Hometown Killer

by Carol Rothgeb

  The picture is much clearer—if Sapp’s version is to be believed—of what transpired the fateful night that Belinda Anderson crossed the path of a serial killer. And the night that Helen Preston turned to a stranger for comfort.

  According to Sapp, all of his victims “offended” him in some way. Were they chance encounters? Or did he troll whichever neighborhood he lived in at the time, always on the lookout for the common denominator—a vulnerable female?

  Did Sapp plan the murders of Phree and Martha? Or did things just “get out of hand”?

  According to Joe Jackson, John Balser’s uncle and guardian, in one of his statements to the detectives: “John has told me they knew on Friday it was going to happen.”

  Did one of the mentally impaired men set up the meeting with Phree and Martha? Or was it Sapp? At any rate, Jamie knew about it ahead of time because he told his friends that he had a “date with two whores.” Alex also knew about it beforehand because he told the others on Light Street that he had to “go meet some girls.”

  Phree and Martha told their friends, Deon and Matthew, that they were “going to a party” that night. The girls may have agreed to meet the guys because Phree knew John Balser. Or maybe because they wanted to have some “fun” with them. Or maybe they had no idea they were supposed to “meet” these guys anytime, anywhere. The guys had arranged earlier to meet Sapp on Linden Avenue to “go partying.” Perhaps he had told the others they were going to “meet some girls.”

  Many nights I’ve fallen asleep trying to picture exactly how everything played out that night—how it all came together.

  One of the most unusual facts in this case is the involvement of the mentally retarded men. Sapp’s younger brother, J.R., John Balser, and Jamie Turner had all gone to Town and Country Day School. Most likely, they all “looked up to Sapp” because he befriended them despite their handicap and he was “normal,” at least in their eyes. And, perhaps, he befriended them because it made him feel superior.

  The strange letters, which were received by Phree and Martha’s families, the police, and the newspaper, were most likely written by John Balser. They “sound” like John. Did Sapp tell John to write the letters?

  Was it because Sapp coached him that John went to the police every few months with a different name? A different vehicle? Was Sapp in the background orchestrating the investigation? He was certainly the one in control on the night of August 22, 1992.

  Even though there was much talk in various statements (and even “confessions”) about which ones raped the girls—besides Sapp—they would have had to wear a condom. It is very doubtful that it happened that way. It is believed that Sapp controlled the mentally retarded men to the point that he did not allow them to “have sex” with Phree and Martha.

  Sapp made sure they covered their tracks so well that very little of any evidentiary value was found outside the pond area and the Lion’s Cage. In fact, very little was found at the crime scenes. Fingerprints were wiped off the skids and the bicycle—and anything else that they might have touched.

  And the fact that no evidence was found at the house on Linden Avenue doesn’t mean that nothing happened there. If the girls were only knocked unconscious at that location, there could easily have been no blood to find.

  No doubt Sapp was aware that David Marciszewski put a pair of underpants in his pocket, or maybe he found out later. John and David were so sure the panties were in the “hole” next to their house on Light Street, but the investigators found no evidence at that location. Did John or David tell Sapp that was where they hid them? Did Sapp take them out of the “hole,” in another effort to taunt the police?

  And did Sapp then “hide” other clothing, including a pair of underpants that had nothing to do with the case, in the cistern at the house on Lagonda Avenue?

  That house is where Wanda was working, taking care of Eleanor, the night Phree and Martha were murdered. The backyard of the house is where Sapp and the others went after they went to the Lion’s Cage. It is where Sapp threatened them and they planned what to say if they were ever questioned. Sometime after the murders, Wanda and John moved from Light Street to the upstairs apartment in this same house.

  In Sapp’s confession he talked about being at John’s house on Lagonda Avenue. Since John didn’t live there until after the murders, it’s obvious that they were still in contact with each other.

  Sapp also said he saw Wanda remove Martha’s necklace. Perhaps he was so certain of his control over Wanda that he just “let it go.” Even after Wanda’s plea bargain, she wouldn’t mention Sapp’s name.

  But, of course, Sapp’s downfall was that he left a minute part of himself inside Phree and Martha. Perhaps he thought it was another way to mock the police, to see if “they had their shit together.”

  There were several opportunities for the others to call the police that night and they chose not to: John could have called the police instead of calling Wanda. Wanda could have called on her way back to Eleanor’s or after she got there. It is believed that Sapp was left alone with Phree and Martha while all of the others later went to Light Street to pick up Wanda and Robby (and Willie?). Any of them could have dialed 911.

  If indeed they were in more than one vehicle from Linden Avenue to the pond area, the person driving the second vehicle could have driven to a pay phone or the police station or the hospital. Even if Sapp was right behind them, he was outnumbered, and the girls were still alive at that point.

  The truth of what happened that night, no doubt, lies in the combination of their stories. The deeds that John attributed to Damien Tyler, Lloyd Tyler, Frank Fisher, Jason Holmes, Jake Campbell, etc.—replace those names with William Sapp.

