not listed on the report port has? In 77 Mcgowen goes to Sac and tries to link mm to ear. Per guess ting, Sac went to Mather and looked into mm. So what's the deal? If mm wasn't on the list of vr suspects, then why was he looked at by Sac after Mcgowen talked with them? Port, so what I'm saying is it doesn't make sense. If your list doesn't list mm, then what its telling me is there is something very fishy going on."
    • EARONSGSK board, "McGowen Shooting", 2014/02/19 (6, 7, 8, 9)
      • "mcgowens VR suspect : He went to High School in Visalia. He went to College at the College of Sequoias. Where the professor was a teacher, and he was shot. He could have easily escaped back to his parents house during the manhunt post mcgowen shoot out. He returns home and goes to school at ucsb, no doubt still visiting his parents in visalia. Man I don't know but this guy sounds... G-U-I-L-T-Y"
      • "Daniel, there are at least 100 other things in addition to the things you listed that match him against the GSK crimes. The in school in VA bit - some people have no understanding of how all that works, nor have they bothered to check. He was indeed going back to CA that fall and winter and it's been verified umpteen times. They keep repeating that or just make up stuff to try to claim he doesn't fit. They never answer why his DNA was even checked if he didn't match in so many ways like they claim."
      • "No EAR victim ever saw his face and besides that, people often think he looks considerably younger than he was. The 5'5" bit is a lie. According to his military records where they actually measure the person, he fits well within the LE description of EAR." and "It is my understanding that McGowen swore to his dying day that he knew who the person that shot at him was. “I know I can identify him… there is no question about that. I may have even seen him before, or even talked to him…” is very telling as an initial reaction. Now, what I just typed is debateable, has been debated to death, and will still be debated post-mortum like every other detail in this case, but that is the understanding that I have. I also have (from a source that I believe to be impeccable) that McGowen's POI's prints were found at more than one VR scene at some subsequent point. I am not here to spread gossip or rumors, but what can we share if every single "fact" is sullied and questioned? I trust the person who told me this and I believe that person would know. I am just presenting it here for your own consideration."
      • "It happened at lightning speed. it was dark, chaotic, and instinctive on all parts. McGowen thought initially that he knew the person, then later came to believe that is WAS in fact a person that he knew (or had met, or was familiar with) from another, non-police related situation."
      • "1) McGowen saw the shooter that night. It was dark and chaotic, but he saw him. 2) McGowen said, either that same night or in the next morning hours "“I know I can identify him… there is no question about that. I may have even seen him before, or even talked to him…” 3) McGowen later identified him and swore it was it him until his dying day. This person is the infamous "McGowen POI" that he took to sacramento as POI in 77 or 78, my memory fails me here on the year, sorry. 4) There was, indeed, a possible reason that McGowen could have been absolutely right when he said "“I know I can identify him… there is no question about that. I may have even seen him before, or even talked to him…”. This reason is not police-business related, it is verifiable, and more than plausible. and 5* (I am putting an aterisk here because this is very controversial and there is no clear cut answer about this). McGowen's POI ALLEDGEDLY ended up having his prints at more than 1 VR scene. Believe that if you choose, or not. The person who told me has a reason to know that."
    • EARONSGSK board, "The "Afraid" Letter", 2014/03/19 (pages 5, 6)
      • "About Michael Manier - his father was an" interesting" guy in many ways. "Interesting" that he was acquainted with Mr. Y. :D "
      • "I have said and will continue to say that I know who McGowen's primary POI's were in 1975 and 1976. I know who has been cleared by DNA. I respect that McGowen took his list to Sacramento to discuss linkage."
      • "I recommend you let Visalia and Tulare LE, along with McGowen and Shipley's family members know that you claim to have all of the pertinent LE records available to you and they are wrong about who, when, and why the person became Det. McGowen's primary VR suspect."
      • "Yes, especially those that claim DNA tests were falsified or performed incorrectly and nothing is further from the truth. I did not think you had anything to corroborate your statements about Stinky."
      • "I'm amazed you don't have the articles about Ellsworth Manier and Mr. Y together. You know it would out Mr. Y if they were posted. Explain to all of us why they should not question the investigation of Mr. Y and his DNA clearing when the info you claim is in the LE records about him is so obviously false. I know you insist everyone take your word for it, but that would be rather ridiculous for anyone to not question it."
      • "Nothing I have posted about Mr. Y is false."
      • "Good Lord. Numerous things you posted about him are false and they're so easily proven to be false with a little research that it's downright funny. That's why it would be ridiculous for people to believe the investigation of him was done correctly."
    • EARONSGSK board, "What is the source that you people have that I don't have?", 2014/09/27
      • "I took the opportunity to ask Paul Holes about Mr. Y. He looked him up for me and said he has been cleared by DNA, which guessting and Port have repeatedly said that he has been, multiple times. Don't want to start up the whole think on Mr. Y again, but do want to add that Paul Holes of Contra Costa county stated that he has been cleared."
      • "Sandia, Paul Holes shared the info about Mr. Y being cleared by DNA to some posters quite a while ago. Most are aware that there are indeed LE records about his DNA clearing - that is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the legitimacy of the DNA clearing. Just like other info that has been put out by Sac LE and by a poster you just referenced that turned out to be false info, the "official" line from LE is not always the truth. It was other LE that first brought it to the attention of posters that they themselves did not believe the DNA clearings were legit and were arranged to be put on the books so that it would be "suspect fully cleared." That doesn't mean 100's of LE taking part in the arrangement."
    • EARONSGSK board, "VR Information From Dengas", 2015/02/12
      • "Okay, I am going to BRIEFLY chime in and hopefully McGowen's son will respond if he has ever heard the same thing. Mr. McGowen's brother was a relative of mine through marriage. I spoke to him about the VR way back in the 1980's at family reunions. he, too, was in law enforcement, and I always hoped he would enlighten me with VR information, but he never had any to share. Then, after McGowen passed away, I called this in-law again. He told me two things: He said his brother had two suspects. One was Mr. Y and one was stationed at Lemoore Navall Air Station. Second thing he said was that McGowen had been warned, and I repeat that word, WARNED to drop his pursuing the case. Unfortunately both McGowens are deceased, but I have ABSOLUTELY no reason to make this up, even though I know it will infuriate several posters whom I entirely respect for their research and diligence. I don't think LFL ever heard this from McGowen himself, that he had been warned to drop his interest in the case, even though LFL spoke to McGowen right before McGowen's death. I may have notes to confirm what I am posting, but unfortunately all of my files are out on loan."
      • "I wonder if Brett's Mom is still around and if she could support or deny that Mpher husband was warned to drop it? certainly she would remember, just as I remember the one call I made to his brother. The reason I don't recall the whole conversation is because I was focused on Mark S. As the VR and what McGowen's brother was telling me sort of irritated me since it didn't fit my POI! Now I am older, wiser, and more open minded, and it helps that Paul Holes made certain that both MS and RB had been cleared via DNASE while in prison."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Police Interference", 2015/09/06
      • "The fingerprint evidence found at three different VR scenes has been linked to a VR and EARONS suspect. Although you couldn't really call this direct evidence, for many researchers it's more compelling than anything else we have, and explains why this man became a POI. Once you take into account the unique background of this man, it becomes feasible IMO to at least consider the possibility that he may have been covered for somewhat if he became EAR."
      • "The suspect is Mr.Y and there is a password only thread about him on the message board."
    • EARONSGSK board, "albion's material, articles and websites of interest...", 2016/12/13
      • "I want to throw this out there too. To be clear, I am not proposing that PAT is earons. And I am not proposing that Mr Y is earons. It seems every time someone mentions Mr Y, an either/or argument takes shape. That isnt what I am wanting to do. But I am interested in how he relates to these people. I believe Brad at one point was 100% sure that Brian Maggiore would have been aware of Mr Y, and I would think he might have met him at Mathers. I am also wondering what type of relationship might have been in place between Mr Y and Alan May. Alan May might have actually met Mr Y at one of numerous Republican functions that the were being used to give thanks to our vets, and to exploit their political cache. The curious thing for me is PAT, Alan May, Harland Braun, and Riconosciuto. PAT is connected to all three. May had the connections through Robert Finch to the Nixon White House. And Braun has the connections to the Las Vegas and Chicago Mob. Why is a FBI snitch being defended by Braun and May? Can anyone cite one worthy case in which he gave any info that led to the arrest of someone or something important? Anything that could justify his freedom? Or Abbott's freedom? I find it odd that Finch was placed in charge of Health, Education, and Welfare. Or that Earl Bryan was placed in charge of social services like Medi-Cal in Reagan's state administration. This is what I have gathered so far, PAT was working for May who was working for Finch who was working for Nixon."
      • "One of the big breaks in this case might even be to know what connection existed between Evelle Younger and Duane Lowe and/or John Price in Sacramento, and ... what connection existed between Evelle Younger and Mr. Y, as there must surely have been one."
    • EARONSGSK board, "EAR-GSK former member infamous CIA Phoenix Program Viet Nam", 2017/02/21 (pages 1, ...): "The Phoenix Program specifically targeted civilians, not soldiers, and the “neutralizations” [Phoenix Program euphemism for murders or captures] were often conducted at night while victims were home and sleeping in bed. Again, rape and rape followed by murder were common interrogation and torture tactics inflicted upon women captives by Phoenix Program interrogators. Also, the East Area Rapist-Golden State Killer often used an unusual knot, referred to as the diamond knot, to control and restrain his victims of both sexes. The military uses this same knot to create knife lanyards and Phoenix Program members were likely taught how to use this knot to control and restrain captured targets in Viet Nam (metal handcuffs might make unwanted noise during clandestine night operations). It has been reported that the East Area Rapist-Golden State Killer sometimes bound victims who survived so tightly with ligatures utilizing this knot that it was hours before they regained feeling in their hands and feet after release. [...] The CIA and high-ranking military officers were apparently keen to hide subsequent military personnel participation in the Phoenix Program in Viet Nam. One participant had his personnel records altered to show that he worked as a cook. Another participant’s records were altered to indicate that he had never even served in Viet Nam."
    • EARONSGSK board, "nail down mr y in 5 years", 2017/03/12
      • "Yes the 45 years without to catch the perp.and the claiming that was clear 2 times via dna.other retired detectives told that was clear because was on other place on some attacks.it s the only poi who lived all the place at corect time frame"
      • "It appears that you do not know that Mr. Y was a VIP. Again, would suggest you read through the Mr. Y folder some more."
      • "Hi vapors ... The Visalia PD suspected Mr. Y of being the Visalia Ransacker. That is how he first appeared on the radar of this case, decades before there ever was an internet. [...] What you are saying was true at one time. But given his history before 1976, subsequent years did not necessarily mirror those busy prior years. Resumption of a busy schedule "may" have resulted during the 1981 to 1986 time frame. Mr. Y's background is a prototype of the kind of background that I would expect the EAR/ONS to have had. That does not mean that the perp was Mr. Y, who may very well be innocent of any crime. There were many military men in California during the relevant years who had similar backgrounds to Mr. Y."
    • EARONSGSK board, "POI Thread: "The Apprentice"", 2017/07/01 (pages 31, 34)
      • "Mr Y is a much disputed suspect. Some say he has been cleared by DNA, others say he is being protected. He is the only POI who is known to have been suspected as both EARONS, and as the Visalia Ransacker. He is still alive, so cannot be named on the public board. There is a private 'VIP' section on this board about him and other VIPS (including Person Z, the alleged owner of the mysterious dog). Those who are interested can ask a moderator for permission to view the private VIP section."
      • "Was Russell's POI a suspect for the Visalia Ransackings too? Were his fingerprints found at three VR crime scenes? Did this POI attend COS, where Claude Snelling taught journalism and was editor of the Visalia university newspaper? Was someone in Russell's POI's family also the editor of a Visalia newspaper? Did Russell's POI work at UC Irvine at the same time as Keith Harrington? Did Russell's POI work at Mather AFB at the same time as Brian Maggiore (actually working high up within the very unit which enlisted Maggiore)? Did Russell's POI know Abraham Himmel from their military days (and at one stage actually live only 209ft away from him in California)? Did he also live a stone's throw away from Person Z (alledged owner of 'Woofy')? Did he also know the family of Michael Manier (owner of the mysterious Oldsmobile)? [...] I think that having fingerprints found at VR crime scenes, and having links to a VR murder victim, an ONS murder victim, an attempted EAR rape victim, and Maggiore, takes some beating... at least for now..."
    • The Underground forum discussion in July 2017 about the Original Night Stalker: "Yes many speculate ONS had ties to law enforcement..he did pretty tricky things to throw off LE..he always talked with clenched teeth.. The higher up in the army that was said to be the Visalia Ransacker was army sergeant Terry Boyer..he can be linked to the ONS in many different ways..his prints were found at 2-3 different Visalia Ransacker location but he claims he was there doing recruiting for the army..problem is, the owners of these homes claim no army personnel ever came to their house! This was not investigated further though..why?! [...] Google Terry L Boyer..he is the on many insiders think is ONS..you can read his army profile, high,y decorated guy..many speculate ONS had been to vietnam due to certain tactics he used when breaking into homes.."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Tapping Phone Lines", 2017/09/15: "Turns out if he was into phone phreaking (Read the wikis etcetera: "Joybubbles, phone phreaking, Captain Crunch), or had a lineman's belt, or his relative owned a telecom company (like Mr. Y), then yeah, he could have listened in on phone convos."
