On June 22, 2013, Brooke went to a bonfire party with her sister and some friends. It was the end of the school year bash that promised a fun-filled summer. Unfortunately, Brooke would never make it home. We know where she was last seen and who she was with but somehow after all of these years, we still do not know what happened to Brooke Farthing.
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Stumbling along through the night, suffering a panic attack, the 21-year-old redhead couldn’t find a ride home. She eventually found one, but the driver had evil intentions. Christina Whitaker wouldn’t be seen by her family again.
November 13, 2009, Christina goes out to a local bar in Hannibal, Missouri, to celebrate with friends. It was the first time she’d been out since giving birth six months earlier. The night took a turn for the worse when Christina has one too many drinks and starts causing a ruckus at the bar.
Christina Whitaker suffered from bipolar disorder, anxiety attacks, and fibromyalgia for years. She had been on medication for three years, trying to get her life back together. Unfortunately, those medications didn’t mix well with alcohol. It is unclear what happened at the party, but Christina was asked to leave. Her friend refused to leave the party and give her a ride home. Now, this left her alone on the street just before midnight. The new mother was at the mercy of the night, and unfortunately, a predator lurked in the shadows.
Christina was very childlike and naive, making her the perfect target for someone to exploit her. Reports say she wandered about trying to find someone to give her a ride home. She asked all of her acquaintances and a few strangers. Everyone refused to provide the troubled woman a ride.
The next morning, Christina’s live-in boyfriend calls Christina’s mother, Cindy. Christina never returned home. Cindy filed a missing person report.
Timeline:
11:45 pm – Christina is asked to leave Rookie’s Bar
Shortly after – Christina enters the Sportsman’s Bar asking for help. She was seen running out of the back entrance in tears.
Her phone was found in the 200th block of 7th St. near 7th and Church St. This is a few yards away from the Sportsman’s bar where she was last seen.
Trafficked:
Within two weeks of her disappearance, an informant gave the Hannibal police a lead. Christina was taken by a group of guys who dealt in drugs and prostitution. The witness claims she was taken two hours away to Peoria, Illinois, and sold into the sex trade.
Several possible sightings have come out of Peoria, leading the authorities to step up their investigation. A waitress claimed to have seen Christina when she went into the Raedene’s Country Cafe, asking for help. The waitress tried to ask what was wrong, but Christina left quickly before the lady could get help.
Another sighting was by a local police officer. He claimed to have seen her and tried to approach her. He said she seemed terrified and fled before he could talk to her.
At one point, a witness comes forward with valuable information. This woman was a patient in the local mental hospital when a woman fitting Christina checked herself in for treatment. She told the witness that she had been kidnapped and was being forced to work as a prostitute. She had gotten pregnant and was beaten so severely that she miscarried. She also claimed they were forcing her to take drugs. The witness went straight to the police, but by the time they arrived, Christina had vanished once again.
What happened to this poor, mentally disabled woman? Who is taking advantage of her? What terror have they struck in her heart to where she’s afraid to run? If you have any information on the disappearance of Christina Whitaker disappearance, please contact the Hannibal Police Department 573-221-0987
Read more about Christina’s case in this book. Steffen Hou interviewed her mother for the chapter about Christina.
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EACH WEEK SYNOVA HIGHLIGHTS OBSCURE COLD CASES ON HER BLOG AS A VICTIMS’ ADVOCATE WITH MISSOURI MISSING ORGANIZATION. SHE NEVER CHARGES FOR HER SERVICES. IF YOU’D LIKE TO SUPPORT HER IN THIS WORTHY CAUSE, PLEASE CHECK OUT THE AFFILIATE LINKS ON THIS PAGE. BY PURCHASING ONE OF HER BOOKS, OR USING THESE LINKS YOU WILL BE SUPPORTING SYNOVA’S WORK ON COLD CASES AND WILL ENSURE HER ABILITY TO CONTINUE TO GIVE A VOICE TO THE VICTIM’S FAMILY.
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Is there such a thing as the perfect crime? The Golden State Killer got away with murder but was still caught 44 years later. But what happens when there isn’t any DNA to link the killer to the icy cold case?
This is what happened in the 26-year-old cold case of the I-70 serial killer. Many people confuse this case with the I-70 Strangler, but that guy was caught. His name was Herb Baumeister, and he targeted gay men.
This case is strange in the fact that the killer walked into a store, shot his weapon, and walked right back out, leaving behind shell casings and the body of a petite brunette. That’s all. There weren’t any sexual assaults to leave DNA. He didn’t torture his victims. He simply wanted to kill.
April 8, 1992:
A 26-yr-old brunette woman opened the Payless Shoe Source shoe store in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her name was Robin Fuldauer. Register receipts show that sometime between 1:30 pm and 2 pm, a man walked into the store and shot Robin in the back of the head with a .22. A customer walks in around 2 pm and finds the place empty and calls the police. She hadn’t noticed Robin’s body face down in the back room. Strangely only a few dollars was stolen from the cash register. Police wonder if this was a botched robbery attempt. That theory would be dropped quickly when the Phantom Assassin found his next target.
April 11, 1992:
Three days later & 700 miles east along I-70, the killer strikes again. This time there were two victims. Both women are petite with shoulder-length brown hair. They were busy closing the bridal shop and were waiting for a late customer to arrive.
