The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large

by Nigel Cawthorne

  In the summer of 1978 the body of another young woman was found in a shallow grave on Woodland Road in Waunakee, a small town nine miles north of Madison. She had been killed by a blow with a blunt object to the head and had been dead for more than three days. After two days the body was identified as that of 18-year-old Julie Ann Hall, who had close ties to the University of Wisconsin. On 1 May 1978, she had got a job as a library assistant on the campus. She was last seen on a Friday night at the Main King Tap, a bar near Capital Square in Madison. Again, there was little evidence and no suspects.

  Julie Speerschneider, aged 20, spent most of the evening of 27 March 1979 at the 602 Club, a bar at 602 University Avenue. Then she decided to hitch-hike to a friend’s house, but she disappeared on the way. Soon after, a man called the police and told them that he had given Julie a lift. He had recognized her from her description in the newspapers and on the media. She had been with a male companion, he said, and he had dropped off at the corner of Brearly and Johnson. He gave a detailed description of the man, but detectives were unable to identify him, even though Julie had many friends at the time of her disappearance. She had worked at the Red Caboose Day Care Center, where she was described her as friendly and reliable. Relatives and friends clubbed together to offer a reward and they even consulted a psychic in hope of finding her.

  Julie Speerschneider had still not been found when, in April 1980, the dead body of Susan LeMahieu, aged 24, was discovered lying in the weeds near the Madison Arboretum. Six years before she had graduated from Madison’s East High School, though she was physically handicapped and mildly retarded. When she had gone missing on 15 December 1979, police did not suspect foul play, believing that she might have grown confused and wandered off because of her mental incapacity. Like Christine Rothschild, she had died of multiple stab wounds to the chest.

  One year later, 16-year-old Charles Byrd was hiking along the Yahara River when he came across the remains of Julie Speerschneider. She had been missing for over two years and her body was so badly decomposed that it was impossible to establish the cause of death. In July 1981, the body of Shirley Stewart, a 17-year-old who worked at the Dean Clinic, was found dumped in woodlands to the north of Madison. She had been missing for over 18 months and, again, her body was so badly decomposed that the cause of death could not be determined.

  Another year passed. Then on 2 July 1982, 19-year-old student Donna Mraz was on her way home from a diner on State Street, where she worked as a waitress to pay for her tuition. Behind Camp Randall Stadium, she was attacked and stabbed repeatedly. She never regained consciousness. According to the police was “to all intents and purposes . . . dead when she hit the ground”. There was no evidence of sexual assault and her pay cheque, money and keys were left on the body. Again the police was confronted by a motiveless killing with no witnesses and little hope of any promising leads.

  Over two years later, Janet Raasch, aged 20, went missing after a friend had dropped her off on Highway 54 in the town of Buena Vista on 11 October 1984. She was a business major in her third year at the University of Wisconsin and also worked at the DeBot Center on campus. Five weeks later, her partially clad body was found by deer hunters in woods southeast of Highway 54, around two miles from where she was dropped. Once again decomposition made it impossible to ascertain the cause of death. But although the coroner was unable to specify the exact time of death, he said she could have died between a week and 10 days before her body was found. She had been missing for over five weeks.

  There the murders ended. It is thought that they were committed by the same hand. In each case there was no clear motive for the attack. All the victims were young women, who wore their hair long and parted it in the same way. This was reminiscent of the victims of the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, who went to the electric chair in 1989. They were all associated in some way with the University of Wisconsin either attending classes there, or living or working on campus. Their bodies were found in and around Madison and concealed in wooded areas a little way from a road.

  In 1984, America’s most prolific serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to several of the murders, but later recanted. Lucas had a long history of random slayings, but he also had a reputation for making false confessions. Given that he was in prison when several of the murders were committed, it seems unlikely that he was involved.

  Although the cases are reviewed periodically, Captain James Lamar of the Sheriff’s Department Operations Division in Portage County, Wisconsin, pointed out: “There’s not much investigators can do without new information.”

  Although everyone was relieved that the series of killings seems come to an end, without the arrest and conviction of the culprit, no one knows whether he has actually stopped, or moved on to some other area or found some better way to conceal his activities. Of course he could be dead or incarcerated. Serial killers rarely give up of their own volition.

  Massachusetts’ Murderers

  The towns of Marlborough, Massachusetts and neighbouring Hudson appear to have a serial killer on their hands.

  On 24 September 2003, pupils from the Hillside School in Marlborough were clearing a track for a cycle path in a wooded area behind the school when they discovered the remains of an unidentified woman. She was white, aged between 20 and 35, and between 4 foot 11 inches to 5 foot 1 inch tall.

  The woman had been in her shallow grave for up to three years before her discovery and her body was badly decomposed. But the police deduced that she had been wearing blue plaid flannel pyjama pants from “B-Time”, a black and red long-sleeved “Guess” shirt made in 2000 and, over it, a dark greenish blue zip-front shirt with blue and white stripes on the sleeves. On her wrist, she wore a gold bracelet with “#1 Mom” engraved on it.