    • EARONSGSK board, "List of POI", 2017/11/10: "One of the most debated POIs is Mr.Y. There is quite a lot about him in the VIP section, although you need to get permission from Drifter to access this part of the boards."
    • EARONSGSK board, "List of connections between VR and EAR/ONS?", 2018/01/23: "No, I don't have access to the VIP forums, which I think the Mr. Y files are in? Who would I speak to about accessing them? Always wanted to read about him as a POI, but only recently began posting as a user on the boards instead of anonymously lurking."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Who Killed The Maggiores?", 2018/02/09: "Revised Maggiore sketch is a very good match to a notorious VR and EAR suspect. "Coincidentally" this POI worked with Brian Maggiore at Mather AFB." and "I've seen several POI's who were stationed at Mather, none who's employment period overlapped with Brian. Which POI are you referencing?" and "Check the VIP section on this forum."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Vip", 2018/02/21: "What is the VIP area and how does one get the password" and "the vip area it s about the strongest poi in the vr/ear/ons case who have ties to some victims in vr/ear/ons,it s the 1 know by us members of the board who have ties to some victims and it s a very strong individual with connections and powerful man,the theory its that was protect by some vips and this it s why vr/ear/ons didnt see a public id in 44 years!"
    • EARONSGSK board, "What intirgues U so much about ONS?", 2018/02/23: "one of the most intersting poi it s mr y ,he was in custody in vietnam for 5 years,could be that a trigger in your opinion?he arrive at the right time in visalia ,when vr started it s mess and was all the place in of ear/ons attacks at right times"
    • EARONSGSK board, "VIP file", 2018/04/08: "Can I ask why on Earth the VIP file was deleted?"
    • EARONSGSK board, "did real purpose of cat or cordova was to eliminate mr y?", 2018/04/19: "after the release of the info of kitty cat of cordova mr y was eliminate total of poi(he was incarcerated in 1972) in ear case and even disappear from vip section.why others detective wasnt aware of the cat in 42 years?"
    • EARONSGSK board, "Colonial Parkway Murders", 2018/04/21: "Did any LE or park ranger transfer from Cali to Virginia between 81-86?" and "While Mr Y appears to not be EAR now, he was in that area of Virginia during those years. It's almost certain now that he is just some innocent guy, the colonial parkway connection I believe comes from this line of thinking."
    • Joseph DeAngelo arrest occurs on 2018/04/24
    • EARONSGSK board, "VIP Folder?", 2018/04/26: "In light of today’s events did the VIP folder get blown away?" and "The VIP folder is no longer available."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Who did you think was EAR?...", 2018/05/21: "He was adopted into a very wealthy family as a baby. High ranking air force, war hero, Vietnam veteran, trained pilot. He moved back home to Visalia in the mid 70s and soon became a suspect for the Visalia ransackings. His fingerprints were allegedly found at three VR crime scenes. He attended COS, at the same time as Claude Snelling was a professor there. His wife was at UCI at the same time as Keith Harrington. He worked at Mather AFB at the same time as Brian Maggiore (actually working high up within the very unit which enlisted Maggiore). He knew EAR victim #49 Abraham Himmel from their military days (and at one stage actually lived only 209ft away from him in California). He lived a stone's throw away from Person Z (the alleged owner of 'Woofy'). He also knew the family of Michael Manier (the owner of the mysterious Oldsmobile). The only person to be put forward independently as VR and EAR suspects. Owned property all over the place, including near all of the ONS crime scenes. Fitness fanatic who looked years younger than his real age. Was allegedly cleared by DNA on 2-4 occasions."
    • EARONSGSK board, "2 cops hired the same times and leave exeter the same time", 2018/08/22: "McGowan not recognizing DeAngelo on that night still bothers me and the fact McGowan got a good enough look at VR enough to say the Davis suspect was not him makes it even more bothersome." and "I believe McGowen said that he thought he remembered seeing the guy at Mel’s Drive-In, which was a drive-in on Noble Avenue."
  • Michael Manier - owner of the Oldsmobile with license number TOR 505 linked to the EAR attack on 1976/07/17; a habitual criminal and purported bank robber who died of an alleged suicide in police custody prior to that attack; his father Elsworth Manier was a military veteran purportedly acquainted with Terry Boyer who died during a home invasion attempt in 1982
    • EARONSGSK board, "Connection to Michael and Elsworth Manier", 2016/08/13
      • nick: "I do remember when the abandoned vehicle was found with shotguns, LE only ammo and other bank robbing tools, that was on the news. LE did not know what they had, it ran from EAR all the way to professional bank robbers get away car. I think it had stolen or scrapped vehicle license plates in the truck with other items. I'm pretty sure it was found in the City of Folsom or near by those parts and the car had been sitting for quite some time before it was brought to LE attention."
    • EARONSGSK board, "1979 Joan Virginia Anderson, Fountain Valley", 2018/12/09: "I hope they bring Manier and his questionable suicide while in police custody. Or how his car showed up at a stake out later on. And how it was not investigated thoroughly. The idea that LE would know that it belonged to a drug dealer, but not know that the dealer, Manier, died in custody, is a bit fanciful. Or that if it indeed was JJD driving the car that night, that someone in LE wasnt aware of it. Funny that JJD might have been buying parts from the family of Manier all these years. Or hanging with the step family. If that were to be the case, I wouldnt expect the SCSD to look into it very deeply. Just like the OCDA, I think they have a great number of skeletons that they want to keep hidden."
  • Dog nicknamed Woofy who was at two Original Night Stalker (ONS) crime scenes
    • Zodiackiller.com forum post by SammyT in 2011: "EAR-ONS took a three-toed dog (known as 'Woofy') with him to a few of the crime scenes.A local hoodlum called Brett Glasby apparently also used 'Woofy' as a guard dog when he went to raid marijuana 'farms'.One of EAR-ONS' victims was a Dr. Offerman.Glasby was a patient of Offerman, and was convicted of a serious violent assault on Dr. Offerman's janitor.Glasby was 'killed' in Mexico in 1982 (so couldn't have been EAR-ONS who was still murdering in 1986) although I would like to see Glasby's 'death' officially confirmed, as the circumstances surrounding it are somewhat mysterious...I am fairly convinced that Glasby and EAR-ONS knew each other (or at least knew of each other) due to the 'Woofy' and Offerman links.The three-toed dog lead (pardon the pun!) has IMHO never been fully examined.There are other aspects of the crimes involving the dog which lead me to suspect that EAR-ONS possibly had family living in Goleta."
    • Los Angeles Magazine, "The Five Most Popular Myths About the Golden State Killer Case" by Michelle McNamara, 2013/02/27: "2) It Was the Man with a Three-Toed White German Shepherd Forensic specialists were able to determine that dog prints found outside the scene of the murders of Dr. Robert Offerman and Debra Alexandria Manning (Goleta, December 1979) came from a three-toed white German shepherd. A man with a German shepherd was allegedly spotted around the time of the murders of Cheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez (Goleta, July 1981). Goleta is a small town. A three-toed white German shepherd is a specific dog. Many followers of the case have glommed on to this clue, believing it may be the detail that solves the case. But investigators from multiple jurisdictions all say the same thing: The dog is a dead end. The lead has been thoroughly checked out, and they’re comfortable with their conclusions on the issue."
    • EARONSGSK board, "The Woofy Mystery And Controversy", 2013/07/22 (pages 1, 3, 21, 24, 26, 28)
      • "Yep..... The owner back then had some clout in SB."
      • "And to make matters worse he was in real estate!"
      • "Sorry, I phrased it wrong; yes, the father is in Real Estate and (at least) one of the sons. I did check with the link that gskonstracker sent and found the father. There were about 10 others with the same surname, some that match the two of the sons (the two youngest)."
      • "I don't mean to muddy the waters here, but I do specifically remember SB LE telling me that there were dog prints found at the Domingo/Sanchez scene. They didn't say three-toed. But we did not own a dog, and LE seemed very confident that my Mom's killer brought the dog. I'm pretty sure that discussion was in 2001."
      • "A stray dog unattended in the neighborhood would have been very unusual to me. I never saw him."
      • "Let me see if I can kind of untangle some of the confusion. 1. Woofy was not a stray dog; was not some dog that befriended the ONS in Goleta. Remember Deb's comments from way up-thread. (Deb is the daughter of Sheri Domingo). Deb said a stray dog, a dog running loose, would have been very unusual in her neighborhood. Further, Deb said that it was her understanding that LE felt that the ONS "brought the dog with him". 2. Woofy's "owner" (let's call him Mr. X ... his real name is known) lived close to where Brett Glasby lived. My understanding is that Mr. X didn't actually own woofy; Mr. X house-sit woofy from time to time. Mr. X was a business partner to Mr. Y, woofy's actual owner. Mr. Y did not live in Goleta at all; he lived elsewhere. The ONS had known Mr. Y for some time. And when ONS came to Goleta to prowl, he brought Mr. Y's dog (woofy) with him. My impression is that Mr. X had several dogs, one of which "may" have been used by Brett Glasby, but that is incidental to the relationship between woofy and the ONS. So, in reality, woofy didn't even live in Goleta; woofy lived with Mr. Y, elsewhere. So as you can see, there is a direct link between woofy, Mr. X, Mr. Y, and the ONS. Calling woofy a dead end reeks of either incompetence or deception."
      • "Then Mr. Crompton [author of Sudden Terror] reminds us about the paw prints located with the perp's shoe prints at the next crime scene, which would have been the Offerman/Manning homicides."
      • "Next I'd also like to know why do they think it was a 3 toed white German Shepherd? Well, Larry Pool said he located the owner of the dog, SDL, an older man and interviewed and cleared him. So that means that Larry Pool knows what the dog looked like. I haven't been able to reach Larry Pool any longer so I'd sure like to know if he could confirm that the dog had 3 toes and was a white German Shepherd. Actually there is somebody I could call and maybe I can find that out, maybe. I'll try. . Port has located the owner of the dog, SDL, as living in that area before he moved to Hope Ranch and it is doubtful to me that a person was babysitting the dog, but that the owner of the dog did, in fact, live in the neighborhood. I'm going to try to find that out too. Wish me luck."
      • "What's important is that there was a dog, probably a rather large dog, at the O/M site. There was also a dog, again probably a large dog, at the D/S site."
      • "No attempt is made to confirm independently LE's claims or to reconcile alternate dog explanations provided by others, in this instance that the dog belonged to Mr. Y who didn't even live in Goleta; that the ONS borrowed the dog from Mr. Y and "brought the dog with him", as Deb (Cheri Domingo's daughter) indicated (upthread)."
      • "I know a lot about Mr. X and he is connected to this case in multiple ways. Big time. For example, I found proof that Mr. X is connected to a building where the Berkus group had an office from 1978-1979."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Woofy", 2013/12/18: "Redding, the wording in your poll makes it seem that the "framing" issue is the main issue about woofy. Far more important is the question that most posters, including you, seem to forget about all too easily. A dog was present not just at one Goleta crime, but two ... separated in time by 19 months. Was it the same dog? If yes, there's no way it could be a red herring. Again, LE reported a large dog at the Goleta 2 attack (O/M). LE also reported a large dog at the Goleta 3 attack (D/S). These two attacks were separated in time by 19 months. How is it possible that the Original Night Stalker just happened, accidentally, to acquire the same dog ... 19 months after he first used it? That's the real question. LE just kinda ignores the question, as do posters here, as exemplified by your poll question."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Goleta", 2014/08/31: "Cheri's daughter, Deb, said LE was asking her about the dog as late as 2006 or so - 35 years later. So, the dog was still an issue."
    • Reddit post in /r/EARONS about Woofy from 2018: "There are hairs and paw prints of a white haired three toed German shepherd found at two different murder sites..people in the neighborhood said they remember seeing a young man walking a white German shepherd prior to the killings..I last recall that LE did find the owner of Woofy and this guy was cleared..this guy was friends with a previous POI that was later murdered in Mexico..so all in all, Woofy led LE nowhere..how can this be though?" and "Woofys owner had 3 sons..1-2 of them knew Glasby.. Even if Woofy was a red herring, couldn't LE then determine that ONS knew Glasby or Woofys owner in some way? It just doesn't make sense for ONS to try and frame someone else by using their dog"
  • Woofy's apparent owner "Mr. X" - real name Dante Di Loreto
    • ...
    • EARONSGSK board, "albion's material, articles and websites of interest...", 2014/02/11: "I have read most of this material and from what I have read, I have become very interested in Hetrick and his connection to Santa Paula airport and Lyman Smith. I have researched this heavily, and I have found a strong connection with Woofy's owner (Mr. X) and the Santa Paula airport. In addition, I have found a document that directly connections Mr. X to Hetrick, via a close personal friend and business partner."
    • EARONSGSK board, "UPDATED: Did EAR work at Sunset Development Co.?", 2014/10/21 (pages 3)
      • threetwozero: "There also was a Sunset Realty in Goleta."
      • Agent99 aka Sandia: "That is right AND.....the president of Sunset Realty in Goleta was the next door neighbor of Bret Glasby. He was also the purported owner of the white german shepherd with the 3 toes but his son says they did not own such a dog but some people down the street with either the same last name or a similar last name may have owned such a dog." - interesting to note that Person Z (Silvio Di Loreto) was the president of Sunset Realty so this person, who was the president of the company's Goleta office, matches the description of Mr. X as being a business partner of Person Z
    • Possible candidates for real identity
  • Woofy's true owner "Person Z" / "Mr. Z" (but confusingly called "Mr. Y" by Drifter) - real name Silvio Di Loreto
  • Sunset Realty / Sunset Company Realtors or Sunset Development Company or Sunshine Investments / Sun Shine Investments
    • EARONSGSK board, "The strange behavior of Greg XYZ aka ABC", 2013/11/05 (pages 1, ...)
    • EARONSGSK board, "UPDATED: Did EAR work at Sunset Development Co.?", 2014/10/21 (pages 1)
      • Relentless: "I pulled something from the background of the 1.2.78 tape, which I thinks points to EAR or someone in the residence where the call was made working at the Sunset Development Company. If you decide to listen to this clip, please use earphones, good earphones and listen more than once. Remember I pulled this conversation out of the background of a poorly recorded old tape, so don't expect great sound quality.