Pat Majors and Patricia Smith had already shut off the lights and locked the door when a man knocked on the front glass. Patricia Smith unlocked the door with the customer’s order in hand. He had already paid, so she expected to hand it out the door. Instead, she was pushed inside and ordered to the back by the Phantom Assassin. The two women were quickly shot in the head, but before the killer could leave the customer showed up
The gunman tried to force the man into the back room, but instead, the witness entered a dialog with the killer. Somehow he was able to persuade the killer to let him go. The witness fled the scene and called the police. They arrived on site, not knowing what to expect. The two women were quickly found in the back room. One was declared dead at the scene, and the other died later in the hospital. The only clues left behind were the shell casings and the witness description. Surely that would be enough to catch the guy. Right? Wrong.
April 27, 1992:
Sixteen days later, in Terre Haute, Indiana, the killer strikes yet another petite brunette working alone in Sylvia’s Ceramics. This time the killer gets sloppy. His victim was actually a man named Michael McCowan. The store was named after his mother, Sylvia. He wore his brown hair in a long ponytail and wore earrings. Perhaps the deranged psychopath thought Michael was a female in his haste to appease his inner demons. Who knows? Whatever the case, it was clear that a petite brunette wasn’t safe working alone in a storefront building along I-70.
May 3, 1992:
One week later, the killer would find his next target. This time it was Nancy Kitzmiller. She was working in a western wear store in St. Charles, Missouri.
May 7, 1992:
Four days later, the killer shoots Sarah Blessing in Raytown, Missouri. This time there were two witnesses. The suspect walked down the sidewalk looking in the windows and caught the gaze of a young man in an electronics store. The witness noticed the man was wearing a large, heavy coat and thought it was odd in the warm weather. A few moments later, the witness heard a loud pop next door. When he peered out the door, he saw the stranger calmly walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. The man ran next door to find Sarah had been shot. She died on the scene.
A grocery store employee was out gathering shopping carts from the parking lot and noticed the suspect climbing the slight embankment towards I-70. Both witnesses gave the same descriptions that the police had heard before. He was a white man in his late 20’s – mid 30’s. He was small around 5’9” – 5’10” with sandy blondish hair. Some recall his hair having a dull red tint.
Suddenly the killings seemed to stop leaving the investigators wondering what happened. Maybe the killer had been arrested on an unrelated charge. Police poured over all the surrounding area’s arrest records. One by one, they were all ruled out, and the case was faltering on the brink of becoming a cold case.
September 25, 1993:
Sixteen months after Sarah Blessing’s murder, a killer surfaces in Texas off I-35. His MO is eerily similar to the I-70 killer, and investigators wonder if they could be the work of one man. Mary Glasscock, another petite brunette, was murdered by a single gunshot to the back of the head with a .22. She had been working alone at the Emporium Antiques store in Fort Worth, Texas.
November 1, 1993:
Amy Vess was working alone in a dancewear shop when the killer shot her, stole some cash from the register, and left behind a shell casing from a .22.
January 15, 1994:
Vicki Webb was shot by an unknown killer while she worked alone in a Houston gift shop. A spinal abnormality caused the bullet to ricochet off the vertebrae and lodge in her head. The bullet paralyzed her but didn’t kill her. At that moment, she made a decision that would save her life. She chose to play dead. Webb could hear him rummaging through the cash register, and then he returned to her. He rolled her over and looked at her for a moment. Then he pressed the barrel to her forehead and pulled the trigger. The gun misfired. Almost as an afterthought, he pulled her pants down to her ankles and walked out of the store. Was he not buying her act? Was he planning to assault her sexually and was scared off by something? In later interviews, Webb said she really didn’t think he was aroused by pulling off her pants. It was almost as a last-minute idea. Maybe he was trying to throw off the cops, or maybe his MO was changing. Was he becoming a sexual predator?
Vicki Webb lived, and after many surgeries and countless hours of physical therapy, she was able to walk again. She lived in fear that he would return to finish the job, and for decades, she kept her face out of the newspapers. It wasn’t until an episode of Dark Minds that she allowed an interview. She claims she wants to see her attacker in court to show him that she won. I hope she gets the chance.
Some investigators have a hard time linking the I-70 slayings and the I-35 killings. Here are the facts as I have uncovered them. I believe they are the same man, but I will let you decide.
Location:
– All the hits were within easy access to a major interstate highway providing an easy escape
– All the targets were working alone in a small storefront type store
Victims:
– All the victims were shot execution-style in the back of the head
– No torture
– No sexual assault
– No major reconnaissance beforehand
Weapon: Here is where some investigators question the connection.
– The I-70 killer used a different .22 than the I-35 killer used
My explanations:
During the 16-month hiatus, there was a big media blitz. My theory is that he saw something on the news that scared him. So he changed weapons and location.
Below is a wanted poster to show the killer’s gun. If you have any information on this case, please contact the St. Charles P.D. 1-800-800-3510 or contact your local police department.
If you enjoy this content don’t forget to sign up for Synova’s Weekly True Crime Newsletter. You will receive exclusive content directly in your inbox. As a gift for joining you will also receive the Grim Justice ebook free.
THIS LIST OF LINKS IS NOT AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING SOURCE CITING. ALL OF THE INFORMATION USED IN THIS ARTICLE CAN BE EASILY FOUND ONLINE. LINKS BELOW WERE USED AS SOURCES AND ARE RECOMMENDED READING FOR SYNOVA’S READERS. SYNOVA STRIVES TO CITE ALL THE SOURCES USED DURING HER CASE STUDY, BUT OCCASIONALLY A SOURCE MAY BE MISSED BY MISTAKE. IT IS NOT INTENTIONAL, AND NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED.