  Profilers generally group serial killers into one of three categories: organized, disorganized, and mixed.

  Although there are differing opinions among the professionals, a close look at Sapp’s methods reveals that he could be considered “mixed”:

  Even though the bodies were left at the scene of the murders, he did try to conceal them, with much success in the case of Belinda Anderson.

  The weapons he used were whatever was convenient, but he then took the weapons away from the scene and hid them—with much success—especially with the third lava rock, which still has not been found. It’s unlikely that the piece of rebar used in the attack on Helen Preston would ever have been found if he had not told the detectives exactly where it was hidden.

  Sapp must have thought he was very clever, revisiting the crime scenes, and even returning two of the lava rocks to the pond area.

  He did not take all of each victim’s clothing; he took the pieces with his “signature” on them. Belinda’s pants were never found. In the case of Helen Preston, because the area was not as secluded as the other crime scenes, he may have thought he heard someone coming and panicked.

  He managed to manipulate or force his victims into secluded areas, rendering them even more vulnerable, before the onslaught of his attacks.

  If the initial assault on Phree and Martha did indeed occur on Linden Avenue and was then finished in the pond area, this proved just how much William K. Sapp was in control of his “rage.”

  For the most part, Sapp was able to depersonalize his victims, raping them after they were dead or at least unconscious. He seemed to have a more difficult time depersonalizing Belinda Anderson: “I’d never seen her before . . . but [she] sure was pretty. . . .”

  It is a rare serial killer that has a wife and children during the period in which he is committing his horrendous crimes. Sapp’s son, Aaron, was only three years old when Phree and Martha were murdered. Karen probably was just realizing she was pregnant with Vanessa when Helen Preston was viciously attacked and left for dead. And Brad was born the month before Belinda Anderson’s decomposed body was found buried in the garage on South Fountain Avenue.

  Karen is believed to have been the dominant personality in hers and Bill’s relationship. And, in fact, on the day that he a
ttacked Ursula Thompson, when Karen had told him to go to the Laundromat and he returned home with the unwashed clothes, she was livid.

  There was much speculation among the authorities: “At what point in time would he have killed her?”

  It is also very unusual for a serial killer’s victims to be in different age groups. Sapp’s known victims range in age from eleven to fifty-eight. The characteristics they all shared were their vulnerability and availability: He was able to manipulate, dominate, intimidate, and overpower them.

  There was a time when the authorities very much believed that Sapp was responsible for the attack on Caitlin Levalley on Penn Street Hill and the murder of four-year-old Avery Bailum as a result of the arson on Miller Street. But now, for reasons that cannot be revealed here because of ongoing investigations, he is no longer considered to be a suspect in these cases.

  There are differing opinions about the murder of Gloria Jean White: Some still believe Sapp is responsible for her death; others do not. Although he has since “confessed” to her murder, he was not able to describe the crime scene.

  He was never considered to be a suspect in the case of Peggy Casey, but he has also “confessed” to her murder. There is no reason to take his confession seriously. Peggy Casey was killed by someone who was extremely organized. All of Sapp’s known victims were found “in his own backyard.” And even though his crimes were violent to the point of “overkill,” none of his victims had been dismembered.

  In 1993 a bill granting condemned prisoners in Ohio the option to choose either death by electrocution or death by lethal injection was passed and signed into law by the then governor, George V. Voinovich. Seven days before the scheduled execution, the death row inmate would be asked to choose between the two methods. The law stipulated that if the prisoner did not choose, the default method of execution would be death by electrocution.

  On March 23, 2000, a motion was filed on behalf of William K. Sapp for a stay of execution to appeal the convictions and the death sentence. His first execution date of September 1, 2000, came and went.

  A little over a year later, on November 15, 2001, Governor Robert Taft signed House Bill 362, eliminating the electric chair as a form of execution. Therefore, a condemned prisoner can no longer choose his (or her) method of execution.

  In February 2002, Ohio’s electric chair, nicknamed “Old Sparky,” was disconnected from service.

  This, of course, destroyed Sapp’s chance to “fulfill his destiny.” It seemed that his “lifelong dream to sit in the electric chair” would never come true.

  Epilogue

  When Captain Steve Moody went to visit William Sapp on death row in the spring of 2002, Sapp claimed that he had converted to Catholicism and had taken the name Francis, after Saint Francis of Assisi.

  Captain Moody said, “Well, Bill, you know who else’s name was Francis, don’t you?”

  Sapp replied, “Yeah . . . Al Graeber.” (His full name was Francis Albert Graeber.)

  Sincere? Or another game?

  Rumor had it that he had “mellowed somewhat.”

  Periodically, he confessed to a murder that the authorities knew he couldn’t have committed. But he succeeded—for a moment, anyway—in getting their attention. And it probably helped break the monotony of being on death row.

  Karen Sapp was nowhere to be found. Most likely, she moved back to her home state of Mississippi, where she lived before she moved to Florida—before she met and married Bill Sapp. She no longer had custody of her children. They were placed in foster care and—rumor had it—adopted by a “good family.”