        The conversation is between two young women. the first part is not very clear but a young woman asked. "where does he work" and the other young woman answers " Sunset Development" or After additional listening I think it could also be "Sunset Environment"

        soundcloud.com/relentless-and-determined/wdhw"
  • Local thug and former ONS suspect Brett Glasby
    • ???, "2 local men shot to death on Mexico surfing vacation", 1982/??/??: "Mexican authorities are searching for three men suspected of slaying and robbing two Santa Barbara men who were on a surfing and skin-diving trip along the western coast of Mexico. Brian Glasby, 21, and Brett Glasby 20, reportedly were shot to death Friday by 3 Mexican men they had met on the beach near the village of El Ranchito in the state of Michoacan. Their father, Jack Glasby of 1409 Camino Rio Verde, returned from Mexico Monday with the bodies of the slain men. Both brothers were born in Santa Barbara and attended Dos Pueblos High School. Glasby said Brian and Breett left here Feb 3 in a Volkswagen van for a trip of four to five weeks down the Mexican coast. They planned to look for places to surf, skin dive and camp, he said. (Court officials said Brett Glasby was being sought on an arrest warrant because he had failed to appear for his Superior Court arraignment in January on attempted robbery and assault charges. He was among six men charged with attempting to rob five occupants of a Goleta farmhouse of marijuana valued at $238,000 in October.) Jack Glasby gave the following account of the murders, based on what he learned from witnesses, residents of the small town and Mexican authorities. The brothers arrived at the beach near El Ranchito either Thursday evening or Friday morning and spearfished there. The area is accessible only by dirt road or small plane. Brian and Brett met the three Mexican men at the beach Friday morning and spent most of the day with them. One of the men, armed with a 9mm pistol, shot both brothers at around 5pm on the beach, according to the account. Money from their wallets – probably about $500 – their masks, fins, spears, and a cassette recorder were missing, but apparently nothing was taken from their van, which was parked on a cliff above the beach, Glasby said. The shooting was witnessed by two small boys from the village who were fishing, and a local resident saw one of the three suspects running with one of the brother’s spears, he said. Glasby said the brothers were found by a Colorado man walking on the beach. Brett was dead, but Brian was alive and related some of what had happened before losing consciousness. The Coloradan carried Brian to the top of the cliff, but Brain died along the way, Glasby said. The three suspects, who were driving a yellow Volkswagen, weren’t from around the village and probably left the area after the murders, Glasby said. He has offered a 100,000 pesos (about $3,700 reward for their capture). Glasby said a movie camera the brothers had in the van had 45 feet of exposed film, and he is having it developed in hopes it will show the suspects. Brian graduated from Dos Pueblos High in 1978 and owned and operated Precision Pools, which installs and services spas and hot tubs. Brett left Dos Pueblos after 11th grade to join the Marine Corps. He was in the service less than a year and has since worked wit Brian and with another brother, who is a taxidermist, Glasby said. Besides their father, they are survived by their mother, Audrey Glasby and two brothers, Wayne and Gregg. Funeral services are scheduled for 2 p.m. tomorrow the Welch-Ryce-Halder chapel in Goleta."
    • Grant Pass Funeral Alternatives obituary for Jack Glasby: "Jack Wayne Glasby, 76, of Grants Pass died Thursday February 25, 2010 at his home. No services will be held. He was born January 24, 1934 in San Francisco, California to Jack and Elanor Glasby. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean Conflict. He married Audrey Kirby in 1957 in Saginaw, Michigan. She preceded him in death in 2001. He moved to Grants Pass from Santa Barbara in 1990. He was a member of Ducks Unlimited. He enjoyed hunting and fishing. He is survived by Sons Wayne Glasby of Grants Pass and Greg Glasby of Santa Barbara, CA Mother Elanor Glasby of Beaverton, Michigan Brothers Tim Glasby of Los Angeles, CA and Larry Glasby of Beaverton, Michigan Sister Helen Glasby of Beaverton, Michigan 2 grandchildren He was preceded in death by two sons, Brian Glasby and Brett Glasby in 1982"
    • EARONSGSK board, "Glasby thread on AETV", 2013/07/31 - has some posts from a girl who claims to have known the Glasbys growing up:
      • "I grew up with the Glasbys. Brett was a violent child. Mean to the core. He had no girlfriend that I knew of Ever. He had a german Shepard with 3 toes. He knew the creek like the back of his hand... Like all of us did. It was our playground. From above Cathedral Oaks to south of Calle Real. We knew every tree, bush, trail, tree fort and hide out. We never believed he or Brian were killed in Mexico. What mother would let her precious sons be " murdered" in Mexico and then Not have the bodies be brought back for a funeral?? There was a memorial.... No bodies... No ashes.... Nothing"
      • "Dan I could elaborate however I don't know any of you personally so I will just speak generally. He didn't care if you were a guy or a girl... He'd slug you anyway. No girl in the area who knew him would date him because we all knew how violent he was. His dad went to Mexico to identify the bodies....supposedly.... But didn't return with them. Their service was a memorial. And when kids would ask why no bodies or at least ashes they would never get a straight answer. That's why I made the comment about the mom from my previous post. Something else to consider.... A few SB/ Goleta families were mob involved. What mob I couldn't tell you however they had no problem sending their kids away for protection and when their kids came back to town they looked nothing like themselves. Dyed hair color and plastic surgery. The 70's and 80's in Goleta were crazy times. If Brett and Brian's dad was in the mob then could that have happened to them? Who knows.. Regarding his circle of friends.... I would never name any of them here....sorry"
    • EARONSGSK board, "Brett Glasby", 2013/09/16: "Sandia's notes on Brett Glasby: Here are some more notes I'll just go ahead and post since I found my notes: [Brett] Glasby DOB 10/21/61 Died 2/02/82 at the age of 20, El Repchito Beach, Michoacan, Mexico, not in Baja. Brian was 21, graduated H.S. and ran a business called Precision Pools. Family lived at 5590 Pembroke Ave. Goleta from at least the early 1970's until 10/14/76. Then they moved to 1409 Camino Rio Verde. [Brett] Glasby was in high school as a junior and then dropped out. [Brett] Glasby was kicked out of the marines after less than one year. At the time of his and his brother, Brian's death, his brother Greg and two other men were wanted for Failure to Appear at a January 1982 arraignment regarding a drug related robbery and assault in Oct 1981."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Was Glasby Killed by the ONS, by jaejae", 2014/04/05 (pages 1, 2, 3, ...)
      • "Please resurrect the newspaper article which details an account of a mysterious Colorado Man (our guy?) who shows up at the final minute to hear Brians acct as he dies. Two Mexican boys witnessed the shooting. The Bros had a kilo of pot in the Van. The following is rumoured. A Mexican woman who distributed coke to older bro in the 80s told him her people sold the bros some pot a couple of days before in mex. Her nick mame was la paloma? The SBSO told GG in a threat they would do the same to him as they did to his bros. If it was EAR in Mex to shut them up why would he leave the super 8 and recording device found in the van? Everyone in Goleta thought they tried to rip off pot and were taken down. And it was poetic justice. They were trying to keep them (BG) away from testifying for the farmhouse robbery and...? It seems like SBSO could have had someone in Mexico do it for them for a trade. Was EAR a Goleta sherriffs officer?"
      • "I feel like there is something rather contrived about this newspaper article. It seems very odd that all those details would be revealed to the public if there really had been an actual murder investigation going on at the time. Also, I've never been able to find any death records for Brett and Brian Glasby. Where are they buried? Has it crossed anyone else's mind that maybe Brett and Brian were merely relocated somewhere for some reason?"
      • "I might be wrong, but I thought Glasby was facing jail time for beating up the janitor of (EARONS victim) Dr. Offerman. His dad is alleged used corrupt police officers to hide Brett from justice. If Glasby confessed to his dad that he had done something much, much worse, then maybe daddy arranged for him to 'disappear' for ever... ...and so he went to Mexico etc etc. Just speculation I know, but the Woofy and Offerman links - plus the links to certain POIs - plus old man Glasby's willingness to shield his sons from justice, makes me think there is a slim possibility the deaths were faked."
      • "Something I have been wondering about is this. Maverick had at least three people with CIA connections, and Lyman should have known. I haven't read anything about the CIA being interested in solving the case. If you consider what happened with the three Lockheed employees that were skimming off the CIA funds in Iran, you will find that they were murdered and the blame put on a terrorist org. If there was active CIA operations going at Maverick, and if Lyman was skimming off the top, how would the CIA handle that? There are more implications if you think it through. If Lyman had become a judge, would he have then become untouchable? I just find it odd that Hetrick had been a target of the FBI, DEA, and IRS for three years prior to the Delorean case, and here he was working with the CIA, and then he only gets three years for 24 mil of cocaine? And then Heaton dies in an airplane crash?"
      • "it was Congressman Bob Lagomarsino (R)Santa Barbara Is who Audrey called to keep Brett from Okinawa and AWOL trouble as he was a minor. So the story goes..."
      • "I am very interested in Brett's cohort's connection though. We don't know if Brett and the cohort were the people who beat the janitor, but the S.B. sheriff suspected they were. The janitor did not get a description of his attackers other than two men in ski masks. This cohort was convicted of murder in Sacramento. [...] Sammy, I don't think we can say from those two connections that Glasby's dad was influential or in cahoots with SBLE, but it is possible he was with a few individuals. As I understand it, the retired sheriff that housed Brett in Sacramento owed his dad a substantial amount of money. Keep in mind as has been previously mentioned that dad sued the sheriff's office, the City of S.B. the D.A, etc. Brett's family as I understand it is not a fan of LE at all."
    • EARONSGSK board, "back to brett glasby", 2018/08/03 (pages 2): "Glasby's dad ran a card room in Santa Barbara. The cop was a cop in Santa Barbara and when he retired he moved to Sacramento. The cop was a gambler. He owed Brett's dad serious money. I don't know what Brett's dad was thinking in trying to get his son out of town so he didn't have to appear in court but all that accomplished was getting Brett in even more trouble with a failure to appear. Anyway, Brett's dad forgave the ex-cop's gambling debt in exchange for giving Brett a job and having Brett go to live with him in Sacramento. However, according to the partner, Brett never lived with the ex-cop/gambler, he lived with the partner, he stole from them and didn't last long in Sacramento at all. When Brett came back to Santa Barbara, according to the family they called the sheriff and said that Brett was going to turn himself in. The family was not happy with LE when Brett was arrested at a construction job in Santa Barbara and had not gotten around to turning himself in yet."
  • Silas Boston and "the apprentice"
    • EARONSGSK board, "POI Thread: "The Apprentice"", 2017/06/21: "Redwin do you know the name of the real estate agent that your dad and this poi were working for in Carmichael." and "I've been trying to remember that, in hopes they still have files, or original documents with his handwriting or DNA. It's some kind of Italian name, perhaps with a "D" like Deangelo or something like that. I haven't thought about it since the early 80s and my memory is foggy on it." - interesting reply asks if it could have been Silvio Di Loreto, but Russell Boston's (Redwin's) response is redacted
    • Reddit thread in /r/EARONS from April 2018 titled "The DeAngelo / 'Apprentice' / Silas Boston Connection": "As previously mentioned, months ago, Russell Boston inadvertently identified the EARONS' last name 'Deangelo' when speaking about a real estate agent that may have been familiar with his father, the prolific burglar Silas Boston. There is now supposition that JJD's brother, was in fact a real estate agent at the time. Here is a photo of Silas Boston w/ the forearm tattoo visible; https://imgur.com/a/vrfrpLI Here is a photo with Boston and the 'apprentice'; https://imgur.com/a/iqGBCIx (Both photos provided by Boston's son, Russell) For those unfamiliar with 'The Apprentice' thread hypothesis from the proboards; last year, Russell raised the possibility that his father, who was a prolific home invader in Sacramento during the EARONS spree, may have been working with a younger individual that could have been the EARONS. He also suggested the possibility his father was in cahoots with real estate agent(s) in the area at the time of the crimes, and that there may have been a grouping of different people involved in the crimes. Now, enter Joe DeAngelo; his DNA-positive match to evidence left at the EARONS scenes linking him conclusively to the series. The question now becomes; what are the odds that Russell Boston would coincidentally name 'Deangelo' when discussing his suspicions of knowing who was involved with these crimes?" - debunked that the John DeAngelo with a California real estate license was JJD's brother
    • BBC, "'After 37 years I caught my brother's killer on Facebook'", 2018/08/24
  • Gun running and drug smuggling at Mather Air Force Base - where victim Brian Maggiore was a military policeman
    • Note that Terry Boyer returned to active duty at Mather AFB in February 1976 and became the Section Commander of the 454th Flying Training Squadron in June 1976, where he served until July 1978
    • Covert Action Information Bulletin Issue 27, "One Man’s Story: The Australian Heroin Connection" by Jerry Meldon, 1987 summer: "In 1975, Brooklyn-bom Edward Hunter decided to relocate his family and his quarter-of-a-million dollar Asian art collection from Bangkok to Hawaii. The decision to move his business was partially based on encouragement from his neighbor, Coby Black, and her husband, retired Army General Ed Black. Two years later, Gen. Black would also move to Hawaii and become president of a Nugan Hand Bank affiliate there.