A seventeen-year-old boy spends his days exploring his family’s 122-acre property. Even at a tender age, Norman Ladner was an experienced outdoorsman. He loved hunting, fishing, and exploring the nature around him. Why then was he shot in the head and left in the woods to die? Did he witness one of the Dixie Mafia’s narcotics planes? Was the radio device found hanging in a nearby tree used to signal a drop? Thirty years later, these questions are still unanswered.
On August 21, 1989, Norman Ladner spent the day exploring his family land like he had done almost every day. Ladner was the oldest child and was very responsible. Everyone that remembers him tells of his dependability and his kindness. The Ladner family also owned the local country store. When Norman finished his day of exploring the outdoors, he would usually show up at the store to help his parents close up shop and prepare for the next day. You could set your watch by him. Norman always strolled in around 7 pm. On occasion, he would be closer to 7:30, but never later. On this night, his father began to worry when his son never showed up at the store. Norman Ladner Sr. hurried home to see if his son was in his woodworking shop in the barn. The teenager was nowhere to be found. Worried, but not frightened, the father gathered a few friends and together they formed a search party. Everyone thought the boy had gotten lost, or maybe injured. No one expected what they would find in those woods on that fateful night. Sr. stumbled upon his son laying beneath a tree. When he reached down and touched his boy, the chill of death shot through him. The distraught father sat with his son in the dark woods until his search party to could return to the house to call the police. Pearl County Sheriff Lorance Lumpkin arrived on the scene around 10 pm. There he found Norman laying on his back with his legs curled up underneath him. He was rolled partially to the side a gunshot wound in his temple. From the outset, the authorities began speculating the death was a horrible accident. Perhaps the teenager had jumped down from the tree and fell. Maybe the impact caused his rifle to go off. A few days later, the coroner came into the family store with two deputies to speak to the family about his results. He told the family that he was 90% sure it was a terrible accident. Strangely, when the official ruling came out a few days later, it was classed as suicide. The family was shocked. They couldn’t believe it. Nothing about it made sense. Norman was a happy child. If it were suicide, why did he have a large gash on the top of his head? The family went to the sheriff and tried to speak about the case, but the sheriff flat out said they were wrong. It was a suicide, and they were just grieving parents who refused to see the truth. Evidence Against The Suicide Theory:
Why did the boy have a gash on TOP of his head, and how does that relate to suicide? I wasn’t doing a handstand while trying to hold a rifle and shoot himself in the temple.
I was unable to verify this, but it was once reported that the head wound had live maggots while the temple wound held larva. This would lead one to believe that the head wound came first, and the temple wound was secondary.
The police never processed the scene as a crime scene. They didn’t find a bullet. The father would find one on his own later.
Norman’s gun was never tested or fingerprinted.
No one determined what type of weapon that killed him. They never checked because they believed it was his own gun from the beginning.
Norman’s wallet with $140 was missing. I’m sure he just stole his own money, threw away his wallet, and marched into the woods to shoot himself, right? I don’t think so!
The family repeatedly tried to get the sheriff to reopen the case, but he flat out refused. The father, desperate for answers went out into the woods to begin his own investigation. There in the dirt under where his son’s head would have been, they found a bullet with human blood and hair. It seemed to the father that his son was slumped on the ground rolled to the side and someone standing above him shot the boy through the temple. The bullet then traveled through the hair and skull and buried into the dirt. It makes sense. If the boy had somehow pulled the trigger on his own rifle, then the gun would have flown through the air and landed at another location. I should also mention that in some reports the boy was carrying a shotgun and other stories call it a rifle, so I cannot say what type of gun the boy had. I can tell you that it was most likely a shotgun. Either way, it isn’t easy to shoot oneself in the temple with a shotgun or a rifle. Still desperate for answers, the poor father took the bullet to the sheriff and was immediately dismissed. The police claimed that since they didn’t find the bullet, then they couldn’t prove it was the one who killed Norman. The father argued that they didn’t look for a bullet, but it was no use. Since he was getting nowhere with the local sheriff, Norman Sr. took the bullet to the state ballistics lab. He explained how the bullet was too long to fit in his son’s gun and asked the examiner to look over the bullet. The results came back inconclusive siting the same lines as the sheriff almost verbatim. To make matters worse, when the bullet was returned to the family, it was a different one than the bullet they had sent in. During their frequent trips to the coroner’s office, Norman’s mother was approached by a stranger. He asked if he could discuss her son’s case with her, so of course, the mother agreed to step away and speak with him. When the pair were out of earshot of her husband, the stranger turned and uttered a chilling threat to the poor mother. He told her that she had other children and she should just drop this investigation and raise them because they’d never find Norman’s killer. Frightened, she hurried back to Norman Sr. and told him about the threat. The man was gone before anyone could find him. Determined to find the truth, the now somewhat paranoid father makes another trip into the woods to find clues. Three hundred yards from his son’s position, he saw a strange object hanging in a tree. It was a homemade radio device of sorts covered in tape and wires with a small antenna protruding from the top. Of course, the father took it to the sheriff and was dismissed. Norman then turned to a neighbor and told him about the device. The neighbor put him in contact with a retired DEA agent who lived in the area. The DEA agent knew what the strange object was immediately and explained these devices transmit signals. The narcotics plans would fly over an area, and when the signal was picked up on their devices, then they would drop their load of drugs. Was this the answer the family had been looking for? Did their poor boy run up on a drug trafficker and a narcotics drop? To make matters worse, the sheriff would later be charged with dogfighting and other illegal activities. Although some believe he had ties to the local group of Dixie Mafia drug cartel, nothing has been proven. Norman Ladner, Sr. died in 2003, and the sheriff died in 2007. Thirty years have passed, and most of the witnesses are long gone. What evidence the family found is no longer available. Still, questions remain. What happened to Norman Ladner? Was it suicide or murder?