  The families of Belinda, Phree, and Martha continued to try to heal.

  No one seemed to know for sure where Helen Preston was now living.

  Sadly, Ursula Thompson could still be found in the downtown area of Springfield—still accepting rides with men she’d never seen before.

  Sergeant Michael Haytas retired in December 2002, after more than twenty-seven years on the force, most of them spent doing crime scene investigations. He had a woodworking shop named C.S.I.—Country Styled Images. His wife, Carol, was a retired nurse. Over the years, because they both witnessed sad and disturbing events in their professions, they were able to talk to each other and support each other.

  Both of their sons, Matthew and Joshua, were now police officers with the Springfield Police Department. Their daughter, Heather, was a full-time mother.

  I still correspond with him and his wife by e-mail on a regular basis.

  Sergeant Barry Eggers, his hair and mustache prematurely silver, continued to head the Crimes Against Persons Unit. Several years ago they combined the adult and the juvenile sections of this unit, so he was a very busy man. (But he always answered my e-mails!) He took advantage of the on-site (Public Safety Building) weight room, which helped him to cope.

  On January 1, 2003, Steve Moody became the chief of police of the Springfield Police Department.

  As a captain he continued, even though it was not required, to go to crime scenes, even if it was 2:00 in the morning. He didn’t do this to take anything away from his men, but rather to be there in case they needed anything and to make sure they had the resources they needed to do their jobs.

  He still loved coming to work.

  I interviewed him on August 23, 2002, the day after the ten-year “anniversary” of the homicides of Phree Morrow and Martha Leach. These were his words:

  “I drove down to the pond last night. It was about midnight—and just stood there and looked. It hasn’t changed that much. You look at things like this and you take it personally that someone would do this in your community. And not so much just ‘How dare they?’ I think you have to take it personally to be able to successfully go about your job objectively—do the right thing. Because you’re also talking about taking somebody’s freedom away for the rest of their life—or the death penalty. So, I mean, you don’t want to half-ass it.”

  Afterthoughts

  All the books I’ve read and all the movies and documentaries I’ve seen did not prepare me for the experience of watching a true sociopathic personality at work in the courtroom.

  The only things the lawyers talked about that mattered to William Sapp were the ones that involved his feelings and his childhood and anything about him.

  He listened to the testimony of the two little girls’ mothers and saw their tears and their heartache. He saw the chilling crime scene tape of how Phree and Martha were found, their skulls crushed with a huge rock.

  And he watched as Belinda’s sister, Deborah, told of the last time she saw her alive. He surely heard Christine Anderson’s sobs after the viewing of yet another crime scene tape, in which Belinda’s badly beaten body was exhumed from her shallow and improper grave in the dirt floor of a garage.

  He saw the woman whom he had savagely beaten and had left for dead limp into the courtroom—a woman whose physical scars would forever remind her of that horrible encounter.

  He watched with interest, but absolutely no emotion or reaction—and certainly no remorse. It was as if all the pain and tragedy visited upon these victims and their families had nothing to do with him. It was as if he were the only one who had any feelings.

  It is difficult not to take this case personally. I was born and raised in Springfield, Ohio. I have two granddaughters almost exactly the same age as Phree and Martha, and I have a daughter the same age as Belinda—the ages they were when they were so viciously and senselessly murdered.

  Although I have concerns—for the most part I believe in capital punishment—but in the case of the State of Ohio v. William Sapp, there is no doubt about his guilt. He confessed to killing a “bag lady” in Florida. He confessed to killing Phree, and Martha, and Belinda. He confessed to leaving Helen for dead. Instead, he maimed her for life.

  I wonder how many others suffered that we’ll never know about. As of this writing, Sapp was still awaiting his fate in a cell on death row.

  Also, I can’t help b
ut wonder how many of us have nodded at a stranger as we passed him on the street, or brushed against a shadow in a theater, or had a friendly conversation about the weather with the nice man standing in line with us at the grocery store—or the bakery—and didn’t have a clue that we were in the presence of evil.

  Crime scene at the pond where Phree Morrow and Martha Leach’s bodies were found, hidden under the brush and skids.

  (Courtesy of the Springfield Police Department)

  Twelve-year-old murder victim Phree Morrow.

  (Courtesy of the Springfield News-Sun)

  Eleven-year-old murder victim Martha Leach.

  (Courtesy of the Springfield News-Sun)

  Belinda Anderson, 31, whose decomposed body was found buried in the dirt floor of a garage.

  (Courtesy of the Springfield News-Sun)

  Phree Morrow’s mother’s house on East Main Street. Martha Leach’s house is visible in the background.

  (Author’s photo)

  Martha Leach’s house on Lagonda Avenue. (Author’s photo)

  Schuler’s Bakery with Strahler’s Warehouse in the background.

  (Author’s photo)

  The multicolored underpants that were found floating in “Devil’s Pond,” just a few feet from Phree Morrow and Martha Leach’s bodies.

  (Courtesy of the Springfield Police Department)

  The same pair of panties—cut right above the crotch—turned inside out.