In June of 1984, the couple were in Gary, Indiana. It was here that they came across two young girls, 9 year old Annie and 7 year old Tamika Turks. The decomposing body of Tamika was found on the 19th of June, she had been strangled. Annie somehow managed to survive the attack. Although she was alive, she had suffered a vicious sexual assault by the pair.
On the day that Tamika’s body was discovered, Coleman befriended 25 year old Donna Williams, also of Gary, Indiana. On the 11th of July, the body of Williams was discovered in Detroit. She had also been strangled. On the 28th of June that same year, the pair entered the house of Mr and Mrs Palmer Jones of Dearborn Heights in Michigan. The couple were badly beaten by Coleman and Brown, who then stole money from the house and the Palmer’s car.
On the 5th of July 1984, Coleman and Brown were in Toledo Ohio. Coleman then befriended a young mother by the name of Virginia Temple. Virginia just seemed to disappear along with her nine year old daughter Rachelle. Relatives were concerned and entered the young mother’s house, they found the younger children alone in the house and the bodies of Virginia and Rachelle were both found in a crawlspace. Both of the victims had also been strangled.
A bracelet was stolen from the Temple residence, and this was later found under the body of Tonnie Storie which was found in Cincinnati. Coleman and Brown then tied up another couple and again stole a car and a watch. The watch was also later found under the body of another victim. It appears they were leaving a trail possibly to taunt the authorities.
On the 12th of July 1984, the F.B.I were actively seeking Coleman. He was added to the top ten most wanted list as a special addition. This was only the tenth time since the lists inception in 1950, that such an addition had been made. The very next day, Coleman and Brown arrived at the home of Harry and Marlene Walters. They were enquiring about a camper van the Walters had for sale. By the time they left the house with the camper van, Marlene was dead, and Harry was unconscious.
Sheri Walters arrived at the home of her parents at around a quarter to four. At the bottom of the basement steps, she found her dead mother and her father who was barely alive. Her father had his hands cuffed behind his back, and her mother’s hands were tied behind her back. Her head was covered up with a bloody sheet. The coroner’s report was sickening as it disclosed the full horror of what her mother had endured.
Marlene Walters had been struck across the head between twenty and twenty five times. She had twelve lacerations across her face and scalp, some of these had been made with a pair of vice grips. The back of her skull had been completely obliterated and parts of her skull and brain were found to be missing as well. The couples Plymouth Reliant car had then been stolen. Coleman’s finger prints were found on shards of broken glass left at the scene.
Two days later, the stolen car turned up in Kentucky. This was where the couple kidnapped a college professor named Oline Carmical Jr. He was bundled into the boot of the car, and the couple drove to Dayton. When they reached Dayton they abandoned the car with the professor still in the boot. They then stole another car from Reverend Gay and his wife.
On the 20th of July 1984, Coleman and Brown were recognised crossing the street. They were spotted by someone who knew Coleman from his old neighbourhood. He pulled into the next gas station and called the Police. When the authorities arrived in the area, Brown tried to casually walk away, but both were stopped. Brown was found to be carrying a handgun. Both were taken into custody, where they were identified by fingerprints.
Back at the police station, Coleman was subjected to a strip search. It was here it was discovered that he was carrying a steak knife in between two pairs of socks that he was wearing. The killing spree had finally been brought to an end. The week after the pair were arrested, 50 police officers gathered to decided how the pair should be prosecuted. Michigan was ruled out, as it did not have the death penalty. It was decided to take the trial to Ohio.
The murderous pair were convicted of two murders. They were found guilty of the murders of Tonnie Stone and of Marlene Walters. They were also charged with many other violent crimes. Both were sentenced to face execution. Coleman was to then launch numerous arguments against his conviction and subsequent sentence. His appeals were to ultimately fail.
In total Coleman had received four death sentences. He had the death sentence issued in three different states. On the 26th of April 2002, Coleman was finally put to death by lethal injection in Lucasville state prison in Ohio. In 1991, Debra Brown had her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment but without the possibility of parole.
Herb Baumeister
Herb Baumeister was born on the 7th of April 1947. He was the eldest of four children and had a perfectly normal childhood. During his teenage years he was observed to have exhibited forms of anti-social behaviour. He played with dead animals, and once urinated on a teacher’s desk. He also was claimed to have picked up a dead crow, and placed it on a teacher’s desk when she wasn’t looking. He once told a friend he pondered what it would be like to taste human urine.
Herb’s father grew concerned with his son’s erratic behaviour and had him sent for tests. He was soon diagnosed with having schizophrenia, but received no further psychiatric treatment. At school, it was clear that he did not fit in. As he grew into an adult, he displayed a strong work ethic, but also more bizarre behaviour, he worked in various different jobs, but he still never seemed to fit in with any other social groups.