THIS LIST OF LINKS IS NOT AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING SOURCE CITING. ALL OF THE INFORMATION USED IN THIS ARTICLE CAN BE EASILY FOUND ONLINE. LINKS BELOW WERE USED AS SOURCES AND ARE RECOMMENDED READING FOR SYNOVA’S READERS. SYNOVA STRIVES TO CITE ALL THE SOURCES USED DURING HER CASE STUDY, BUT OCCASIONALLY A SOURCE MAY BE MISSED BY MISTAKE. IT IS NOT INTENTIONAL, AND NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED.
If you enjoy this content don’t forget to sign up for Synova’s Weekly True Crime Newsletter. You will receive exclusive content directly in your inbox. As a gift for joining you will also receive the Grim Justice ebook free.
The battle raged for ten long years, but two warriors refused to abandon the case. Lynn Sherry Sposito and FBI agent Keith Bell kept fighting until justice was served for the murders of Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret.
How did this criminal enterprise finally crumble? Although it would take a decade to find justice for the Sherry murders, the foundations began to erode when investigators learned of the Dixie Mafia’s involvement. The first clue came in rather quickly after a neighbor spoke to Lynn Sposito about a strange car in the area on the night of her parent’s murder.
The Greenwood Commonwealth reported on the abandoned car believed to be the getaway car. It was found on September 22, 1987, within a couple of miles from the Sherry house. This 1981 Ford Fairmont would lead straight back to the Dixie Mafia and would get the case rolling.
Not only was this vehicle found close to the murder scene, but it also matched the description given by the neighbor. Strangely, the dome light had been purposely dismantled and the bulb removed. Whoever was driving this car did not want to be seen when he opened the car door.
The car had been stolen off a lot shortly before the murder. Some reports say it was stolen the day before, but in the book Mississippi Mud, it says the car was stolen on the same day. This is not the only discrepancy reported in the book and newspapers. You must remember that both the newspapers and the book were written as the story broke, so they could only write what was known at the time. It is easier to write a story decades afterward in my opinion.
The license plates on this stolen car were registered to another abandoned vehicle from three years earlier. This stolen Firebird had been abandoned in front of an apartment complex. A known Dixie Mafia member named Lenny Sweatman had stripped the car for parts before it was towed away. That tangled web is what led the investigators to the doorstep of the Dixie Mafia. Sweatman would lead to the club owner, Mike Gillich. Gillich would lead back to Kirksey Nix and his Lonely Hearts scam.
The scam was on the police radar for a while and investigators wondered if the murder was connected, but they had no proof. It would take a couple of snitches, a little legal wrangling, and a lot of patience to bring down the killers.
Bobby Joe Fabian was serving a life sentence in Angola prison when he decided to work with investigators in hopes of shortening his sentence. Fabian was the informant who would officially link the scam to the murders. He told of Kirksey Nix’s involvement and implicated Pete Halat. He also told authorities that known hitman, John Ransom was the triggerman. This would later be proved false, but it was enough to get the ball rolling.
Bill Rhodes, an associate of Ransom turned states evidence and claimed he had been hired to drive the getaway car. He claims to have met with Mike Gillich and Pete Halat several months before the murder. Rhodes was to drive and Ransom was to kill the Sherry’s, but this plan fell through when John Ransom was arrested five months before the death of the Sherrys.
As it turns out, Ransom provided the weapon used to kill the judge and his wife, but was not the triggerman as first alleged. Eventually, investigators persuaded Mike Gillich to turn informant. When he finally told his side of the story he spoke in great detail even telling how the hitman put superglue on his fingers so he wouldn’t leave prints behind in the house. He also gives the name of the actual triggerman. Thomas Leslie Holcomb was offered $20,000 to kill the Sherrys.
Nix and the crew were indicted in May 1991, but Pete Halat somehow escaped the noose. It was difficult for investigators seeing the Mayor’s smiling face on the news knowing he was involved in murder, but knowing they didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. Finally, their day came when Gillich spilled the beans and Pete Halat was convicted in 1997.
Halat was working with Nix’s former girlfriend Sheri La Sharpe. Together they would stash the money in a safety deposit box, but Halat got greedy and moved the money to a different safety deposit box that only he had access to. Conveniently there was one other name on the box. Judge Vincent Sherry. Sherry had been Halat’s law partner before he left to become a judge. This would give Halat an “out” when Nix eventually noticed the money was missing. Now Halat could blame the innocent judge for the theft and Halat could get off scot-free.
Although the Sherrys got justice, this story will continue next week with the only man to have inside information on this case. His knowledge would eventually lead to his death and his murder would be labeled suicide. Find out more about Lt. Dan Anderson’s connection to this case and his murder next week.
If you enjoy this content don’t forget to sign up for Synova’s Weekly True Crime Newsletter. You will receive exclusive content directly in your inbox. As a gift for joining you will also receive the Grim Justice ebook free.
THIS LIST OF LINKS IS NOT AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING SOURCE CITING. ALL OF THE INFORMATION USED IN THIS ARTICLE CAN BE EASILY FOUND ONLINE. LINKS BELOW WERE USED AS SOURCES AND ARE RECOMMENDED READING FOR SYNOVA’S READERS.
A mysterious stranger walked into the Hotel President on January 2, 1935, and specifically requested an interior room several floors above the ground level. He was a tall man with a large scar on the left side of his head leading down to a cauliflower ear. A torture filled night lay ahead. Just after midnight on January 5th he would be dead. Eighty-four years later Roland T. Owens would be one of Kansas City’s most infamous unsolved cases. This case will take a few weeks to cover all the details, conspiracies, and theories.