      Hunter knew nothing then about the Australian-based Nugan Hand Bank. He was unaware that Nugan Hand’s vice-chairman, ex-Green Beret Michael Hand, would in 1975 arrange a 500-pound heroin shipment from Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle to the U.S. by way of Australia. 1 Nor did he know about a November 1977 Australian Narcotics Bureau report that would link Nugan Hand to a drug smuggling network that “exported some $3 billion [Aust.] worth of heroin from Bangkok prior to June 1976. ” 2"
    • The Courier News (Blytheville AK), "Military Drug Ring Used AF Planes to Move Drugs", 1976/03/26: "Operating from the safety of U.S. military bases in this country and Thailand, a syndicate led by Army and Air Force sergeants smuggled more than $300 million in pure heroin into this country on Air Force tanker planes, federal officials say. The heroin was hidden in false bottoms attached to wooden tables and other furniture shipped from U Tapao Air force Base in Thailand as military baggage or was concealed in black AWOL bags -- the small hand luggage carried by returning GIs. That was the account given Thursday by officials here and in Washington after federal indictments were returned in Raleigh against 14 persons, most of them present or former military men, on charges of conspiring to import heroin. [...] The heroin arrived via Strategic Air Command planes at Mather and Travis air force bases in California, Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., and and Langley Air Force Base, Va., officials said, and was soon on its way to the streets of New York and other major cities. At least 220 pounds of heroin came into this country that way between August 1974 and last October when the operation began to fall apart, officials of the Justice Deaprtment and the Drug Enforcement Administration said. But the syndicate had been operating since 1968 from the American Star Bar on Pittbury Road in Bangkok, and officials refused to say how much heroin the ring might have shipped into this country during that time. [...] One of those indicted in the heroin conspiracy was Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, 50, a retired Army master sergeant from Goldsboro, N.C., who is serving a 19-year sentence in the federal prison in Atlanta on a previous conviction for importing heroin from Thailand. The indictment said Atkinson had continued to run the operation from his prison cell the help of his daughter, Sharon Atkinson Arrington, and her husband, Michael Otis Arrington, 24, of Raleigh, both of whom were also indicted. Among the others indicted were James Smeddley, 54, described as the procurer of heroin, and Jasper Myrick Jr., of Montgomery, Ala., an alleged courier. Both are now serving terms in Kalang Prison in Bangkok. Also named in the indictments, for allegedly serving as packers, couriers or mailers of heroin to other defendants the United States were Freddie Clay Thornton, 40, Detroit; Rudolph Valentino Jennings, Goldsboro, N.C.; William King Wright, 30, Washington; William Thomas, 42, Goidsboro; Monroe Lorenzo Martin Jr., Long Beach, Calif.; Robert Ernest Patterson, 34, Hampton, Va.; William Kelly Brown, Augusta, Ga.; James McArthur, 40, Fayetteville, N.C.; and Charles Murphy Gillis, 40, Goldsboro." - note that Ike Atkinson was reportedly informed on by Helena Stoeckley (from the Jeffrey MacDonald case) for smuggling heroin from Southeast Asia in the bodies of dead soldiers
    • Sacramento Bee, "6 Mather MPs Relieved Of Duty", 1979/03/02: "Six security police at Mather Air Force Base have been relieved of duty while base officials investigate whether the airmen used controlled substances, a spokesman said Thursday night. Maj. Mike Riley said the five enlisted men and one officer are all assigned to the 320th Bombardment wing at Mather."
    • Sacramento Bee, "Insecurity...Mather's Pot-Smoking Guards", 1979/03/13: "Mather officials last week confirmed that the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations was investigating members of the 320th for drug use and possible sale of drugs. Six members of the squadron have been relieved of duty but so far no charges have been filed. Two of the six, including a first lieutenant, were in the process of being discharged from the Air Force for disciplinary reasons when the investigation was revealed."
    • Sacramento Bee, "5 More Airmen Questioned In Drug Probe At McClellan", 1979/04/04: "At Mather Air Force Base, no verdicts have been rendered in the ongoing courts-martial of six airmen assigned to a security police squadron charged with use and sale of cocaine, LSD, PCP and marijuana. A seventh member of the squadron was relieved from duty last month when he was found with a quantity of marijuana and an inhaling device while guarding bombers at Mather. A lieutenant also assigned to the 320th Security Police Squadron at Mather has received non-judicial punishment for having allowed a drug sale to take place while in an off-base apartment."
    • Sacramento Bee, "Hard Labor For Airman In Mather Dope Case", 1979/05/24: "A Mather Air Force Base court martial board has sentenced a 21-year-old airman to four months of hard labor, a bad conduct discharge and a $1000 pay forfeiture after finding him guilty on a single charge of transferring cocaine. Senior Airman Kevin L. Johnson is one of the six enlisted members of the 320th Security Police Squadron who were investigated on drug charges at Mather. The board's sentence must now be reviewed by Col. Attilio Pedroli, commander of Mather's host unit, the 323rd Flying Training Wing [...] Airman John L. Daloise faces the court martial board Thursday on two charges of cocaine transfer and a single count of marijuana transfer. Senior Airman William J. Casey's court martial on two cocaine transfer charges is scheduled to convene May 31 and Sgt. John Woods is scheduled to go before the board June 5 on one charge of transferring LSD and three marijuana transfer allegations. Procedures against Airman 1st Class Jeffrey Nisbett and Senior Airman Robert Wagner still are pending, according to Mather officials. A seventh member of the squadron, which is assigned to provide security for Strategic Air Command aircraft and munitions at the base, received non-judicial punishment. He was the only member charged with drug violations while on duty when he was found with a small amount of marijuana and a pipe. The investigations into drug use by the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations at Mather reportedly began in January. Sources claim an airman believed to have been working as an undercover agent for the investigations office was quickly transferred from the security police unit shortly before the first suspect was relieved of duty in March."
    • Sacramento Bee, "Another Mather Drug Sentencing", 1979/05/25
    • Sacramento Bee, "Mather Drug Rap Brings Hard Labor", 1979/06/01
    • Sacramento Bee, "AF Knew Mather MD Was Suspected Of Child Molestation", 1984/04/21: "US Air Force investigators knew Col. Lloyd A. McLaughlin, a Mather Air Force Base pediatrician, was suspected of child molesting six months before he was arrested by Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies on child sex charges. Air Force officials said the Air Force Office of Special Investigation dropped its inquiry into allegations involving McLaughlin and the 10-year-old son of one of his assistants because they couldn’t substantiate the charges. However, investigators failed to notify the wing commander at Mather, Col. John B. Tarsoly, of the investigation and delayed telling civilian authorities about the accusation for six months, officials said [...] McLaughlin, who was former commander of the Mather Air Force Base hospital, is facing civilian charges of eleven counts of felony child molestation involving boys ranging in age from 4 to 11. [...] Members of the Air Force investigating team at Mather refused to comment on the case, but a spokeswoman at the unit’s headquarters in Washington said not notifying the wing commander was a violation of Air Force procedure [...] [Tarsoly] said an investigation has been ordered by the Inspector General’s office of the Air Training Command to see if the investigators acted improperly in the McLaughlin investigation."
    • Sacramento Bee, "UNKNOWN KILLERS, UNRESOLVED EMOTIONS", 1990/03/25: "Lt. Ray Biondi, who has logged 28 years as a Sacramento peace officer, remembers the day as though it were yesterday. Biondi directs the homicide unit of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. Of the hundreds of cases he has worked, the shooting deaths of Brian and Katie Maggiore more than 12 years ago are among the most troubling. We never established a motive for this crime, Biondi said. It was a very high-profile type of crime. It was committed right out in the open.Sgt. Brian K. Maggiore, 21, was an administrative specialist at Mather Air Force Base. He and his wife, 20-year-old Katie, were walking their dog on a quiet residential street in Rancho Cordova around 9 p.m. on Feb. 2, 1978. Neighborhood residents reported hearing a woman scream and several gunshots. A tall man was seen leaping over a fence as he ran from the area. [...] The Sheriff's Department released two composite drawings of young men seen in the area. One man wore a brown jacket with an orange dragon embroidered on the front. It was very close to Mather Air Force Base; and because one of the victims was a military sergeant, I bet you we interviewed thousands of airmen, Biondi recalled. We had a lot of suspects, a lot of great theories and a lot of guys who seemed to have an established motive, but we never solved that case. I'm not sure why. It still bothers me today.To add an even more provocative twist to the case, some investigators have theorized that the killer was the notorious East Area Rapist who terrorized the Sacramento community and assaulted 36 victims from June 1976 through April 1978."
    • EARONSGSK board, "The Maggiore murders", 2013/07/13 (pages 1, 2, 3, ...)
      • "On the A&E board, Arch argued very forcefully, and very persuasively, that the EAR was not the killer of the Maggiories. I think we need to keep that in mind, especially with the new book coming out, wherein the author concludes that the EAR was the killer."
      • "No, I don't think so. According to Arch, if I recall correctly, the most convincing sketch/composite of EAR was the "half-mask" sketch; and that came from an EAR attack that had nothing to do with Maggiores. Another point that Arch made, again if I remember correctly, is that the initial assumption on part of LE was that the killer was someone connected with drug ring at Mather AFB. Idea that the killer might have been EAR didn't arise until years later."
      • "The curious thing to me is that there were/are 2 suspects in the Maggiore murders. Admittedly, one does look like the general EAR sketch, but not so much that that alone convinces me."
      • "What if the two suspects deliberately setup the EAR? Knew the Maggiore's lived in one of the EAR's crime areas? Knew about the shoelaces/bindings (I assume this was already in the paper)? Thought LE would initially think it was an EAR rape attempt gone wrong?"
      • "I had this same theory. When I first started reading about EAR/ONS and reading the posts on the A&E board I was certain that EAR was connected to the Maggiore murders and I thought Arch was being very obtuse stating otherwise. But the more I read, particularly after reading Sudden Terror the first time, the less I felt that EAR was responsible for the Maggiore murders. If the killings were part of the Mather AFB drug ring then EAR would have made a good scapegoat. The EAR attacks would have been big news in the area at the time and it would have been as easy as dawning a mask, shooting them both and dropping some laces. I do still feel strongly that VR and EAR/ONS are one in the same. The nature of the break-ins, the blitz style attack on the sleeping girl then leading her outside... I feel it very well could have been the catalyst for something that was seen again and again in the EAR crimes. As for the killing of Snelling, it could easily be justified in his mind as self-defense. EAR/ONS seemed to struggle with inner justification in his killings. For him to say he had not killed before could merely mean in his mind that he had not killed for pleasure or killed in the way that he intended to."
      • "1) If the Maggiore murders were tied to the Mather AFB drug ring then it's highly likely that base security was involved. That being said it's also highly likely that base security/military police would have access to information about the EAR cases that wasn't made public, even if that access was in an unofficial sense (cops like to talk just like everybody else)."
      • "Brian Maggiore was a member of the Military Police. Lt. Biondi in Sacramento said they interviewed thousands of airmen in connection with the Maggiore murders but that never went anywhere. This was a time period of some very nefarious quasi government sanctioned "activities." If Maggiore stumbled upon any of those things in his work, we will never know."
      • "Was there ever any ballistics done on the guns that killed Snelling, the Maggiores, Offerman/Manning and Sanchez (and McGowen's flashlight)? EDIT: I just read there were no ballistics matches: [broken link to A&E TV forum discussion]"
      • "The toughest part of Arch's info to refute is the two men seen talking just prior to the shooting. It means the shooter had an accomplice, which also means that someone besides the killer knows who's responsible."
      • "320th Security Police Squadron"
      • "Something else that was going on heavily at this time on Mather Base was gun thefts and running. Not only did we have all the heroin drug trafficking but there were many illegal endeavors going on. We did get valid confirmation on the gun thefts and sales."
      • "I wish Arc was here to tell us more about the "lying airmen". I found it odd that they would lie about anything related to a murder, even if they were under the influence."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Mather weapons trial 1976", 2015/03/28 (pages 1, 2, 3)
      • threetwozero: "Just got an email regarding Mather AFB and a trial in 1976 regarding the theft of weapons. As of yet, I haven't had any luck finding any articles. According to the email, there was a murder of an individual who was going to testify at this trial.
        I am very curious if this trial involved any individuals from either the 320th or 323rd. I'm also curious if the man killed was in the Air Force or a civilian."
      • trabuco: "Threetwozero, have you found out any more about this? I do recall a member of the board saying Brian Maggiore was killed because he was going to testify in the weapons trial."
      • threetwozero: "Yeah, wow I forgot about this. No I never heard anything back about it, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't able to find anything. There was also another member of the 320th who was killed in his house by a supposed intruder, and another member who was killed at a gas station in a robbery attempt. That guy was a kennel master at mather."
      • drdoogie: "The murder victim was Ronald E. Winter and the killer was Philip Arthur Thompson.

        Winter was to testify in the weapons case. Winter was an informant for SCSD Detective Pat O'Neill. [...]"
      • pluckman56: "Was PAT charged and jailed for the Robert Winter murder. Could he have been the taller man at the Maggiore murders.? Many questions about this creep. Doe's he know who ear is?"
      • drdoogie: "[...] Winter's murder and Thompson's arrest occurred around April 1975. The Sacramento Bee article of Thompson's arrest happened the same day as the front page showed the iconic photo of the last helicopter leaving the US Embassy in Saigon for a perspective of timeframe.

        Thompson was probably in prison when the Maggoire murders occurred, but that is not confirmed. Thompson and John Gordon Abbott escaped from a work camp near Sonora and committed several robberies, but I have never been able to nail down the exact dates."
      • threetwozero: "He [Brian Maggiore] was 323rd"
      • threetwozero: "[...] What really is interesting to me is that they were getting Brian transferred out of that unit, when he really only served a short period of time there. Why was That? I was in the Military, and at a minimum, you spend 18 months in a particular unit. In my case, my first squadron was 4 yrs, then 2 yrs stationed at a shore duty. Brian was being moved around like crazy. In my personal opinion, Brian was going to these different units for one reason and that was to identify drug operations. The 320th actually had an undercover unit that went around doing the same thing. I think Brian was sent in to look at them. Prior to Brian getting to Mather, the 320th undercover unit busted up a drug operation at another Air Force station. During that operation, quite a bit of drugs and money went missing."
      • drdoogie: "I am developing a lot more info about Ronald Winter through contact with informants.

        Winter was not in the military, but seemed to be a spook himself - he was reportedly seen taking "hops" on military transports traveling between the U.S. and Southeast Asia. Winter was reportedly a licensed gun dealer and seemed to have run with a rather "sketchy" group of aquaintances, but according to my sources was not involved in criminal activity himself.

        I also now have the names of the victim of another murder linked to guns and drugs at Mather and the two people convicted of that murder (it may be this trial that Winter was scheduled to testify). I will hold off publishing that info until I can confirm the details via published media reports of the trial - once vetted, I will list names and info.

        As how this relates to EAR and the Maggoires, I am not sure. All of these events I am speaking of occurred prior to mid-1975 which (I believe) is before Brian transferred to Mather. How it MAY be related is if the people arrested circa 1975 were only part of the people involved and the gun-thefts continued on after the arrests by those who were not arrested, but (let me emphasize) this is just speculation as of now."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Sacramento's Contradiction On EAR As Killer of Maggiore", 2017/12/01
    • Reddit thread in 2018 about how EAR victim #6 (on 1976/10/09) formerly had her house on Dawes Street in Rancho Cordova CA burglarized on 1973/03/07 (EARONSGSK board, "1973 Dawes Burglary in Rancho Cordova", 2018/01/21): "Another angle to look at would be the victim's personal life. She would often frequent Mather Aire Force Base to go dancing. This was a hobby she had partook in for years before the assault (I'm not sure if it pre-dated the 1973 burglary). While the theory of the East Area Rapist having military connections is very common, if he was the perpetrator behind the 1973 and 1976 events, that would provide more substantial credence on his statements he made to her during the assault."
  • Dr. Robert Offerman background
    • Beating of janitor in April 1979
      • Santa Barbara News-Press, "[...] wonders: 'What can be done to stop this?'", 1979/05/13 (pages A-1, A-10): "[...] It was dark when [REDACTED] came out of Orthopedic Surgical with his load of trash. [...]"
      • EARONSGSK board, "Offerman and the Janitor", 2013/10/04 (pages 1, ...): "The FACTS are that Dr. Offerman's janitor was nearly beaten to death. There were two suspects that LE believe they identified. Because they have not been charged with anything related to that crime I will not identify them on the board. One was an EAR poi who has been cleared by DNA. The other at a later date was arrested and convicted in another homicide in Sacramento. [...] Two burglars were unaware of the presence of the janitor. He was beaten severely when the burglars came upon him. It is believed they were there for drugs and the janitor happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. [...] That detective continues to believe it was BG and accomplice. Not sure why they were never charged. The janitor did know the race, height and quite a few of the particulars about his attackers. Way too late now to do anything about it.."
      • EARONSGSK board, "Dr. Offerman and his janitor", 2013/12/15 (pages 1, 2, ...)
        • guessting: "Sandia, I do have "PROOF" that Glasby and the other POI in the janitor case were both patients of Offerman. It is in a police report. I believe that they both were seeing Manning as well. If I remember correctly it could of been a workers comp case. Glasby was seen for his knee. I wonder if Offerman and Manning referred to each other and that is how they met. I have no proof of that yet. But I do think they had additional patients in common."
        • portofleith: "I think the janitor incident was re-opened because the janitor worked for Offerman's downtown SB clinic and the two POI's became POI's in Offerman's murder. Neither were ONS, but one was later murdered and the other served time for a murder in Sacramento. The janitor was collateral for an attempted drug theft of the clinic by two not-so-bright thugs."
      • EARONSGSK board, "A strange vision....", 2015/05/02 (pages 3)
        • Agent99 aka Sandia: "Offerman's Janitor beaten April 12, 1979, almost died from blood loss. He survived and is doing well. He's a very nice man by the way."
        • Agent99 aka Sandia: "So Glasby lived very close by to Offerman. Glasby was a patient of Offerman AND Manning in a workman's comp case. (I'm not sure if cohort was too). Glasby and cohort have a connection to Sacramento especially cohort who also has a connection to Visalia. The break-in technique. The cohort left Santa Barbara the day after the janitor was almost murdered.