Herb moved through many different jobs, at one point he was working for BMW, when he urinated on his boss’s desk. He was later fired after urinating on a letter to the Governor of Indiana. He then married Julie Salter in 1971 and fathered three children, then in 1988 he founded the chain of Sav-a-Lot discount stores. He soon became an affluent member of society, and was well liked by his neighbours. Then in the early 1990’s gay men started to disappear in the Indianapolis area. Police were soon looking deeper into the cases.
The mother of 28 year old Alan Broussard contacted the police to tell them her son was missing. He was a heavy drinker who had last been seen leaving a gay bar. The year previous a 31 year old man named Jeff Jones had also just vanished without a trace. This had not been solved. Then in July another man the 34 year old Alan Goodlet also vanished after visiting a gay bar.
In 1993, the same investigators were contacted by a man named Tony Harris. He claimed that a gay friend of his had been killed by a man named Brian Smart. He also claimed that the same man had tried to kill him as well. The caller gave the police a license plate number. The license plate turned out to belong to Herb Baumeister. At first the information was dismissed, but then the witness opened up and told more of his story to the police.
Tony told the authorities about the sexual encounter he had had with Herb. Police soon came round to the idea, that this information may actually be vital in solving the cases. The investigators decided to approach Herb Baumeister and they then informed him that he was a suspect. When they asked to search his house, Herb refused.
Investigators then approached Julie Baumeister his wife, but she also refused permission for the family home to be searched. The detective left her with a card, and he told her if she ever changed her mind, then she should call him. It wasn’t until June of 1996, that Julie finally changed her mind and consented to a search. She had recently become so scared of her husband’s mood swings and erratic behaviour that she had filed for a divorce, and then she finally agreed to the search.
The couple lived on an 18 acre estate that was named ‘Fox Hollow Farm’. The house had four bedrooms, an indoor swimming pool and stables. The search of the property took place while Herb was away on holiday. The bodies of eleven men were found during the search of which only five of the bodies were ever properly identified. Herb fled the scene and made his way to Ontario. It was in Pinery Provincial Park in Ohio, that he took his own life. He shot himself in the head with a .357 magnum.
Herb Baumeister left a three page long suicide note. In the note, he b
lamed his suicide on his failing marriage and failing business. He did not confess to any of the murders of the men found at the estate. He was also suspected of killing another nine men, whose bodies were all found along a business route he travelled often. He was also suspected of killing his brother in Texas, whose death also remains unsolved. His suicide note told that he was going to eat a peanut butter sandwich, and then go to sleep.
Julie was to later disclose that Herb had a controlling nature. They had only had sex six times in twenty five years of marriage, and during those years she had never seen her husband naked. She also revealed that in 1994, one of the couple’s sons had been playing in the garden, when he had uncovered a complete human skeleton. Herb had just dismissed the skeleton as one of his father’s old dissecting skeletons and he had buried it. The subject was then closed.
The children of the couple had often played in the garden amongst the bones and the teeth of many of the victims, and had never even known.
Kristen Gilbert
Kristen Heather Strickland was born on the 13th of November in 1967. She was the eldest of two daughters. Unlike most other serial killers she had a normal childhood and adolescence. As she grew she took on an air of sophistication and was greatly admired by her friends. She did have one serious flaw to her character though, she was a chronic liar. She convinced her friends that her mother was an abusive drunk, and told her friends that she was related to Lizzie Borden.
She soon started to steal from friends, and her boyfriend’s from the time described her as strange and controlling. She would sometimes fake suicide and when angry she would tamper with or scratch her boyfriend’s cars, sometimes she would scratch them with her nails or physically attack the boys themselves. The more people got to know her, the more they shied away from her.
In 1988 Kristen earned a degree and married a man named Glenn Gilbert. In 1989 the couple moved into a new home and she began a new job working at the Veterans Administration medical centre in Northampton MA. She soon settled into her new job and colleagues described her as competent and she seemed committed to her job.
Kristen was described by her superiors as highly skilful. They also noted how well she reacted during medical emergencies. All seemed to be going well in her life. She fell pregnant and soon gave birth to a baby boy. Kristen took time out for maternity leave and when she returned to work, she changed her work shifts. She now worked from 4pm until midnight. The death rate on that particular shift would then triple to that of the previous three years. Throughout each emergency, she was calm and professional and soon won the admiration of her fellow workers.
Kristen soon gave birth to a second child, but now the couple’s marriage seemed to begin to falter. Kristen found friendship with a security guard at the hospital named James G Perrault, and they worked almost the same shift pattern. They began to socialise together and would often go for drinks together after work. Kristen impressed Perrault with the way she always handled emergencies.