Roland T. Owens sauntered into the hotel President on January 2nd around 1:30 pm. He signed his name to the register, claimed he was from Los Angeles, and paid one night’s fee. The hotel staff immediately took notice of the tall, large-built man wearing a black overcoat. Although he tried to comb his hair to hide it, a large scar was visible above his left ear leaving a bald spot. His ear was misshapen in what wrestlers call “cauliflower ear.” Most people would assume Mr. Owen was a professional wrestler or boxer.
A bellboy named Randolph Probst led the strange visitor up to room 1046 and gave the gentleman a passkey. Owen walked in and surveyed the room. Walking into the bathroom, he took out a brush, a comb, and a tube of toothpaste out of his coat pocket and put them in the cabinet. Strangely, these items were the man’s only luggage. A short time later the cleaning staff arrived to clean the room and was startled to find it already occupied. Owens told Ms. Mary Soptic to go ahead and clean because he was getting ready to leave. He specifically asked her to leave the door unlocked because a friend was supposed to stop by in a few minutes. Owens promptly pulled on his overcoat and left the maid to clean. She quickly cleaned up and left the room unlocked when she finished.
The next day, Thursday, Soptic returned to room 1046 to clean. The door was locked from the outside. (I’m not sure how it locked from the outside, but it is stated this way in every police report.) She tapped on the door and received no response, so she let herself into the room with the hotel passkey. Expecting the place to be empty, Soptic was startled to find Owens sitting up in the chair in the dark. The only dim light came from a table lamp that barely illuminated the shadows. She wasn’t what surprised her more, the fact that he was sitting in the dark staring at nothing in particular or the fact that the door somehow was locked from the outside. Luckily, the phone rang freeing the poor woman from the moment of awkward silence.
“No Don, I don’t want to eat. I am not hungry. I just had breakfast.” Owen paused for a moment before repeating, “I am not hungry.”
To add to the unsettling feeling building in Mary Soptic, Owen turned to her and began to ask her details about her job duties. She answered politely and left the room as fast as possible. Unfortunately, around 4 pm Soptic would have to return to the room to deliver the fresh towels. At that time she heard two male voices through the door. She tapped quietly, and a gruff unfamiliar voice answered.
“Who is it?”
Soptic replied saying she had fresh towels only to receive the loud response, “We don’t need any.”
Seven o’clock the next morning the switchboard operator noticed the phone in room 1046 had been off the hook for quite a while. She sent up the bellboy up to room 1046. Probst knocked on the door and heard a deep voice tell him to come in. Probst tried the handle, and it was locked. He knocked again, and this time the voice said to turn on the lights. Probst knocked again and yelled through the door.
“The door is locked. Put the phone back on the hook.” With that Probst returned to the service desk. He told the operator that the man was probably drunk and no one thought anything else about it until a short time later the phone was off the hook again. It is now 8:30 am. This time another bellboy by the name of Harold Pike is sent up to room 1046. The door was still locked, but this time Pike had a key. He opened the door to the darkened room and noticed Owen was laying face down on his bed naked and a large dark shadowy stain was on the sheets around him. The nightstand was knocked over, and the phone lay strewn across the floor. Pike picked up the table and replaced the phone. He locked the door back and returned downstairs claiming Owens must be passed out drunk and spilled his alcohol on his sheets.
At 11 am the phone was again off the hook. This time Probst took the passkey and marched up to room 1046. This had been the third time of the morning. He banged on the door and then opened it. This time he switched on the lights and was horrified by the scene before him. Two foot from the door was the beaten and bloodied man. He was bound on his hands and knees with his bloody head between his hands. Blood was on all the walls and ceilings. Bleeding profusely from three knife wounds to the chest, Roland T. Owen was miraculously alive when police arrived. Police asked him who did this.
“Nobody,” was his feeble reply. Owen slipped into a coma on the way to the hospital. Reports state that due to the coagulation of the blood Owen’s torture had begun at least six hours before he was found.
There’s so much more to this story that will be covered next week including a prostitute, strange anonymous donors paying for Owen’s burial, 13 red roses annonymously sent to the funeral, oh and…his name isn’t Roland T. Owen!
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Jack was one of the lucky ones to survive Vietnam. He retired from the Air Force as Technical Sergeant and went on to work at the Moncrief Army Health Clinic. At 65, Jack Robinson lived a tranquil life spending his retirement volunteering. It was what most Vietnam Vets wanted. Peace. Why then was this war hero murdered near an obscure boat ramp on the edge of the Congaree River? Twenty-two years later his daughter is still asking this same question.
Jack L. Robinson was born on July 24, 1931. Jack spent 25 years in the U.S. Air Force, and upon his retirement, he went to work at the local army clinic. Jack would eventually retire from the clinic as well. He had one daughter from a former marriage named Tammy. By 1996, Jack was newly retired and spent his time volunteering with his local democratic party, and at the local homeless shelter.
Three weeks after his 65th birthday on August 17, 1996, Jack Robinson drove ten miles to the Rosewood Boat Landing. This obscure boat ramp was nothing more than a concrete slab jutting down into the Congaree River. Even most locals didn’t know of its existence. A wooded area surrounded it, and there was a rock quarry nearby. There was a gravel parking lot of sorts and here is where three witnesses were parked waiting for a nearby concert to begin.