          I actually do suspect that it was Glasby and cohort that assaulted Offerman's janitor. The cohort cannot be the EAR/ONS because he is of mixed race. Glasby has been cleared by DNA and died before Janelle was attacked BUT, there seems to be a connection. Glasby and cohort are probably 10 years younger than the EAR/ONS. Did they know him though. Did they meet him in Sacramento? Could it have been a drug dealing connection? It seems something is there but what? Glasby worked in construction? I don't believe he worked on the Calle Real project though but actually I don't know that. That would be very interesting to find out."
  • Maverick International Airlines links - to victim Lyman Smith
    • Ventura County Star, "DNA Findings Throw New Light on Old Case" by Aron Miller, 2000/10/08
    • Ventura County Star, "The Silent Witness" by Colleen Cason, 2002
      • "Chapter 1: Between the sea and the stars", 2002/11/03: "Lyman liked deals. "Pots of gold at the end of the rainbow Lyman put together" is the way Judge Steven Stone, his former law partner, summarized his eclectic portfolio. He leaned toward unusual enterprises that set his closest friends to scratching their heads. There was Maverick International, an airline dedicated to flying pregnant cows to Iran. He owned part interest in an avocado ranch and in an innovative own-your-own-lot manufactured-home development in Santa Paula."
      • "Chapter 9: The biggest bull shippers", 2002/11/11: "Maverick specialized in transporting inseminated cows to the Shah of Iran. The ruler was looking to beef up ranching in his kingdom and willing to pay top dollar to anyone who would deliver quality livestock. In 1977, Santa Barbara pilot Daniel Hood and Canadian businessman Edward C.C. Peagram approached Lyman with this unusual opportunity. Hood had a burning ambition to own an airline. Peagram, a rags-to-riches entrepreneur, had the contacts to procure the livestock. They lacked only the financing to lease the jets from Dr. Robert Beauchamp, a spectacularly successful entrepreneur who pioneered credit dentistry in Southern California. Lyman had a pretty good idea where to extract the $1.5 million in startup money. One of his law clients was an ex-prizefighter turned rancher by the name of A.E. "Bud" Sloan."
    • EARONSGSK board, "The drugs connection ..... + another theory", 2013/08/14: "In ST, it describes the fingerprints pulled off of the lamp that eventually led to a person who was in witness protection. The book says the person died before being interviewed. Eventually, it says LE went to the gravesite and exhumed the body for testing. I find this incredible. Does Occam's razor have an application for this? I have my conspiracy theorist hat on right now, of course. IMO, witness protection could appear as if looking over an abyss. Except you might only find the empty spaces a person was before. Is there more info on this? Were there any large drug busts or racketeering trials that went on in the area right after this? Can any conclusions be made that the victims at this house might have been associating with a bad element and possibly have been known by gsk in this way?"
    • Toby Aimer, "Bombing Moscow", 2014: "In 1977, Santa Barbara pilot, a Canadian and an American businessman came up with the idea to specialize in transporting inseminated cows to Iran. The pitot had a burning ambition to own an airline and the Canadian businessman had the contacts to procure the livestock. They found a Californian rancher and land owner to invest in their company named Maverick International Airlines and financing to lease Boeing 707 jets from a broker. [...] The auditor also discovered the partners had set up a company in the Cayman Islands to divert airline income. In addition, the US businessman appeared to be siphoning off funds from the payroll withholding. The auditor found this particularly shocking and felt obligated to alert the Californian investor to the shenanigans. The investor finally find out he was being hoodwinked by these slick businessmen. [...] The pilot/owner bailed out and signed his share over to the others. They worked around the clock to keep the airline functioning. Soon employee paychecks bounced. Beauchamp foreclosed on the jets. The Internal Revenue Service arrived, seeking more than a quarter of a million dollars in employee withholding that had never been paid. Maverick went bankrupt. The Californian investor and other creditors, including the IRS, were left holding the bag."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Maverick Air, by albion", 2014/10/22 (pages ..., 3, 4, 5, ...)
      • albion: "Mr. Y is fascinating. How someone could have been such an early poi for the VR crimes and then correlate so well with the move to Sac. And then for the moves to SB and family in OC so close to the Harrington crime. Its easy to go back and say poi A, B or C shows similar locations, but to have been a poi so early is amazing to me. Certainly the man served his country well and endured terrible atrocities while doing so. And I would hope that we all take that in to account, but if he indeed played a part in these crimes, that shouldn't exonerate him. Does anyone know if he might have had a connection to Peagram or Hood? Schnauzer made the connection between the poem and the SDA writings. There is also this connection between Maverick Air and the SDA."
      • privatecitizen: "They also had elaborate and very high tech plans to do bank robberies to "fund" some of what they were doing supposedly. I can't remember the details, but I think it was LE in Canada that found the schematics for some banks and other things among their belongings and claimed they were very advanced. Someone from the old board was looking into a tie between them and bank robber Manier, whom formerly owned the TOR vehicle in this case. Not sure what they found out."
      • albion: "Evidently Dan Hood of Maverick was involved with transporting the orphans and families back from Vietnam. Is it possible that one of his coworkers or friends had some involvement with the crimes? It certainly seems a situation that could incite some incredible anger if a loved one was left behind. Or if a loved one was killed in the crash of the C5 military transport during Operation Babylift. I am not claiming this is the case, just looking at the various histories of the people involved with Maverick Air."
    • Gary L. Wean, "The Anatomy of a Conspiracy of Race Riots & Revolution", 1994/06/20: "John De Lorean, the automobile manufacturing tycoon was arrested in a hotel at L.A. International Airport for smuggling 220 lbs. of cocaine, valued at 24 million dollars into the country. Within hours after his arrest William Morgan Hetrick was picked up in Hollywood. A sensational TV and newspaper dramatized trial followed the arrests. Lawyer Howard Weitzman represented De Lorean. Hetrick was a pilot for a Ventura lawyer, Lyman Smith, who owned Maverick International Airlines Inc. Smith owned two large jets that he was using to fly live registered cattle to Iran for the Shah and then bringing back cocaine to the States in the jets. Lawyer Lyman Smith, who was about to be appointed as judge to the Ventura Superior court, and his wife were both found bludgeoned to death at home in bed. The District Attorney, Michael Bradbury framed a suspect and arrested him. The case against the defendant smelled so bad that Bradbury lost it at the Preliminary hearing."
    • Dan Hood background
      • Daily Oklahoman, "Refugees Reunited to See TV Movie of Experiences", 1990/05/20: "Heading the guest list were Allan H. Topping and Daniel Hood, Pan American airlines employees who figured prominently in the unofficial rescue operation. In 1975 Topping was Pan Am's Saigon station manager, responsible for deciding when to schedule the last flight, knowing that those remaining behind would face certain death. Hood, an off-duty Pan Am pilot, voluntarily flew to Saigon to assist in evacuating orphans who had been wounded in the failed "Operation Babylift.""
    • Possible Steve McQueen connection
      • Note that McQueen lived inside the Santa Paula Airport, where Morgan Hetrick and Maverick Air flew planes from, for various periods of time
      • Colleen Cason, "Chapter 12: Better than any mall", 2002/11/14: "Across the street from the Smith residence on High Point Drive stood Steve McQueen's church. The movie idol was certainly the most famous of 1,650 parishioners who attended the Ventura Missionary Church. It was among the largest congregations in Ventura and ministered to the needs of some of Ventura's most prominent families as well as a healthy contingent of law-enforcement officers. When the Rev. Leonard DeWitt took the pastorship of the church in 1971, it didn't seem to have a prayer."
      • EARONSGSK board, "albion's material, articles and websites of interest...", 2014/02/11: "Two things interest me about Steve McQueen. One is that he was so close to the Manson Murders and the second is that he was at a boarding school in the LA area. Did Hood have any involvement with Air America or groups like that? Or Michael Hand? I read about Hand paying $5 for enemy ears to prove that they were killed. I believe he even hung them on his jeep antenna which reminds me of William T Anderson and his practices of tying knots to record his killings and hanging scalps on his horse. He was also a confederate with Jesse James and in the film The outlaw Josey Wales which opened in 76."
      • Spy Culture, "FBI file on Steve McQueen": "In March 1967 the makers of The Thomas Crown Affair contacted the FBI looking for permission to film their Boston office. The Bureau reviewed the script and concluded that this tale of an affair between a female investigator working with the FBI and a male millionaire bank robber was ‘an outrageous portrayal of the FBI’ and refused to co-operate with the production. Of course, the FBI didn’t actually employ female agents until the early 70s, so this film was far beyond their ultra-conservative tastes.

        This is how Steve McQueen’s FBI file starts, and it goes on to detail death threats made against him, including one written in absurdly childish handwriting, and that the FBI monitored how McQueen was one of dozens of Hollywood celebrities who attended a Civil Rights march in Washington in August 1963. Numerous memos attest that the FBI had ‘no pertinent derogatory information’ about McQueen, and yet the file remained open for well over a decade."
    • Note that Maverick Air is similar to Global International Airways of Kansas City MO, founded in 1978 by Farhad Azima, whose was partners with intelligence and Kansas City mobsters, and used for CIA missions
  • Janelle Cruz rape by a Marine
    • EARONSGSK board, "The Marine who raped Janelle", 2016/09/16 (pages 1, ...)
      • shelly: "I thought it was important to let people know, the Marine father who raped my sister has been eliminated through DNA just recently. I can't say anymore, but wanted you all to know."
      • albion: "The drugs that were coming in on the bases, Mathers and El Toro, had to get from the airport to the local dealers somehow. Kenji Gallo admits to moving kilos of cocaine to the Crips in LA. He says he was even stopped by the Newport Bch police, and they visually inspected his trunk and saw the drugs. And then sent him on his way. The Octopus literature suggests that it was Sheriff's delivering the drugs from smuggler to dealer. How could Kenji not know about Janelle's murder? He went to University with her. He is to this day friends with the above mentioned rapists family. He was part of the Mafia underworld in OC and LA. I have not seen anywhere that Officer Jerry has publicly protested about his character in Kenji's book. All I know he did is retire right after the book was published. Is that an admission of guilt? Why hasnt the OCDA's office looked into the alleged crimes that Kenji wrote about? Why havent they looked into who suggested that Phillip Arthur Thompson could be used as a snitch and then given time off.

        Kenji could come on this board and speak for himself. I am glad that Kenji has his life turned around and is no longer living the life. But here is an opportunity for him to really make some positive change in our world and fix some of the wrongs that he was a part of. Jesus isnt going to tell him what do, but if he is a changed man, then his heart is going to tell him what to do. When Kenji became an undercover for the FBI, Officer Jerry should have been dismissed, if not arrested. Why wasnt he? And if he was also an undercover, then where are the great IPD arrests? There arent any, and Officer Jerry wasnt an undercover. Kenji might not have been able to put all of the true story in his book, but he could certainly tell the OCDA's office. But what good would that do? The DA's office is still the same old office it was in the late 1970's. The Dept heads dont want this case solved, they want it buried just like they did when their investigators showed up knocking on Janelle's door prior to her murder. Kenji could change that. Where did he pick up the drugs? Who was part of the smuggling ring? Who were the Newport Cops that let him go with two kilos of cocaine in the trunk? How much cocaine was being moved through his Palm Springs night club? Were the drugs also coming in from the Cabazon Indian Res?"
    • EARONSGSK board, "The family that benefitted from Janelle's death", 2017/07/16 (pages 1, ...)
      • albion: "[...] At some point during this thread I would like to name the family in question. I dont see why it is not public knowledge. I lived there during this time and know some of the people involved. Kenji Gallo, a noted criminal and FBI snitch, also knew Janelle and the daughters of the alleged rapist. The family also had family connections to the OCDA's office at the time. And the father was a marine stationed at El Toro MCAS. Again from what I have read, the Marine and his family were never questioned by IPD about the allegations, nor were they questioned at the time of Janelle's murder. I am amazed at this. It took almost thirty years after her death to test the Marine's DNA. [...] And what I have a hard time comprehending, is that the last known Earons crime is 5 years prior. And then he comes out and murders this young girl as she is considering file these charges. [...] Why does no one mention the ex-military investigators who paid a visit to the Cruz family prior to Janelle's murder? Or their connection to Alan May and William Cassidy? [...] Why was the OCDA's office investigating it and not the IPD?"
  • DNA matching and potential issues
    • Los Angeles Times, "DNA Tests Link Slayings in 3 Counties", 2000/10/03 (pages 1, 2)
    • Santa Barbara News-Press, "Serial Link Explored in Old Murders: Goleta, Orange County Cases Similar", 2000/10/03: "While Santa Barbara sheriff's detectives say there may be a connection between the Goleta killings, they are not convinced the same person is responsible for the others. "There was DNA evidence in our investigation that does not match the DNA from their killer," said Lt. Mike Burridge, spokesman for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department. "We obviously would like nothing more than to solve these homicides. There are still surviving victims, and surviving and grieving family members who would like to see these cases resolved." But while there are similarities among the cases, there are just as many inconsistencies, Burridge said."
    • Los Angeles Times, "30-year-old slayings of Goleta couple linked to serial killer", 2011/05/05
    • EARONSGSK board, "The DNA and Fingerprints the different jurisdictions have", 2014/04/06 (pages 1, 4)
      • xiulan: "Lt. Mike Burridge (SBSD) "There was DNA evidence in our investigation that does not match the DNA from their killer." 3 October 2000, SB News-Press."
      • xiulan: "If Sac has DNA from 12 of their rapes, as has been claimed, are we supposed to believe they either decided not to develop a profile from it or alternatively that they have a profile and for some reason don't think it should be tested against OC's DNA profile? That requires a greater suspension of disbelief to my mind than would be remotely reasonable in ANY investigation, let alone one of this magnitude.

        IF Sac developed a DNA profile, as they should have, and IF Sac compared it with OC, as they should have, there is absolutely zero reason the result of that comparison hasn't been made known...unless they didn't match. There has been a ridiculous argument made from time to time around here that Sac has DNA and they are testing and testing and testing it (one example of this) and will do so until it's all gone...or something to that effect...bullocks! They'd develop a profile from each one, compare them to each other and compare them with what OC has. This isn't rocket surgery. DNA doesn't morph into different profiles the longer it sits. It doesn't become more conclusive through multiple erroneous testings. One profile. Use it to compare. Done.