  Investigators began searching the area for further clues and on 29 September they found a second shallow grave around 100 yards from the first. This time the remains could be identified. They belonged to 29-year-old Carmen Rudy, who had last been seen at her sister’s home 15 miles away in Worcester the previous September. Although the bodies had not been buried at the same time, they were clearly related.

  Then on 3 March 2004, a contractor was clearing the undergrowth in the same wooded area, just over the city line in Hudson, when he found the decomposed remains of 33-year-old Dinelia Torres, a resident of nearby Worchester. Forensic examination determined that her body had been buried there three to nine months before. She had been reported missing on 1 November and was identified by dental records. Because of the advanced state of decomposition no cause of death could be established in any of the three slayings.

  However, in the case of Torres, the police had a suspect. A year before her body was discovered, she had taken out a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend Robert Toupin, who she claimed had beaten her and threatened to kill her. According the records of Worchester District court, Torres claimed that Toupin had entered her home the morning of 11 March. In the application for a restraining order filed later that day, Torres wrote: “I asked him to stop, he . . . started to punch me all over and I fell to the floor. He started to kick me all over. He would not let me talk. He just continued to hit me all over. After he was done hitting me, he damaged my house. He told me if I called the cops, he will [expletive] kill me.”

  Toupin was married to a woman who he had been married to since high school and was said to be living with her in Oakham. But records show that Torres and Robert J. Toupin had shared a house on Prospect Street in Worchester, owned by one of Toupin’s relatives, and Torres’ family maintain that the couple had a romantic relationship.

  However, Dinelia Torres was a known drug user with convictions for prostitution. Carmen Rudy lived a similar high-risk lifestyle. The victims were all of roughly the same height, weight, age and appearance and, while Dinelia Torres’ body was found 1¼ miles from the other two, both sites were just off Interstate 495.

  “We’re operating on the theory that they may be related,” sai
d Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley. “It’s just too much coincidence . . . I have to say that that increases our concern that the killings are related, and that we may be dealing with someone who fits that description of a serial killer.”

  The Boston FBI office offered the DA’s office the services of America’s top serial-killer hunters at the bureau’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico, Virginia. Meanwhile the Worcester Police Department began reviewing its four adult and twelve juvenile missing-person cases. Investigators then looked into possible connection with other murders in Massachusetts, such as that of 37-year-old Sheila Cormier of Leominster who was missing for years before her body was pulled from a swamp in Lunenberg in 2001. That same year, 17-year-old Latasha Cannon was found with her throat slashed on the grounds of the Raytheon Company in Bedford. And the following year, 19-year-old Melissa Doherty was found bound and burned in Andover. Authorities were also checking out missing person reports and unsolved cases throughout the state.

  Three weeks after the discovery of Dinelia Torres, the police established the identity of the first body. She was 29-year-old Betzaida Montalvo, a drug addict and mother of five. She had been last been seen in late spring of 2003. Investigations had been hampered by the fact she had never been officially reported missing, but her body was finally identified from dental records. All three women were known drug users and were connected to prostitution in the South Main Street area of Worchester.

  Then two prostitutes claimed that they were driven out along the I–290 which leads from Worchester to Marlborough by a client in a pick-up who pulled a cut-throat razor and attacked them. The women said they fought the man off and escaped.

  In May 29-year-old Manuel Bonilla was arrested for three attacks on prostitutes in Worcester in March and April. He allegedly slashed two women and attempted to strangle the third. However, the authorities made no connection between him and the murders.

  On 13 September 2004, the body of another prostitute was found 80 miles away in York County, Maine. Forty-two-year-old Wendy Morello had been stuffed in a trash can in a wooded area. She was from Millbury, two miles outside Worcester, and had been missing for a week. A drug addict, she was a mother of two and the police initially believed that she was murdered locally before being transported to Maine and dumped there. Later, it was concluded that her slaying murder was not connected with the other killings.

  The police in Massachusetts had had similar cases before. From April to September of 1988 a serial murderer haunted New Bedford, Massachusetts, some 60 miles from Worchester. He also picked on drug addicts and prostitutes, dumping the bodies of his victims along the highways outside the city. He clocked up some 11 victims, though two of the bodies are still missing.

  The first victim found was 30-year-old Debra Madeiros. She was last seen when she walked out on her boyfriend on 27 May 1988. On 2 July 1988, a motorist stopped to relieve himself near an exit ramp on I–140 and found a partially clothed skeleton. The remains were identified at those of Debra Madeiros in February 1989.

  Thirty-six-year-old Nancy Paiva went missing on 11 July 1988. Nineteen days later, a body was found near an exit ramp from I–195, but her remains were not identified until December, by which time her killer had moved on. Both the I–140 and the I–195 connect to the I–495, which runs past Marlborough and Hudson.

  Deborah DeMello, aged 34, also went missing on 11 July 1988. Her body was found on 8 November, near the exit ramp on I–195 where Nancy Paiva’s remains were discovered. Three days later a road crew working on the I–195 found the body of 25-year-old Dawn Mendes. She had gone missing a week before.

