May 7: The first known victim of the Genesee River Monster
Plus: the disappearance of a three-year-old California twin, unsolved I-70 Strangler murder case, and more.
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Today in True Crime: Quick Hits
5 years ago: On May 7, 2019, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office announced they had finally identified the woman who had become known as the "Sheep's Flat Jane Doe” 37 years after her murder.
10 years ago: On May 7, 2014, corrections officer Andrew Wagner was stabbed and killed by his fiancée, Stephanie Fernandes, in their Worcester, Massachusetts, townhouse. Fernandes is currently serving an 8-10 year sentence for voluntary manslaughter.
20 years ago: On this day in 2004, 36-year-old Thomas Wayne Grammer was shot and killed in his apartment in Lakeland, Florida. The murder went unsolved until Florida Crime Stoppers Group distributed “cold case” playing cards to Polk County inmates, who eventually identified Grammer’s killers when they saw the victim’s face on a three of spades.
1971: Serial killer commits his first murder…of an adult
Iowa-born serial killer Carroll Cole had a classically horrible relationship with his mother. She forced him into dresses and brought him along while she cheated on his father; Cole was so infuriated by her that when he committed his first murder at age eight, he said he was doing it to “get even with my mother.”
After numerous acts of violence—and though numerous authorities at mental institutions realized that Cole had significant issues with women and seemed to want to kill them all—he was released back into society.
There, he continued to kill.
On May 7, 1971, he picked up a woman named Essie Louise Buck at a bar in Dallas. They both drank heavily. She reminded him of his mother—a cheater, he said later. And so he strangled her and dumped her nude body in a field.
He was arrested at the scene of another murder, and at first, he was sentenced to life in prison. But when his mother died while he was locked up, Cole decided he was okay with being extradited to Nevada—the site of two of his murders—where he would probably get the death sentence.
He was happy to be given the sentence, and was executed by lethal injection in 1985. “I’m the person who slid through the cracks in the medical and psychiatric system,” he said.
Dive Deeper
Read: Caroll Cole: The serial killer you didn’t know was born in Sioux City, SiouxlandProud
Listen: Carroll Edward Cole, True Crime All The Time
Watch: Serial Killer Documentary: Carroll Cole (The Alcoholic Cannibal), Serial Killers Documentaries
1972: Arthur Shawcross claims first victim
Before killing his first victim, Arthur Shawcross had been abused by his mother, married three times, and lied about fighting in the Vietnam War.
He was already an extremely troubled person, spotted with red flags, when he convinced two young boys to go fishing with him in Watertown, New York.
Their names were Jack and Allen Blake, and their mother was disturbed when he brought them back home. She told her sons never to go off with a stranger again.
Tragically, Jack ignored her. He went off with Shawcross a week later, perhaps lured along by promises of more fishing. Instead, Shawcross raped and killed him.
A few months later, Shawcross did the same to an eight-year-old girl.
Shawcross was given a maximum of 25 years in prison for the murders, but was released after serving 14. Unbelievably, he was declared “no longer dangerous.” He went on to kill 12 more people.
When he was arrested for that second string of killings, Jack’s mom told the press, “I’m not shedding tears because I’ve got nothing left.”
Dive Deeper
Read: Family relives pain, anger of child's slaying in 1972, Democrat and Chronicle
Listen: Arthur Shawcross - The Genesee River Monster, Murder, Mystery & Makeup
Watch: Interview With A Serial Killer: Arthur Shawcross Tells All On 17-Year Killing Spree, Absolute Crime
1985: A victim of the I-70 Strangler disappears
Eric Allen Roettger was trying to get a summer job. He was troubled, according to his sister. He was artsy, he liked Led Zeppelin, he hung out with drug addicts. But he was trying.
The 17-year-old had a day of interviews lined up, but instead of making it to any of them, Roettger disappeared. He was last seen climbing into a car near a bus stop, apparently taking the driver up on his offer for a ride instead of taking the bus.
His body was found two days later in a rural part of Ohio. He was missing a shirt and had been strangled by a rope.