        My contention is that IF Sac had DNA that matched OC and the 3 CCC rapes associated with the murders, we'd be talking about this case in terms of 15 rapes matched to the OC murders and not 3. In order to get any form of justice for EAR's victims, Sac NEEDS to match that DNA with OC...that this match has not been declared ought to raise questions."
      • xiulan: "The interesting thing about that is that DNA doesn't change. A sample doesn't suddenly become a match over time. There were also reports that DNA was collected from the Offerman/Manning scene which was eventually "lost" to the vacuum of time. I believe, and I am sure you will correct me if I'm wrong, that the new technology employed to match Goleta DNA to OC was from a sample previously undetected in Domingo-Sanchez. If Burridge was referencing O/M DNA in 2000 and it was "lost" by the time the D/S DNA was "discovered" years later, then there was still, at one time, a Goleta crime scene sample that did not match. There was no D/S DNA sample in Goleta, as far as they knew, until that later evidence was discovered, so Burridge couldn't have been referencing DNA from that case. Again, clear as mud in the one area of this case that ought to be a cake walk."
      • portofleith: "The Maggiore shoelace did not provide DNA as was hoped. But we only have to look to Santa Barbara to see how improved DNA technology can yield new results on extracting DNA from old material."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Contra Costa County Crime Lab", 2014/07/08 (pages 1, 2)
      • playinem: "The crime lab had at least Six (6) good (presence of spermatazoa) rape kits contemporaneous to the rapes occurring. Very possibly there were even more but my information is that there were at least the Six "good" ones all of which were attributed to the EAR. Years later when DNA profiles were developed and, in 2001 when the profiles developed were compared to the ONS profile from SoCal, we are told that Three (3) of the Contra Costa rapes (#39, #42 & #46) match each other and match the ONS' SoCal crimes. What happened to the profiles developed from the at least Three (3) other "good" rape kits from Contra Costa/NorCal? It is inconceivable that the profiles weren't developed from all of the viable evidence and also inconceivable that those profiles weren't all compared against one another and also, compared against the profile developed from the SoCal homicides for the ONS. I think it is likely that Sacramento County either lost or threw away whatever potential DNA evidence it had and that is likely why we haven't heard anything about any matches to EAR crimes in Sac County. Contra Costa is a different story...we know they had good evidence, we know they tested at least some of it so they didn't throw good evidence away. They probably didn't lose half or more of this major case evidence. At a minimum there were Six good DNA viable kits for testing. We know that Three match the ONS and each other. What about the Three (at least) or more that haven't been discussed or accounted for?"
      • playinem: "Port- My info came from a source who was affiliated with LE from the mid-1980's through the mid-2000's. I contacted her again tonight for clarification. She tells me that all forensics in CoCo County are run through the Contra Costa County Crime Lab regardless of city. She also tells me that there were a total of 8 attacks attributed to the EAR which occurred in CoCo County. Specifically there were 3 attacks in Danville, 2 in Concord, 2 in Walnut Creek and 1 in San Ramon. From those 8 attacks she says that 6 yielded "good" biological evidence. I don't want to question criminalist Holes (either one) or yourself as I have the utmost respect for both you and they...just explaining where my information came from. It is entirely possible that by the time the DNA testing was performed however many years after the evidence was collected (2001 I believe) that only the DNA from 3 kits was viable in which case we have our answer. In any event, thank you so much for running it down for us all. I for one would be chasing my tail even more than I do now if not for you."
    • EARONSGSK board, "How much DNA do they actually have?", 2014/10/19
      • ontrail: "From an Interview with Contra Costa County Forensics expert (and all around great guy) Paul Holes. One of the few actual heroes of this story: “[...] In 1997 I got ahold of a former member of the EAR Task Force, Larry Cromtpon, and he told me about the Southern California rapes and murders and his theory that they were committed by Northern California’s East Area Rapist. I then spoke with law enforcement in Irvine and Orange County about their attacks. Orange County’s DNA technological capabilities and equipment was much more advanced than ours in Contra Costa County at the time. We ran the tests but due to the difference in our testing equipment the DNA did not show a match. [...]”"
      • playinem: "I think that prosecutors would have a very difficult time explaining to jurors (and/or appellate courts) how the DNA testing first showed no match between DNA from the 3 EAR samples from Contra Costa prior to 2001 and then in 2001...shazam! Not only were all 3 of the NorCal EAR samples matches but they were also identical to DNA recovered from the ONS rape-homicides. There may well be an explanation based upon science and technology that explains how a non-matching set of 3 profiles morphed into a perfectly matching set but, if I'm trying this for the prosecution...I'm not touching it. Best course (IMO) would be to just leave the NorCal DNA out. Focus on the ONS matches. There are no such discrepencies (that we know of there) and jurors should (provided the OJ Simpson jury isn't reenlisted) be able to easily grasp the science and technology involved and apply the law accordingly. Of course I'm just speculating because there isn't even a suspect/defendant on the horizon much less the dock."
      • privatecitizen: "I'm glad you said that. It's another one of those weird case things that doesn't seem to make sense about the DNA not matching and then later matching. There's also still the non-matching DNA claimed by an SB detective. I think it was said in an article that Ventura also had issues with their testing and it had to be sent to OC's lab to get a match? There may be 3 or 4 different ONS DNA profiles out there if Contra Costa originally had a different profile from OC, SB had a different one, and then possibly Ventura had a different one. Crazy and I could see a defense attorney having a field day with those issues in court, too."
      • playinem: "In her post PC brings up the Santa Barbara inconsistencies regarding DNA from the Goleta homicides. In Offerman/Manning there was NEVER any testing supposedly done because Manning's rape kit was lost between the pathology lab and the crime lab. Since a rape in that case could not be proven the story has become that Manning was not raped. Someone reasonably close to these investigations (whom I respect) believes that Manning was raped. I couldn't say for sure. In Domingo/Sanchez semen was found on either bedding or Domingo's clothing collected during the crime scene investigation but not accounted for apparently until some 30 years after the murders."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Maverick Air, by albion", 2014/10/22 (pages ..., 3, 4, 5, ...)
      • privatecitizen: "Interesting points. Supposedly Ventura "had problems" with the Smith murder DNA until they handed it over to another jusrisdiction that found the DNA match to some of the other ONS murders. Weird, to say the least."
      • privatecitizen: "Yeah, it doesn't mean they aren't connected. Just may or may not mean something else. Kind of like SB saying they had DNA for their murders that didn't match or CC saying they had a non match that later matched. The DNA issues are just plain weird."
      • privatecitizen: "Thanks for semi-backing what I posted. Ventura on their own couldn't show a DNA match. Port, can you find anything that says they showed a non-match initially? It's just so odd that 2 other jurisdictions (including one that has the only DNA linked EAR rapes) plus Ventura had problems matching the DNA to OC's DNA."
      • privatecitizen: "What you provided in the way of an article doesn't explain much of anything besides OC doing the DNA profile in the Smith case. Why couldn't Ventura do that or did they and it was deemed a problem or whatever? They had the technology to do so at the time for such a pristinely preserved rape kit despite OC being such a cutting edge lab at the time. The article doesn't give the reason why to that question, does it?. Much like all of the articles on the net that don't point out how and why CC's original DNA profile didn't match or an explanation of why SB had non matching DNA to the other cases. I stand by that those issues about the DNA are just plain weird."
    • EARONSGSK board, "The possibility of 2 or more EARs", 2015/06/03
      • privatecitizen: "Eh, looking through old articles and noticed this. This article in 2001 after the EAR DNA link to ONS sounds like they may have had evidence left in the Sac crimes to test for DNA. Were the rape kits still around then, something else, or what?" (citing Sacramento Bee, "New lead found in serial rapes", 2001/04/05 (pages 1, 18): "Lewis said evidence from the Sacramento County cases has never been tested for DNA because the statute of limitations had expired, meaning no charges could be filed if a suspect is caught. The state time limit to charge someone with rape was six years. "We may try to do it now," Lewis said of the DNA.")
      • Drifter: "... an interesting question. Did they throw away the Sac rape kits after the ONS DNA link? That's what it sounds like? One could read into that a number of motives. When, exactly, did Sacramento discard the rape evidence?"
    • EARONSGSK board, "What do we have solid DNA evidence of so far?", 2015/06/18 (pages 1, 2, 3)
      • privatecitizen: "CC (Contra Costa County) still had their rape kits. They originally couldn't match their DNA profiles to the ONS profile that OC (Orange County) had for their murders and the Smith murders in Ventura. OC had done the DNA profile for the Ventura Smith murders. CC supposedly had inconclusive results and non matching results when they tested their rape kits and compared it to the OC DNA profile for ONS.

        Later, after getting some new equipment, CC did match 3 of their EAR cases out of the 6? rape kits they had (can't remember how many kits they had left off the top of my head) to the DNA profile OC had for ONS. That was when the EAR to ONS DNA link was made and it was in 2001.

        During all of that, SB (Santa Barbara) was still claiming that they had DNA in their Goleta murder cases that did not match the killer's DNA profile that OC had for their ONS DNA profile. In 2011, after re-examining evidence from the Goleta murders, a lab found sperm on an item (supposedly a bedspread) from the Domingo/Sanchez murder evidence. The DNA profile from that sperm showed a match to the DNA profile OC had for the other murders."
      • danmiami: "The Domingo/Sanchez crime scene always puzzled me. They noted that Cheri was not raped yet in 2011 they found "Spermatozoa" on the bedspread. Did ONS (without getting too graphic here) masterbate or did he commit a sexual assault? If it was a sexual assault then the rape kit would have sufficed like in the Smith and Harrington homicides."
      • albion: "There is also plenty of evidence which points to other attackers. Specifically the witness descriptions, the various methods of entering the homes, the numerous unaccounted for people and cars at the various crime scenes, and the planned attacks vs those of opportunity. I believe at this point, there are numerous examples posted on the board, of other rapists and murderers who employed similar MO's as the Ear and Ons crimes."
      • privatecitizen: "Look at it this way - there are at least 3 different DNA profiles generated as being EAR or ONS DNA from the evidence left at the scenes. OC, SB, and CC all had different DNA profiles originally. Years later, it turned into them all matching DNA profiles to forensically link the crimes. Ventura may or may not have also originally generated a different DNA profile than OC did for the Smith murders, so maybe 4 different profiles were generated for the DNA of EAR/ONS. All of that would be a field day in court if this case is ever tried.

        There have been snafus in the DNA clearing of POIs where they got the trash of one and the DNA profile they generated turned out to be the roommate of the POI instead of the POI's. That was caught by accident and would have most likely gone unnoticed if the roommate didn't happen to have his DNA profile in the criminal database for something else not related to the EAR/ONS crimes. Were there other instances where that happened and it went unnoticed? There were also instances where they went to the wrong house and got the trash there instead of at the house of the POI. Threetwozero posted more details about that. Who knows how many times that has happened in this case and it was never caught."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Question about his DNA and", 2017/11/04
      • Any of N: "Here is a quick thumbnail timeline of the DNA testing, from my notes. It agrees well with Bob's info above.

        Year LE Agency Result

        1997 Orange County DNA from Harrington, Witthuhn, and Cruz murders is matched.

        1998 Orange + Ventura Counties DNA from Smith murders is matched to the above.

        2000 Contra Costa County DNA from EAR Attacks 39-42-46 is matched to each other.

        2001 Orange Co + Contra Costa Co DNA from all of the above (NorCal-SoCal) is matched.

        2011 Orange Co + CA Dept. Justice DNA from Domingo-Sanchez murder is matched to the above."
  • Joseph DeAngelo connections and/or protection
    • Visalia Times-Delta, "Visalia Ransacker suspect was a 'black sheep,' described as a loner in Exeter", 2018/04/27
    • EARONSGSK board, "Incongruous Realities and Unacknowledged Pachyderms", 2018/04/28: "For some of us, this is not surprising. Not in the least. Deangelo was a VIP. Some would claim he was "The Unsuspected". The truth, however, is that he should have been seriously investigated in 1979. Lives would have been saved. His stature as a VIP within the LE community protected him from suspicion. Let us ask ourselves a question, "Set against the back drop and within the context of Sacramento in the late '70's, why would a LE officer shoplift dog repellant and a hammer?" What would the answer be? To us with the clarity of retrospect, that answer is glaring and should have been just as obvious to LE at the time. That Deangelo did not fight his termination, that the All Powerful police union didn't take up his cause, is certainly suggestive. Were there whispers behind the scenes? Was there a tacit agreement? "NOT IN MY TOWN, LEBOWSKI!!", punctuated with flying desk furnishings or coffee cups? Or was Deangelo merely so AFRAID that he tucked tail and ran to safety? One of these two scenarios is undeniably true. At this point we just don't know which. The lone conclusion we can draw from either scenario is also highly suggestive."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Vicki Morgan and Lyman Smith", 2018/05/07
      • "I have always wondered about a link between EAR and Philip A Thompson. PAT was a hitman and enforcer, who was also a serial offender in his free time. PAT mentions rejecting a murder for hire job, which was eventually carried out by a man he calls JD. Who was this 'JD'?"
      • "The witness they are talking about is PAT. The attorney is Harland Braun. Who is JD?