The following year, the relationship between the couple became an intimate one. Around this time Kristen’s husband began to notice that his food often had an odd taste to it, whenever Kristen served him. Glenn Gilbert became convinced that his wife was trying to kill him., and told his friends what he suspected. Perrault soon issued her with an ultimatum to choose to be with her husband or to be with him, soon after she left her husband and children.
In early December Kristen and James moved in together, and they seemed blissfully happy. At the medical centre, the deaths were increasing. It wasn’t long before co-workers were whispering among themselves as to how the deaths always occurred on Kristen’s shift. Some of the patients were seriously ill, but it was suspicious that patients with no history of heart complaints were now dying of cardiac arrests.
Although the whispering continued by other members of staff, they could not believe that Kristen could actually be in any way responsible, she was after all a dedicated employee. Some however grew suspicious as to what was happening and began to monitor the drugs that could cause cardiac arrest especially a drug called epinephrine. Soon they discovered that this drug was constantly going missing.
Some of the nurses were now keeping an unofficial eye on the ward. It was one episode that finally drew serious suspicion toward Kristen. In February of 1996, Kristen was desperate to leave early to meet James, she asked that if her patient died would she be allowed to leave work early, and her supervisor agreed. With a short space of time her patient had died from cardiac arrest.
On the 15th of February, Kristen was flushing the intravenous lines of an AIDS patient, when he suddenly passed out. Fellow nurses decided that it was time to report their suspicions to the authorities. Federal investigators soon discovered that on ward C over the previous three years, there had been 350 deaths, all of which had occurred when Kristen was on her shift.
Investigators wanted to know why the death rate had triple on ward C. They soon discovered a motive in that whenever an emergency was called on the ward, Perrault would be summoned. Kristen would administer epinephrine to the patients so her lover would be called and she could be close to him. She could then impress her lover with her medical skills and then in front of other colleagues she would flirt with him.
During the investigations Kristen was no longer working at the hospital and the death rate soon returned back to the normal rate. The relationship between her and Perrault began to dissolve after she displayed outbursts of aggressive behaviour during the course of the investigation. Perrault decided that he should end the relationship as all the fingers of blame were now seemingly pointed at Kristen.
Kristen tried to change Perrault’s mind, but he would not be swayed. She then took an overdose and was admitted to a psychiatric ward. From the ward she phone Perrault and told him:
“You know I did it. I did t. You wanted to know. I killed those guys.”
The following week Perrault told a grand jury what Kristen had confessed to him. Kristen then became disturbed and displayed unpredictable behaviour. She was sure that her lover had now turned against her, so using a toy to disguise her voice, she telephoned the hospital where he was working. In a disguised voice she claimed that there were three bombs in the building which would go off within two hours. The whole hospital had to be evacuated as they took the threat so seriously.
The bomb threat was investigated and Kristen was found to be responsible, she was sentenced to fifteen months imprisonment. During the bomb threat trial, investigators were exhuming bodies of patients that had died suspiciously. In 1998 at the age of 30, Kristen was finally indicted for the murder of four patients, and attempting to kill three others using epinephrine. She was sentenced to life imprisonment.
It was speculated that she may have been responsible for 80 or more deaths, and may have been responsible for over three hundred emergencies. She recently dropped her federal appeal for a new trial for fear that prosecutors could now seek the death penalty.
So now the title of this book should disclose a true meaning, for Devils really do live and walk among us. There is no way to tell what serial killer looks like. The old man who lives in your road may very well be a serial killer, but so to could be that young man who does odd jobs in the neighbourhood. We really have no idea. This may very well be my last book on murderers and serial killers. I now intend to write a novel. These dark stories have invaded too much of my life already.
Midway through this book, I wrote my autobiography. As I stated at the beginning of this book, some serial killers were abused as children. Writing the book, I uncovered parts of my past that I did not wish to relive. I too suffered abuse as a child, but for some reason my path led me in different directions to some who have suffered the same. As much as I felt hurt, I never ever felt the urge to murder.
So what is it that finally pushes a man or a woman over the edge? Who could ever really be sure. We live in a world where horror is one of our favourite pastimes, and we are now so de-sensitized to it. Pe
ople write jokes about children who have disappeared while parents cry themselves to sleep every night worrying about their lost loved one. We have become a sick society, and we just simply forgot to appreciate the good things that we once had.
Now children cannot play safely in the streets without parents fearing for their safety. We laugh at things that would sicken our forefathers, and we simply forgot to love and support those who need us the most. In this technical day and age, it saddens me that we still cannot find Maddie McCann. Someone somewhere knows what happened to this little girl, and my heart goes out to her parents. I pray that one day she will be found alive safe and well.
My thoughts about where she may be are far darker and sadden me greatly. To Kate and Gerry McCann, I say never give up hope, or you will have nothing left to hold on to.
Martin McGregor 2010
The Killers Trilogy Page 16