Technically, Roettger’s murder has never been solved. You can find his name in a list of victims of the I-70 Strangler, an unknown serial killer who murdered young men and boys around Indiana and Ohio’s Interstate 70.
But the suspect behind those murders, and thus the most likely person to have killed Roettger, was a bizarre, thrift-store-chain-owning man named Herbert Richard Baumeister.
Baumeister shot himself before he could be convicted of any crimes, but he owned a creepy place called Fox Hollow Farms that was absolutely stuffed to the gills with buried bodies and bone fragments.
If he killed the bodies on his farm—as well as the I-70 victims—that puts Baumeister’s victim count at close to 20, and perhaps even more.
Dive Deeper
Read: Unidentified man's death a homicide, coroner rules, Dayton Daily News
Listen: Death and Chaos - The I-70 Strangler, True Crimecast
Watch: Herb Baumeister: The I-70 Strangler, this is MONSTERS
2000: Alicia Versluis goes missing
According to Alicia Versluis’ mom, Simona, their family was having a lovely day at the park near their home in Pomona, California, when three-year-old Alicia went missing.
Simona claims she was reading for a minute or two—and looked up to find her daughter gone.
But Alicia’s twin sister had a more chilling description of what happened. She told police that Simona “took Sissy and wrapped Sissy in a jacket and put her in the drain.”
When investigators looked into the family, they found that little Alicia and her twin sister had been raised in a nightmarish home: dirty, dangerous, exposed electrical wires, no running water, and exposure to marijuana.
Simona—who was only 19—and her live-in boyfriend, Jeff Jones, were charged with endangering the twins, and while Simona was held on that charge, she gave birth to another child, who was immediately taken from her.
Simona and her boyfriend were eventually charged with second-degree murder, corporal injury to a child, and felony child abuse. They each received sentences of 33 years to life in prison.
To this day, Alicia’s body has never been found.
Dive Deeper
Read: Mother of missing girl charged with endangerment, Los Angeles Times
Newspaper Throwback: 1908
On May 7, 1908, The Los Angeles Times reported on the fate of Belle Gunness—the Norwegian immigrant, mother, and suspected serial killer—and the bodies found on her property in La Porte, Indiana, after her home burned to the ground in April 1908.
Gunness and her three children allegedly died in the fire, but many at the time believed that the corpse identified as Gunness may not actually have been her. A hired hand for the family claimed that the fire was a ruse and that she had skipped town to start afresh after her life of heinous crimes.
Gunness is thought to be behind at least 14 murders committed between the 1880s and 1908 (some estimate as many as 40), and today, she’s considered one of the most prolific female serial killers in history.
Dive Deeper
Read: Photos: Serial killer Belle Gunness, the “La Porte Ghoul”, Chicago Tribune
Long read: Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men, Harold Schechter
Listen: Belle Gunness: Butcher of Men, Crimes of the Centuries
From the Headlines
Where 3 Dead Tourists Were Found Fast, Thousands Remain Missing, The New York Times
Murder in Paradise: The Killing of a VFX Legend, The Hollywood Reporter
Delphi murders trial delayed as suspected killer Richard Allen seen in new mug shot, The Independent
US Army sergeant arrested in alleged murder-for-hire plot against 4 people, including 2 minors: Police, ABC News
Husband of Florida woman missing in Spain is charged with her disappearance, Associated Press
Witness recounts odd moments before and after Shayna Feinman vanished in northern Arizona, AZFamily
Baby girl abducted from New Mexico park found safe after mom and other woman are found dead, NBC News
Man who lived with mother charged with her murder after police find body in bathtub, ABC News
What to Read & Stream
Review: With true crime podcasts and a tart heroine, 'Listen for the Lie' is a gas, The Colorado Springs Gazette
Baby Reindeer: will armchair detectives spell the end for 'true story' dramas?, The Week
The Damsel in the Mirror: Thrillers Where the Heroine Saves Herself, CrimeReads
Road House’s True Crime Inspiration, Explained, CBR
Ten True-Crime Podcasts Nominated For 2024 Clue Awards, Insideradio.com
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