This wooded area is where Jack Robinson headed on his last day. He parked his car and witnesses said that he spoke to a Hispanic man. The two men walked off into the woods together. A moment later they heard a loud argument. They heard Jack say, “I can get you money,” and, “What do you want from me?”
A moment later Jack stumbled from the woods clutching his stomach. He had been stabbed in the stomach three times and was bleeding profusely. An ambulance arrived and took him to the hospital, but he would pass away a short time later.The three witnesses gave their statements to the police, and together they came up with a composite drawing of the murderer.
According to the eyewitnesses, the man was a short, Hispanic male only about 5’5” tall. He wore aviator sunglasses, had olive colored skin, had a mustache, and was between the ages of 25-35. By all accounts, he was a small man weighing around 150-180lbs.
Despite three reliable witnesses, the police are at a loss trying to find suspects. A year later a suspect is handed to them on a silver platter. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the right one and years would be spent trying to chase leads that didn’t exist.November 1997, Max Knoten sexually assaulted and killed a family friend named Kimberly Brown, 30. Kimberly’s sister was having problems and so Kim was caring for her niece indefinitely. Knoten put Kim’s body in the trunk of the car then took her three-year-old niece, Layla with him to “look for your aunt.” Investigators would find the bodies of the two along the Congaree River.Knoten was arrested relatively quickly after his alibi fell apart and he admitted to seeing the victim the night she went missing. He also immediately became a suspect in the Jack L. Robinson murder case. Admittedly there are a few coincidences, but there is very little in the way of evidence to link the two cases.
Links between crimes:
Knoten dropped the bodies off in the Congaree River.
Kimberly Brown had worked at the same army health clinic as Jack Robinson
The scent dogs led investigators from the spot of Jack’s murder to a nearby business. Knoten happened to work there.
Discrepancies between crimes:
Knoten is not Hispanic. He is a lighter-skinned African American
Knoten wasn’t 25-30 at the time of Jack’s death. He would have been 19.
He didn’t have a mustache at the time of Jack’s murder.
He is 6’ 1” and has a large build
Although his victim may have known Jack Robinson, there is no evidence to tie Knoten to Jack.
Despite these discrepancies, the authorities ran with this lead for years and even let Jack’s daughter, Tammy think that if Knoten ever got out of prison, they would put him on trial for her father’s death. Tammy believed this and went on with her life the best that she could. Years would pass, and in the mid-2000’s she was internet surfing trying to find some relatives when she came across her father’s case. Instead of showing it as solved, it was plastered all over the cold case page. His case was classed as “victim killed by the unknown suspect, no motives determined.”Tammy was in shock. She felt as if she was transported by to 1996 and was starting all over. After researching further, she found the charges against Max Knoten had been dropped three years after his arrest. Cold case investigators now think the man was in this country illegally and think that’s why they are struggling to find him.A little information on the area in 1996:Up the road from where Jack was killed was a large open-air vegetable market. These markets tended to employ a lot of illegal aliens, and the owners would house and shelter them. This was a well-known fact, but it also clouds the investigation drastically. I contend, if the murderer was an illegal alien and was being sheltered by locals, then someone knows this man. Although investigations have been ongoing, no one has been to the market to spread flyers or interview the market owners.Jack was also a volunteer at the local homeless shelter. Could the man have been from the homeless shelter? No one will ever know. It seems while the investigators were distracted with Knoten that no one ever visited this shelter to inquire about Hispanic males staying there. A lot of these shelters don’t keep excellent records, and most wouldn’t have those records 22 years later.
Another possible wild goose chase?It would seem that once the investigators stopped focusing on Max Knoten on this case they turned their focus to the gay community. While the daughter is out doing interviews and trying to get media attention, the police are saying that her father was killed by a jilted lover. No one can verify this, but that’s the theory the investigators seem to be stuck on now.My thought is whether the man was gay or not the investigators need to question the nearby business that hired illegal Hispanic males. That’s the first obvious step. Then question those that worked at the homeless shelter. Whatever this man’s sexual preference every avenue needs to be checked out.
What can be done now?It’s a well-known fact that most cold cases are solved one of two ways. New advances in DNA testing will sometimes lead to the perpetrator. Unfortunately, DNA testing, in this case, has brought no answers. The other way to solve a cold case is to have new witnesses come forward. That is our best hope with this case. People don’t come forward for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they are afraid. Sometimes they don’t realize the information they have is valuable. In reality, they may hold the one tiny piece that fits the entire puzzle together. Somebody knows this man. Please come forward.
Jack L. Robinson was willing to sacrifice his life in Vietnam for your freedoms. Don’t let this man’s death go unsolved. Where is the justice for this hero?
If you have any information, please contact the Richland County Sherriff’s Department(803) 576-3000 or 1-888-CRIME-SC
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EACH WEEK SYNOVA HIGHLIGHTS OBSCURE COLD CASES ON HER BLOG AS A VICTIMS’ ADVOCATE WITH MISSOURI MISSING ORGANIZATION. SHE NEVER CHARGES FOR HER SERVICES. IF YOU’D LIKE TO SUPPORT HER IN THIS WORTHY CAUSE, PLEASE CHECK OUT THE AFFILIATE LINKS ON THIS PAGE. BY PURCHASING ONE OF HER BOOKS, OR USING THESE LINKS YOU WILL BE SUPPORTING SYNOVA’S WORK ON COLD CASES AND WILL ENSURE HER ABILITY TO CONTINUE TO GIVE A VOICE TO THE VICTIM’S FAMILY.