  On 1 December 1988, the fully clothed skeleton of 25-year-old Deborah McConnell was found just off the I–140. She had been missing since May. Police came upon her fully clothed skeleton during an extensive roadway search prompted by the other killings. Then the body of 28-year-old Rochelle Clifford was found on 10 December 1988 by hunters in a quarry near the I–195, close to where Nancy Paiva and Deborah DeMello had been dumped. She had been missing since April.

  The body of Robin Rhodes was discovered on 28 March 1989, directly across the I–140 from the spot where Debra Madeiros had been found ten months before. Three days later, the body of Mary Santos was found, but not along an interstate. She was found along Route 88 which runs from Fall River to Horseneck Beach several miles outside New Bedford, but the other similarities between her murder and the others led the police to conclude that it was the work of the same man. She had been missing since July 1988. The last body to be found was that of Sandy Botelho, aged 24, whose remains were recovered along I–195. She was found on 24 April 1989, after going missing the previous August.

  The police concluded that two other women were victims of the same killer. They were 19-year-old Christine Monteiro, who was last seen in May 1988, and 34-year-old Marilyn Roberts, who went missing in June.

  At that time the population of New Bedford was less that 100,000 and, unsurprisingly given their similar lifestyles, several of the victims knew each other. Marilyn Roberts and Christine Monteiro were neighbours. Rochelle Clifford was last seen in the company of Nancy Paiva’s boyfriend, though he was cleared of both killings. Robin Rhodes also knew both Rochelle Clifford and Nancy Paiva, as well as Mary Santos and Dawn Mendes.

  The police pursued two suspects. One was Tony “Flat Nose” DeGrazia. He was arrested in May 1989 for the violent rape of several New Bedford prostitutes. He was released on bail in January 1990 after the authorities could find no evidence linking him to the murders. DeGrazia was later arrested again for raping another prostitute. He committed suicide soon after posting bond a second time.

  In August 1990 a grand jury indicted attorney Kenny Ponte for the murder of Rochelle Clifford. Earlier there had been an incident involving Ponte, Clifford, another man and a gun. Ponte was a known drug user who had other run-ins with the law. In September 1988 – around the time the killings stopped – Ponte shut his law office and moved to Florida. However, in March 1991, special prosecutor Paul Buckley dropped the charges against Ponte on the grounds that he had found no evidence on which to proceed.

  There is speculation that the New Bedford serial killer is the same man as Portugal’s “Lisbon Ripper”, who began killing drug-addicted prostitutes in Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and the Czech Republic around the time the New Bedford killings ended. New Bedford has a sizable Portuguese immigrant population. Because his victims in Europe are so widely dispersed, it is thought that he works as a long-distance lorry driver. This would explain why the New Bedford victims were all found near interstates or other main roads – and it may also connect him to the I–495 killings in Marlborough and Hudson. Neither the I–495, the New Bedford slayer nor the Lisbon Ripper has ever been identified.

  Newark’s Nixings

  In April 1998, Essex County set up a task force to re-examine the cases of 14 African-American women murdered over the previous five years. The women’s bodies were all found in abandoned buildings or vacant lots within a few miles of one another. The women were aged between 19 and 37. Most were prostitutes. However, the method of murder varied. Some were stabbed, while others were strangled or suffocated.

  Nine of the 14 were killed in Newark, two in nearby East Orange and three in Irvington. In neighbouring Union County, the country prosecutor appointed a homicide detective to determine if four unsolved slayings of black female prostitutes between 1988 and 1994 could be linked to the Essex County slayings.

  New Haven Homicides

  Eleven-year-old Diane Toney was last seen alive as she was watching the “Freddy Fixer” parade in the Hill section of New Haven, Connecticut on 18 May 1969. Five months later her fractured skull was found in a wooded area off Route 80 in North Guilford. It was clear that she had been beaten to death with a rock. The rest of her skeleton was later found in the same woods, wrapped in the green polka-dot dress she had been wearing when she disappeared.

  By th
en 10-year-old Mary Mount was abducted from New Canaan, Connecticut. She was last seen on 27 May 1969, chasing her kitten. Her body was found on 17 June in the woods by the Norwalk Reservoir in Wilton, less than five miles away. She had also been beaten to death with a rock.

  Three days after Mary Mount went missing, 14-year-old Dawn Cave had a fight with her sister and stormed out of her home in Bethany, some 35 miles away. Her body was discovered in a meadow northwest of New Haven two weeks after Mary Mount’s. Again she had been beaten to death with a rock. Post mortem examinations revealed that the girls had been killed shortly after they had been kidnapped.

  New York City police became involved on 9 July, when nine-year-old Wanda Waldonada was raped and strangled in Brooklyn. Witnesses recalled seeing a white car near the scene of the crime. In Connecticut, a white car with New York licence plates had been seen in both New Canaan and Bethany. Its driver had been reported for attempting to lure children away from their homes. But this tantalizing “lead” took homicide investigators nowhere in their search for suspects.

  Then in September 1970, 5-year-old Jennifer Noon went missing as she walked home from her school in New Haven, Connecticut, to her home to have lunch. Eight days later her body was found dumped in the woods in the Evergreen Avenue section of Hamden, Connecticut, less than five miles away. She too had been beaten to death with a rock.