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.
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