Last week we left wondering who in the world owns Janice Willhelm’s 7-acre farm just outside of Centerville, Texas. Her husband, Gerald Willhelm, had died mysteriously less than a week after he gave an interview to the media. While there is no one left to contest his sudden heart attack and cremation, Janice’s family still fights for justice in this greedy land grab.
Although, the lawsuits were still pending Gerald’s will was quickly probated and pushed through the system. He left his wife’s farm to a blond banker from town and one of the witnesses that signed off on Janice’s forged will. While the banker’s mother swears her daughter just had a “Father/Daughter” type relationship with Gerald Wilhelm, Janice’s family refuse to believe such a thing. It will be proven in court one way or another, but in the meantime, Janice’s children are still fighting.
Janice Willhelm’s will was a blatant forgery, and this has been verified by two different handwriting experts. The will was pushed through without the children’s knowledge. This is one battle for the Robeson family, but sadly, there is more.
Morris and his wife Mable raised their grandson as their own child and treated him accordingly. Unfortunately, this seems to have driven a wedge between their eldest son and their unofficially adopted one. Before Morris’ murder, the uncle began to wage war on the grandson, and it continues to this day. After the death, Mable sold her grandson a part of the property on the contingency that she could live out her days in the home. Of course, he agreed. This, unfortunately, drove the wedge deeper causing the uncle to file lawsuit after lawsuit trying to pry the property from his nephew’s hands. The vindictive man even used his own mother’s name to file a lawsuit. When contacted, however, Mable was shocked by it and demanded that it be dropped. If I went into every detail of this family feud, this blog series would last for another year. After reviewing all the evidence, I am left with one question that I will relate to you.
Was this uncle so greedy that he would cause, or allow the murders of his own father and his sister?
When his daughter was caught talking, she was suddenly found dead in her home from an overdose. Yes, she was an addict, but it seems strange nonetheless. Everyone that crosses the uncle seems to end up in endless litigation or six feet under the Texas dirt.
This case continues and continues to fight for justice. This case has been appealed all the way up to the Texas Rangers only to hit a brick wall there as well. The only hope at this point may be the FBI and the media. If you have been a victim of corruption in Leon County, Texas, you can visit http://texaspubliccorruption.com/ and submit your story anonymously.
Don’t let the saying “Texas Justice” stand for bullying by corrupt officials. Let Texas Justice stand for truth and the good ole’ American way.
For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the series, here is a quick rundown. The family patriarch,Morris Robesonis found dead from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. (Date of Death: 11/20/2000) Oil will be discovered on Morris’ property in the future. Who will cash in? That will depend on who survives.
Morris’ neighbor is a highway patrol officer who stopped by the crime scene. Joe Weaverwas off-duty and told the family the other officers were surprised to see him. He immediately noticed the scene wasn’t being handled as a homicide, but rather a suicide. Weaver was suspicious and began his own separate investigation.
Morris and his wife Mable had raised their grandson, Wayne Robeson as their own and would treat him as their third child. Weaver spoke with Wayne and wanted to know the whereabouts of one Gerald Willhelm. Gerald has a strange story to tell, but his story will be coming later.
Morris Robeson was a veteran of WWII and had been struggling with neck and upper back pain associated with degenerative disks in his spine. This had reached the point to where he was no longer able to trim his own hair with an ear/nose trimmer. This trimmer was weighed recently to give the reader a reference point. The trimmer weighed less than 2 ounces. Yet, despite the V.A. records to prove Morris Robeson’s disability, the authorities continue to label this case a suicide. To further plant doubt in your mind, the gun used to kill Robeson was a .38 Colt revolver with a 6-inch barrel. This weapon was weighed as well. Its weight was just under 1lb.
If a man cannot lift 2 ounces, how can he lift a 1lb-object, twist it up behind his head, and pull the trigger?
After the death of his neighbor, Joe Weaver continues his investigation over the course of several months, but his truth-seeking venture was cut short late in September 2001. If the Morris Robeson case wasn’t strange enough, here are the facts of the alleged suicide of Joseph Weaver.
On the day before his death, Joe’s wife picked up her daughter and their son from school. Joe’s step-daughter reported to her guidance counselor that Joe had molested her. (There has never been any proof of this claim, and it seems to just come out of the blue.) The wife tells her son to call Joe and ask him to leave the barn and go into the house. Yes, this is what it states in the report. Why was he in the barn? Why were these allegations brought up just now? Why was Joe’s young son the one who had to call his dad and tell him to leave the barn? Could Joe not decide to walk to the house on his own?
Why was he “holed-up” in his barn in the first place?
If that wasn’t unusual enough, the wife then calls Sherriff Price to go to the house and check on Joe. Price states he arrives just in time to see Joe Weaver walk slowly out of his barn and toward the house. He supposedly stopped before getting to the house, pulled out his service revolver, and killed himself. To this day the authorities have denied all FOIA requests stating there wasn’t a police report written.No crime scene photos were taken.
This is proven false, however, when an anonymous witness sends a picture of the first page of the police report on Joe Weaver’s death to the family.
Why did Joe Weaver want to talk to Gerald Wilhelm? Why would all of this occur just a few years before the big oil boom in Centerville, Texas? Who has the farm now? How would Wilhelm con his way into the Robeson family? Why would his father-in-law be killed less than a year later? Hold on, guys. Chaos has settled down upon the Robeson farm like a tornado.
Marianne Asher-Chapman depends on that. She has been searching for her daughter Angie Yarnell for nearly 15 years. She carries a shovel in the trunk of her car, so she is ready to dig at a moment’s notice. Why would this poor mother still be searching after a man has confessed to killing Angie Yarnell? Why is the killer out of jail? How could our justice system fail so miserably? This is the story of a mother’s quest to find her daughter and help others who are suffering through a tragedy.