        "FN 1. "That the witness ... has represented that the testimony of the witness will be in substance as follows: In April 1980 Willie Wisely solicited me to kill his stepfather. I told him I'm not into that kind of thing I'm not interested. About 2 weeks later he asked me again. Offering me land in the Fresno area--I told him I'm not interested. [¶] I saw Wisely again in Jan of 1981--I spent a few days with him in the Orange County area. He asked me if I would kill his stepfather at an out of state truck stop. He offered me $50,000 in cash. He said I could make it look like a robbery. He showed me $3,000 in cash--I told him I was not interested at all. He asked me if I could someone to do it. I told him 'No way.' [¶] On March 13, 1981 Willie Wisely told me he killed his stepfather. Shortly thereafter he told me the same thing stating that either he (Willy) or JD held Mr. Bray down while the other let the car down on him. Willie said he had control of the property and there was only one loose end. JD is. He said he intended to off JD--and he bought a specific gun an AR 15 to do it with.""
      • "I was wondering if it has been brought up that Lyman Smith grew up in Citrus Heights and attended San Juan High School in 1954? Did he have had professional ties to JJD's wife (both were in law)? Did his family have ties to the Deangelo family?"
    • EARONSGSK board, "Was DeAngelo a Mechanic for SCCA Racing?", 2018/10/13: "In 2013 on another board I wrote: "I've been looking at racing in Sacramento in the 1970's because I have a hunch that EAR worked as a mechanic for a shop that rebuilt race car engines and made baja bugs our of beetles. I came across SCCA because they currently race at Mather. However, I don't know if that is just recent or if they had amateur racing in the 1970's there,too Also, in my research, I came across the name Jim Snelling as a driver for SCCA (Sports Car Club of America)." Any thoughts?"
    • EARONSGSK board, "GSK, Racing, Santa Paula, Iran Contra and Steve McQueen", 2018/10/27
      • "My speculation is simple: The Santa Paula Airport in Ventura, CA was taken over by the CIA as a place to train pilots and stage their runs to Central America and Iran. I also speculate that DeAngelo was recruited to be trained at this facility. In addition, I believe he ended up at this facility through his connection with Steve McQueen and racing and/or though his cocaine connections. Please read this article about Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport and another about the plane the CIA left in Costa Rica. It mentions that there were payoffs to the state. This makes me want to speculate and ask the question: Did the CIA payoff the state of California or Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties to look the other way in Santa Barbara and Ventura during GSK's killing spree?"
      • "Prior to JJD being caught, many people thought the simplest answer was that earons was a lowlife transient painter. Now that he is caught, posters again want to claim another "simplest answer" must be true. Incompetency is one thing, but to have it in almost every jurisdiction he committed crimes, and with every murder he committed, is beyond reasonable. There has to be another answer for it. Incompetency doesnt explain it away. Localized corruption in the jurisdictions he committed crimes in does."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Any info on JJD as a suspect before the DNA ID?", 2018/12/18 (pages 1, 3)
      • "On this very board a few years ago I saw the name Joe DeAngelo in a newspaper article about a heroic cop who tried to chase down a prowler. I remember thinking that's a cool name for a 70s cop. So his name was actually on this site a few years back, but unfortunately nobody considered him as a suspect. Ironically, all the discussion was about whether this hero cop had almost chased down and caught EAR..."
      • "Here's the specific 12-26-76 podcast in question: Ep. 16 Sgt. Joe DeAngelo, Exeter PD. Start listening around the 15:30 mark. After Tony Reid reads this article... [article is Exeter Sun, "Navy veteran serves Exeter as policeman", 1973/08/22] ... his podcasting partner says this at around 20:56: There's a lot to think about in that article, including the photo of DeAngelo at the top of it. We admit to looking at DeAngelo a couple of years ago and dismissing him as a person of interest. We just missed it. Doesn't sound like they ever seriously considered him, nor put him on any kind of a list, or anything like that. But you may interpret it any way you wish."
    • Framing of Oscar Clifton for the 1975 murder of 14-year-old Donna Richmond in Exeter CA
      • Reddit thread in /r/EARONS suggesting that DeAngelo framed Clifton for what was actually a VR murder: "There's a whole podcast called 12-26-75, which documented how weak the evidence was in the conviction of Oscar Clifton in the murder of 14-year-old Donna Richmond in the town of Exeter (near Visalia). The podcast proposed the Visalia Ransacker as a possible suspect. VR's murder of Prof. Snelling and the attempted kidnap of his daughter happened just 3 months before. We already knew the evidence was weak against Clifton; we already knew that VR was a suspect. We now know for sure that DeAngelo = VR = EAR/ONS, and he was police officer in Exeter. Not Visalia which was a reasonably large town of 35,000. He was a police officer in a tiny community of 5,000 people. A tiny town with a tiny police force happened to have a gruesome murder when one of the worst serial offenders of all time was on their police force. The chances that Oscar Clifton, who died in prison decades later for this crime, was falsely convicted went from feasible to probable."
      • EARONSGSK board, "DeAngleo Cleared of 1975 Donna Jo Richmond Murder", 2019/??/?? (pages ..., 9, ...)
        • kemo: "Nothing points directly at DeAngelo. The issue is that the case against Clifton is more than just weak; there is concern that there was direct prosecution malfeasance. As the podcast demonstrates, there was what appears to have been a very strong alibi for Clifton that his attorney’s investigator developed but it was never introduced at trial. Years later, the California Bar Association scheduled a hearing to investigate the allegations made by an appellate attorney, that Murphy, his trial attorney failed to introduce this alibi, and this was more than just part of a trial strategy of even an honest error. The implication is that he was suspected of deliberately sabotaging his client’s case. The day before the hearing, Murphy suffered a strange fatal solo auto accident that could easily have been suicide. It is hard to listen to and closely follow the 12-26-75 podcast without concluding that the whole Clifton case just smells real bad."
        • almagata: "I thought Ray Donahue was Clifton's trial attorney."
        • almagata: "Never mind. I found this article. Clifton must have changed attorneys."
        • almagata: "Two attorneys from the Tulare County Public Defenders Office died in two separate single car accidents in the same week. Both cars seemed to race out of control and were going quite fast when they crashed." (Tulare Advance Register, "Attorneys die in separate crashes", 1981/05/16: "Ray W. Donahue, 58, reportedly was killed between midnight and 2 a.m. Friday after his car hit a canal bank south of Corcoran.")
      • 12-26-75, "Consider The Source", 2019/01/09
        • "The crime lab first stained the hairs on the slide with “Christmas Tree stain,” and then examined them under an electron microscope for the presence of epithelial cells and sperm cells. This is the current gold standard testing method. There were none. That was a 100% scientific finding that the sample is negative for the presence of semen. So, any statement that semen was present on the slide tested in 2011 is either an uninformed mistake, or a knowing lie. Just saying that there was semen on that slide does not make it true: the scientific findings are unequivocal."
        • "Imagine that tomorrow morning, bright and early, a witness comes forward and tells Sacramento investigators where to find all of the souvenirs DeAngelo took from his victims. Or, maybe one of his family members agrees to provide eye witness testimony in exchange for immunity. Now, investigators have a firm connection between DeAngelo, and Donna’s murder. It doesn’t matter, it’s too late. The DA has now stated that there is conclusive physical evidence, left on Donna–by her killer, that does not match DeAngelo. It’s totally untrue, but good luck making that argument to a jury: the Tulare DA would be the first witness called by the defense. Now, throw in TCSO’s public statements that the same person killed Jennifer Armour and Donna Richmond. You can see where this is going - if there is testimony of physical evidence that clears DeAngelo in Donna’s murder, it can be introduced by DeAngelo’s defense in Jennifer’s murder too. TCSO and the Tulare DA don’t get to have it both ways, that’s not how official conclusions by law enforcement and prosecutors work."
        • "We can even imagine this being used by DeAngelo’s defense in the Snelling case. If the DA has proof that DeAngelo didn’t kill Donna, how can anyone know that he attacked Beth? Is it reasonable to believe that more than one man in Tulare County was kidnapping high school girls in the fall of 1975? The Snelling case is totally circumstantial, and the DA has introduced the opening for reasonable doubt. Again, this was completely stupid, and unnecessary. All he had to say was that the invoice book was plenty of evidence against Clifton, and close the case. He has that discretion. Nobody had to like it or agree. Why did he take the extra step of covering up for DeAngelo, and closing the door on any future prosecution? We can’t think of even one good reason."
        • Comment by Morgain McGovern: "He was in our front hallway dressed as a cop around Halloween 1979 in LA so someone down here was covering for him too. The whole state can be bankrupted from what they did & what they're currently doing."
        • Comment by Morgain McGovern: "He was friends with the Glasby brothers they were our pool guys in Northridge. He knew them."
    • Los Angeles Times, "Man in the Window", 2019/09/19
      • "Bonnie was terrified of being arrested — and of her father finding out — when DeAngelo took her over the fence of a missile contractor to poach frogs. He speared fish illegally in Folsom Lake, shot a vulture for no apparent reason, and killed deer out of season, carving the bloody remains in his kitchen. Yet she remained his sidekick, jumping beside or behind him on the next thrill ride."
    • EARONSGSK board, "did ons smoke or drink alchool?", 2019/12/08: "And if there were to be another person would that person be another disgraced cop from another jurisdiction, a respected war hero, a snitch, or ? JJD doesnt seem the poetic kind, nor do I believe he drew the map. He may have left it on purpose because it pointed away from him, or to someone he wanted for it to point at. JJD was part of a crew. Maybe not the same crew for the entire time, but he had help, and instructions for his ONS crimes, and he had LE and lawyer connections during that time. Too many Sac connections in Santa Barbara and too many legal issues in OC for it to be happenstance. LE needs to look at insurance fraud as well. And Los was either a friend or a foe. But he had a connection to the people that gave JJD instructions. To think that MR Y and JJD were unfamiliar is rubbish. You dont lose your job and then come up with a cash down payment. And it isnt reported that he stole enough to save that money. Ketch, Trick, Man in the Boat, and others might be part of that crew. Corrupt LE dont exist in a vacuum. People know. Sac knew that JJD was moving south. How? CC County is the only jurisdiction I would trust to investigate or prosecute. I am actually surprised JJD is still alive."
  • Police statement inconsistencies about DeAngelo
  • Others involved with DeAngelo
    • EARONSGSK board, "More Than One Person Involved In Sacramento Rapes?", 2013/11/07 (pages 1)
      • portofleith: "The Visalia Ransacker incident that may or may not support an accomplice involves a strange transaction observed in a parking lot the night of the Snelling murder. A Volkswagen pulled into the parking lot and exchanged light signals with a pickup and then the driver exited the Volkswagen and drove off with the man in the other vehicle. There were two very sophisticated burglar rings operating in Visalia at this time and I am more inclined to believe this transaction might have involved one of these two groups, but there is also a possibility, if one the vehicle's driver was the VR, the other may have been an unwitting burglary accomplice not involved in the peeping and murder. Two of the members of the burglary rings were responsible for, if I remember correctly, about 2,000 burglaries in Visalia, so very active prowlers."
      • portofleith: "One other curious incident the night of the Snelling murder though, involved a Tulare woman seeing a ski masked man in a Volkswagen about two hours before the pickup/VW exchange in Visalia. The vehicle was described as a different VW than the one in the parking lot. A poster on the A and E board has discussed these two VW's extensively."
      • redding: "Here is what I know about the possibility of two suspects for some of the rapes in Sacramento. Nearly four years ago I had a POI that I felt was the EAR. The whole reason why I am interested in this case is because of this POI. He fit in every possible way and Russ Whitmeyer was very interested in him. I called several jurisdictions in Sacramento to express my concerns. One government entity called me right back and wanted to meet with me to discuss this POI in person. We went over everything I knew about my POI and why I felt that he very well may be the EAR. Towards the end of the meeting after leaving the room several times the investigator said to me if this guy is the EAR then who is his accomplice? I told him that I had no idea that the EAR had an accomplice. He then looked me in the eye and said that they know for a fact that their were two people at some of the rapes. [...]"
    • Now-deleted post says that Ventura County, which arrested DeAngelo, had different DNA for the East Area Rapist than surrounding counties (original link): "Back in the day around 2000 or 2001 when the DNA connected EAR and ONS there was an investigator who stated that Ventura County also had different DNA in their possession. Just so happens that the arrest warrant for Joe DeAngelo came from Ventura County and not from Santa Barbara County or Sacramento County of Contra Costa County or one of the other counties."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Joseph James DeAngelo", 2018/04/25 (pages 3) - various posters discuss how witness descriptions of the perpetrator often do not match DeAngelo
      • Ranger71: "I wonder who was on the phone calls that were made, as it just dosen't feel like it was all one person."
      • rkz: "And going through a bunch of the witness descriptions....did JJD loose a bunch of weight before he became EAR? Because all of the pics I'm seeing of him, he looks kinda chubby and shlubby (and kinda older), while most of the descriptions of him state that he was lean and muscular and blonde-haired and looked like he was in his early 20s. Those pics just don't look like the same person being described in report after report, and many reports seem to be describing someone who CAN'T be him (i.e. they describe a man with piercing blue eyes; JJD has brown eyes). So odd. It really makes me wonder if some of the activity attributed to him really was him."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Another victim", 2018/04/30 (pages 1, ...)
      • drdoogie: "The thumbnail of the "Green Corvette Incident" is an 18 year old student nurse was offered a ride by someone driving a green Corvette whose description matched EAR. Instead of dropping her off at her home, he drove her to a remote location near Nimbus Dam where he attempted to assault her. During the drive, the perp masturbated exposing a "small penis". The perp was not wearing a mask during the six hours the incident occurred.

        The original report was "lost" for years, but was rediscovered among the 1973 reports that were recently scanned and reviewed by Clark and Belli. In that report, a second girl (a 16 year old student at Del Campo HS) had provided information related to the student nurse's attack. (NOTE: SOME OF THE FOLLOWING IS SUBSTANTIALLY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT I HAVE POSTED BEFORE, BUT IS BASED ON THE REPORT AND CLARIFICATION FROM THE STUDENT NURSE!) The teenager was approached by a driver in a green Corvette while she was walking home from school. She DID voluntarily get in his car. The driver said his name was "Dave" and that he was a student at Sacramento State college. He did not attack her or expose himself. This ride occurred on the same day as the attack on the student nurse, but before that incident. Now here is the important new information: the student nurse and the teenager knew each other. The student nurse was acting as a mentor for the teenager through the "Rainbow Girls" organization and spent time together about once a week. The theory is that the perp saw the two together at some point and targeted both. For some reason, the younger girl was not attacked, but the student nurse was shortly afterward.