Michelle Angela “Angie” Yarnell was last seen on October 25, 2003, in the 3900 block of Ozark View Rd in Ivy Bend, Missouri. Her mother, Marianne Asher-Chapman lived an hour and a half away in Holts Summit, MO. Although they were separated by a 90 min drive the two women were more than family; they were best friends. Marianne heard from her daughter regularly and was expecting to see her beautiful baby girl that day for a birthday party. Angie’s niece was having a party at grandma Marianne’s house. The party was scheduled for 1 pm, but it was after 5 o’clock and Marianne was getting upset. This wasn’t like Angie. Something was wrong. Marianne hadn’t gotten Angie to answer her calls for a few days. She had assumed Angie was out job hunting and would call later, but now after missing a birthday party, Marianne was worried. She called her daughter’s number again, but this time she left a message that would start a bizarre chain of events.
“If you don’t call back, I’m going to drive down and check on you,” was the message the worried mother left on Angie’s voicemail. She would receive a response two hours later, but it wasn’t the one she hoped for. Around 7 pm, Angie’s car pulled up in the driveway and out stepped Michael Yarnell. When Marianne asked about her daughter, he simply replied, “she’s gone.” The man walked in and sat down without saying much of anything. Finally, he told Marianne that he thought Angie had run off with another man. No one believed his story, but no one challenged him either.
Marianne couldn’t believe her daughter would leave without telling her something about this new man, and to make matters even worse, Marianne was battling throat cancer at the time. Angie was helping her mother through this journey. Why would a beloved daughter leave her mother in such a state? Angie wouldn’t. That was the conclusion her family came up with. Something was terribly wrong. Marianne went the next day and filed a missing persons report expecting to find compassion and assistance but found very little.
Initially, the investigators believed that the 28-yr-old was frustrated with her verbally abusive marriage and took off. No one seemed to understand the bond between mother and daughter in this case. Angie had spoken to her mother about the problems with her short marriage to Yarnell. She had been wrongly accused of infidelity by Michael when in fact Michael was having an extra-marital affair. The relationship had broken down to the point that Angie confessed to her mother that Michael was going to leave her. Marianne had this conversation with her daughter several days before Michael’s strange visit.
A week after the missing person’s report was filed, Marianne received a postcard from her daughter. It was posted from Arkansas. Strangely it said Angie was traveling with some guy named Gary and when they got settled in Texas she would call. Investigators immediately took the postcard at face value and stopped looking into the case, but Marianne still had her doubts. Why didn’t her daughter call?
Marianne eagerly awaits the Thanksgiving holiday. Surely her daughter would come by, but Angie didn’t show. After this, Marianne knew Angie wasn’t coming home. She wouldn’t miss the holidays with family. It was a long-standing tradition. Marianne began to examine the postcard and noticed some strange discrepancies in the handwriting. In 2008, a forensic handwriting specialist would confirm that not only did Angie not write the note but that Michael Yarnell was the author of the postcard. They sent these findings to the detectives in hopes of getting the ball rolling on Angie’s case.
A few months later Michael Yarnell was arrested in Biloxi, Mississippi and extradited back to the Show-Me state. He surprised everyone by confessing to killing Angie at their home in 2003. He told investigators that they were having a fight and he accidentally pushed her, and she fell off the deck hitting her head. He said that he sat with her for a while trying to figure out what to do, then he picked her up into a canoe and drove down the road to the boat ramp. He rowed out onto the Lake of the Ozarks and found a small island. He said he planned to bury her on the island. In the process of removing her body from the boat, she slipped and fell beneath the waves. He left her there, rowed back to the boat ramp, and went home.
Yarnell also admitted to forging the postcard and claimed he did it just to give Marianne some peace. In the end, he was given a plea deal that no one could believe. If he would show investigators where the body was dropped in the water, then he could plead to a lesser charge of manslaughter. Even though the investigators couldn’t find Angie’s remains, they still gave her killer the plea deal. Michael Shane Yarnell pled guilty of manslaughter and was given a paltry seven years. He served only four and was released in July of 2013.
To say the family was devastated doesn’t begin to describe the disbelief and the pain caused by such a sentence. It’s a slap in the face to the victim’s family for the killer to walk free. Still, no one knows where to find Angie. Marianne believes Michael is lying about her daughter’s cause of death and that’s the reason why he refuses to disclose the true location of Angie’s remains.
Due to Double Jeopardy laws, Michael Yarnell won’t face another trial even if those remains are found. At this point, Marianne just wants to give her daughter a proper burial. As always, if you have any information about this case, please contact the police. This mother needs to lay her daughter to rest.
In the wake of this painful journey, Marianne has co-founded Missouri Missing. Missouri Missing is a non-profit organization to help support victim’s families and to raise awareness about Missouri’s missing people. Check out their website for more information. Like and share their missing person’s flyers on Facebook and donate if you can.
If you have any information on this case, please contact Missouri Missing.
If you enjoy this content don’t forget to sign up for Synova’s Weekly True Crime Newsletter. You will receive exclusive content directly in your inbox. As a gift for joining you will also receive the Grim Justice ebook free.
Each week Synova highlights obscure cold cases on her blog as a victim’s advocate with the Missouri Missing organization. She never charges for her services. If you’d like to help support Synova in this worthy cause please check out the affiliate links below and on the sidebar of this page. By purchasing one of her books or using these links, you will be supporting Synova’s work on cold cases and will ensure her ability to continue to give a voice to the victim’s family. Thank you.