        Both girls reported the same basic description with the only noticable difference was the color of the driver's pants. The description seems to have also fit JJD at the time (height, weight, hair color and length)." - note that Rainbow Girls is the Masonic organization that Nancy Krebs was part of, and she claimed to have met Patsy Ramsey (then Patsy Paugh) at a Rainbow Girls event in Sacramento in 1979
    • Sacramento Bee, "Did the East Area Rapist have an accomplice? 'That is a possibility,' detective says", 2018/05/07: "Detective Paul Holes, credited with coming up with the family-tree tracing method that caught suspect Joseph James DeAngelo last month, said Monday it's possible two people were involved in some of the crimes. "Those of us who are familiar with the case files recognize that is a possibility," Holes said. [...] Holes said a second person may have assisted the East Area Rapist with a few of his early crimes. But "when he ends up escalating into homicide, I think it's just him," he said. Sacramento Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. Shaun Hampton said it is "absolutely not true" that there could be a second person involved. "According to Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Detective Sergeant Ken Clark, the sole suspect behind all of these alleged crimes is Joseph DeAngelo," Hampton said via email. Clark is the lead investigator in the case for Sacramento County. [...] Holes said in the Concord case, the victim was lying on the floor in the family room, near a door to the garage, when the East Area Rapist entered the garage carrying a bag of stolen items. Holes said the victim reported hearing her attacker say, "Take this to the car." In one of the early Sacramento attacks, Holes said the victim reported that the East Area Rapist went into the living room of the house. The victim heard him say, "I thought I told you to shut up." In another case, Holes said the victim heard a knock at the door, followed by the East Area Rapist speaking to someone outside."
    • ABC7 (San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose), "Report: Suspected 'Golden State Killer' may have had an accomplice", 2018/05/08
    • EARONSGSK board, "Green Corvette Guy and the Emerging Possible Alternate MO", 2018/06/22 (pages 1, 2)
      • drdoogie: "I have previously posted information about the "Corvette Incident" in 1973 which some have questioned since it did not match EAR's known MO in that the attack started with the perp luring the victim in to a vehicle, taking her to a remote and then attacking. This did not align with EAR's known MO of home invasion attacks. However, since the arrest of DeAngelo, there have been two women who have come forward with very similar stories of being lured into a vehicle, being driven to a remote location next to a river or canal and being attacked - all in 1973-74. And both (plus the victim in the Corvette Incident) have identified JJD as the perp from his picture from the1973 article of his hiring in Exeter. One victim is the woman who was demonstrating outside the press conference claiming that JJD in uniform near Visalia had picked her up for truancy, started giving her a ride home,but then took her to a remote area next to a canal and raped her. (If anyone has any additional info about this caseor contact info for the victim, please PM me. She has already come forward publicly so sharing her name is not out-of-bounds.) Another victim was picked up while leaving a concert in Sacramento, then driven to Discovery Park at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers,and attacked."
      • drdoogie: "I met with the victim of the "second" car abduction rape recently and got more details about the attack. She was abducted by car near the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium in July 1973, taken to Discovery park and raped. She says that JJD was her attacker. Two interesting tidbits: 1) Her attacker threatened her with a club similar to one of the early EAR attacks, and 2) Her attacker had an accomplice - a second younger, thinner man. She provided me with a Sac PD police report of the attack, but I have not had time yet to read it. It is possible that her mind is playing tricks concerning her identifying JJD as her attacker, but my impression is that she is very credible and is not making this up for attention - in fact, she specifically has avoided any media attention. More to come."
    • EARONSGSK board, "Was there or was there not an accomplice?", 2018/10/14 (pages 1, 3, 4)
      • Agent99 aka Sandia: "#17 4/15/77 Cherrelyn Way, Carmichael HuntingAPsychopath page 208 Detective Shelby, retired at the time met a former sister-in-law of the victim. The victim gave a different account of what happened to her family than she did to the police. (Embarrassment?) "She told them she was certain there were two rapists. During the first sexual assault the suspect, as in all the other assaults, did not allow his full weight to come to rest on her. This was the guy with the small penis. After he was finished assaulting her, he stepped out of the house and into the backyard. Then he came back in and climbed onto the bed to assault her again. This time the bed sank down much further than the first time, and he allowed his full weight to bear down on her. Not only that, but he had a normal sized penis. There was more than one trip out that back door, and more than one sexual assault that night." [...] [After EAR attacks #3 and #7] Subsequent descriptions go from medium build to slight build, to slightly stocky to slender to medium but thin legs, to abnormally muscular thighs and calves, to small pot belly, to stocky but no pot belly and no flab"
      • drdoogie: "The Green Corvette attack was by one assailiant. A similar attack three months later had two attackers. The survivor of that later attack ID'd JJD as one of the two men."
      • drdoogie: "There were a slew of killings of airmen or those associated with Air Force in the mid-1970s through 1980. There was the murder of a civilian Ronald E. Winters tied to a trial for gun-running out of Mather in 1975 (Winters worked at McClellan). Then there was a murder of an airman out of Travis by two unsubs in Vacaville a couple of years later that I believe had ties to Mather. And now this murder in 1980. Northern California had a lot of AF people stationed in the area, but there seems to have been a disproportionate number of murders even to its large Air Force population."
      • murderinc: "Thanks Doc I'm sorry for confusing those two. Do you know the date of the second attack? There's quite a few Airmen murdered in Sacramento over the years and a strange number in Rancho Cordova. There is atleast two AF bases there though correct? Harold Riley 1971 just back from Thailand who got shot thru a kitchen window (his daughter Harriet was mysteriously murdered in 1975). James Hillis just retired working at a service service station murdered by a burglar on 10/23/75 the night Officer DeAngelo left Rancho Cordova and drove back to Visalia. Thomas Foster disappeared 1975 who lived on Mather Field Rd near JJD's sibling, Brian Maggiore, Joanne Burnap, McClellan employee 1980 murdered in her home near the American River, Retired AF Colonel Walter Nickerson in Rancho Cordova in 1980, David Witmond, Mather Airman also in Rancho Cordova and also in 1980. And those are only the Air Force."
      • drdoogie: "I cannot comment on the Silva case, but both the Green Corvette victim and the July 1973 victim ID'd him based on the Exeter newspaper picture of JJD when he joined the Exeter PD, not the recent mug shot. The newspaper pic would have been right around the time that they were attacked."
      • drdoogie: "The second victim was walking from her parking spot to the Memorial Auditorium to attend a concert by Loggins and Messina on July 15th, 1973 when she was kidnapped by two men who forced her into their car. (I have confirmed that L&M did have a concert there on that date.) The man she says was JJD had a baton/billy club that he was tapping into his other hand - much like you would imagine a police officer would do. She was driven to Discovery Park where she was attacked next to the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers. She was threatened that they would drowned her in the river if she made noise. She was then dropped off back near her car. A police report was filed and I have read that report. Currently, the DA appears to believe her, but is uninterested in pursuing this case because of the wealth of other cases with stronger evidence linking them to JJD."
  • DeAngelo criminal trial
  • Missing fingertips of DeAngelo
  • Bull tattoo described by one victim
    • Reddit comment in /r/EARONS from December 2017 claiming that a potential EAR suspect removed a tattoo from his arm in the late 1980s: "I know someone who I jokingly say could be ear . Age is right , was in the military , lived there , had a child in 1981 then last son in 1986 . He has really blue blue eyes . All just kinda joking and coincidence ... BUT , when I found out from this persons son that in the late 1980's he burned a tattoo off with acid on his left forearm because insurance wouldn't cover removal I was like 😱😱😱 Again I'm sure it's pure coincidence but yeah .."
    • EARONSGSK board, "The Bull tattoo", 2018/04/26 (pages 1, 2): "The Bull tattoo was described under hypnosis by a child that saw him with police like items and an open face mask. She indicated a handgun on his left side and a metal type bracelet. This bracelet was also described by one rape victim later in the series. I believe it may have been one of those MIA/POW metal bands worn by many vets." and "This one has me curious. Between what Russell was saying about his father and the apprentice being potentially tied in with a DeAngelo real estate agent, and the fact that Silas Boston was a notorious prowler/burglar in his own right (with a Schlitz Malt Bull tattoo on the right spot on the correct arm). I'm starting to feel like this whole thing might turn into a larger and more complicated investigation than originally thought."
  • Other crimes suspected of being perpetrated by the East Area Rapist
    • The Naked Rapist in Chula Vista CA - from July 1967 to February 1968; coincidentally, the person arrested for the rapes, Dennis Michael Boyer, had the same last name as VR and EAR suspect Terry Boyer
      • Murder Inc., "Naked Rapist/Jackknife Killer", 2019/03/16: "On June 1 1967 the USS Canberra docked in San Diego and Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. returned to California from Vietnam. In July 1967 the Chula Vista Naked Rapist first struck. He would go on to commit 8+ attacks through February 1968 and confined all the attacks to a small section of Chula Vista about 9 miles from Point Loma Naval Base where the Canberra was stationed. The Naked Rapist targeted Navy wives whose husbands were out for the night. He would enter the house naked prowling with a flashlight and use a knife or a fork to attack the women in their beds while they slept. [...] In February 1968 19 year old Chula Vista resident Dennis Boyer was arrested during a burglary and confessed to being the Chula Vista Naked Rapist. He pled guilty and was sent to Atascadero Mental Hospital. He claimed to have sent a Christmas Card to the police that said “With Love, the Raper, Ha ha!”."
    • See above for a mention of the Cordova Cat Burglar that operated in 1972 (which would incidentally rule out Terry Boyer)
    • See above for the Donna Richmond murder in December 1975 in Exeter CA
    • EARONSGSK board, "Retired CHP Officer who worked during the EAR series", 2019/02/14: "There was also a strange set of circumstances I discovered that involved the 34th Califonia Governor Jerry Brown and his protection detail that was comprised of CHP officers. Governor Brown took office in 1975 and he was famously remembered to not travel in a limo or the like but was driven to events in a baby blue Dodge Diplomat by a CHP officer assigned as a protection officer I will call this officer Salazar. Salazar lived in an area of Rancho Cordova near Ambassador Drive and River's Edge Way he often would take that same Dodge home when he was off-duty or when Brown was out of town and the like. This area is very close to the American River and the bike trail that runs along it and connected to the Rancho area attacks where Chase Drive ends at the river it is one of the areas Shelby explained the burrowed wildlife "game cameras" were placed in an effort to catch a picture of EAR fleeing from attacks #1, #3, #6, #8 and #15. During this time frame, there were a small series of burglaries in the area of Salazar's home that put the CHP on their toes since the State of Califonia's governor's car was often parked there and they responded to increase special patrols in that area it was also discussed as a possible EAR type of crime series at the CHP level however the Sac Sheriff's never attributed that activity to EAR and still have not to this day. It is also the area where a disputed attack was reported in the area of Ambassador Drive and McGregor the attack was first on the list of other EAR attacks and removed. I believe it was related to EAR and was him but the Sac Sheriffs would have to admit the CHP was correct about that small series of burglaries near Officer Salazar's home being EAR.

      I discovered a burglary report that was taken as part of this small series the home was on the same side of the street as officer Salazar's home 4 houses west. The suspect appeared to have climbed the back fence it was a daylight event and entered the home either through a back bedroom window or the sliding patio door. There was a small hole in the window near the lock and that appears to me from my own training and experience to be the entry point and the slider the exit point. The suspect then "ransacked and pulled all of the draws out" in the bedroom's and appeared to have gone through the kitchen draws and may have eaten food as well. The only thing taken by the suspect was a .38 Caliber Smith and Wesson revolver there were things of value that were untouched and appeared not to have been disturbed by the suspect. There was one photo attached to the file I saw and it was of the master bedroom where I saw what appeared to be two books on the bed that the owner stated was inside under clothing in one of the dressers draws prior to this incident. After using magnification I can see the two books one was some sort of Masters and Johnson sex book and the other was a photo album. Another interesting part is the home was owned by a Federal Immigration Officer that was at work at the time. As we know EAR seemed to find LE officers during his prowling and stalking and if it was him he ignored items of value and took a firearm along with looking a the families photo album. This was not the only burglary there were more in the immediate area and it was indicated in this report of the series by the Deputy taking the report. All of the incidents were on the same side of the road and all were believed to be the work of the same person with similar things occurring it would also fit into the EAR MO and is very close distance since we know JJD liked to park his vehicle and use parks to gain access to victim's homes by climbing fences."
    • See above for a mention of the Colonial Parkway Murders in Virginia (during the time Terry Boyer was in the state)
  • Possible link to Brother Ely a.k.a. Victor Wild a.k.a. Victor Floyd Wild a.k.a. Brother Eli a.k.a. Victor F. Wild
    • EARONSGSK board, "Vr/ear relatives?", 2017/08/18
      • kowalski: "I have a POI who was born in 1960, who in the early to mid 70s was a resident of the 800 block of S Whitney in Visalia on the same side of the street as the Snelling residence, about 10-15 houses south. Let's call him Suspect "A".

        In early 1979, Suspect "A"s older sister married Suspect "B"(b.1940) who lived a little east of Santa Barbara and had a very successful counter-culture oriented business in Goleta, not sure-but most probably in the Calle Real shopping center. "B" also seems to be possibly linked to addresses on Armitos, very close to San Jose Creek (which seems to be the spine of the GSK "comfort zone" IMO) and also the 100 block of Sylvian, which is virtually across the street from Calle Real shopping center."
      • kowalski: "Suspect "B" is a man of many talents and abilities including automobile detailing, with quite some enthusiasm for old style metal flake paints, as well as sculpture and oil paint canvases. "B" is also an avid photographer apparently with quite an extravagant collection of high-end state-of-the-art photo equipment. "B" has also self-published several books on his own vanity press, and when comparing the tone of his books and distinctive photographic style to a certain EARONS-themed book written by that-guy-we-don-t-know-anything-about, I get a little deja vu type buzz.

        "B" has at times worked servicing kidney dialysis machines, and later had a business and another unrelated hobby, both of which would traditionally require the utilization of lanyard/diamond knots."
      • kowalski: "Suspect "A" has virtually no internet footprint other than his addresses in Visalia and Moraga, and his relation to his sister, who was also a resident on S Whitney. No photos, no description or known places of employment or education so far. "BeenVerified" came up with nothing in this regard. He did apparently live in San Francisco at one point, and also Washington DC, but no indication as to when, so far. If he were in DC between 1981 to oh, say 1985 or so, that would be of quite some interest."
      • kowalski: "Suspect "B" is much more high profile, although lacking photo image of any kind between his high school yearbook in 1958, and recent photos from around 2008 as a respected millionaire sportsman. My impression is that he fancies himself as a kind of Renaissance Man who would sort of like to forget or at least obscure his checkered past as a sort of Forrest Gump of the very darkest underbelly of late 60s extreme counter-culture ultra-violence. As I stated before, one poster at this forum has mentioned this individual as a EARONS suspect, and also as a suspect for almost every other unsolved violent crime in California from about 1963 on. While some of that posters assertions might have some merit to them, I remain a bit more skeptical, as "B"s history is well documented in reports by police in several jurisdictions, and the State Attorney General's office, but is also heavily entangled with a huge dose of Urban Legend."
      • sammyt: "Do you know if your dialysis machine servicing POI ever had any connection to Philip Arthur Thompson, who had a medical supplies delivery business?"
      • kowalski: "The key is "B". "B" is a verrrry suspicious person. And why? Well, if you were to google "B"s full name, you would find that:

        --"B" was "based out of Goleta".

        --"B" rode with the Gypsy Jokers MC

        --"B" was an "known associate" of the Manson Family. Not a member, mind you, but he did business with Charlie."
      • kowalski: "--"B" was/is also a very high-ranking member of a cult alleged to have been influential to Manson. A monumental effort has been undertaken in the last few years to rehabilitate the reputation of this cult in a rather frantic attempt to deny allegations of distribution and sale of drugs and kiddieporn, prostitution, ritual sacrifice, contract murder, and political assassination. Rather than debate the merits of those claims here, I feel it might be more appropriate to share a brief excerpt from one of their best known theological tracts. Enjoy!"
    • From p.611 of Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry:

          One of DeGrimston's most fervent disciples is one Victor Wild, a young leather goods manufacturer whose Process name is Brother Ely.
          Up until December of 1967, Victor Wild's residence, and the San Francisco headquarters for The Process, was 407 Cole Street, in Haight-Ashbury.
          From about April through July 1967, Charles Manson and his still fledgling Family lived just two blocks away, at 636 Cole. In view of Manson's curiosity, it appears very likely that he at least investigated the satanists, and there is fairly persuasive evidence that he "borrowed" some of their teachings.
       
    • kidkenoma, "THE IMPERIAL DYNASTY OF AMERICA", 2017/05/31
      • One comment quotes from the chapter of The Family on the Process Church: "Father Alban gave a lecture on the Berkeley campus of the University of California sometime in that fall of 1967. For his lecture, there was an advertisement in the Berkeley campus newspaper. Attending the Process recruiting meeting was a former dental student, Victor Wild, a twenty-seven-year-old dropout from Los Angeles. Wild had been attending dental school in Chicago and had experienced a vision on LSD that involved a Christ-figure telling Wild to gather up a group of followers and go to California. Later he associated this vision-wraith of Christ with Robert DeGrimston.

        He went to San Francisco in 1967 where he found employment servicing artificial kidney machines. He had been graduated in 1964 from UCLA with a degree in zoology.

        Evidently Wild lived at 407 Cole Street near Panhandle Park. He was living in a commune where other ripe plums