THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF UNSOLVED CRIMES Ency UC-FM_final.indd i 7/27/09 12:07:39 PM THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF UNSOLVED CRIMES Second Edition Michael Newton Ency UC-FM_final.indd iii 7/27/09 12:07:40 PM The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, Second Edition Copyright © 2009 by Michael Newton All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Newton, Michael, 1951– The encyclopedia of unsolved crimes / Michael Newton. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8160-7818-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8160-7818-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Crime—Encyclopedias. 2. Homicide—Encyclopedias. I. Title. HV6251.N48 2010 364.103—dc22 2008045073 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Text design by Erika K. Arroyo Cover design by Keith Trego/Takeshi Takahashi Printed in the United States of America VB MSRF 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper and contains 30 percent postconsumer recycled content. Ency UC-FM_final.indd iv 7/27/09 12:07:40 PM For Margaret Ency UC-FM_final.indd v 7/27/09 12:07:40 PM Contents Introduction ix Entries A–Z 1 Bibliography 421 Index 429 Ency UC-FM_final.indd vii 7/27/09 12:07:40 PM Introduction It is not true, as pop star Bonnie Tyler suggests in ticed, for that matter) is unknown. Authorities cannot her hit song “Driving Me Wild,” that everyone loves agree on the number of children who vanish yearly in a mystery. While fictional enigmas exert an endur- America, much less on what has become of them. As ing appeal, from the Sherlock Holmes adventures for missing adults, barring obvious signs of foul play, penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the best-selling no agency even attempts to keep track of the lost. novels of Patricia Cornwell, real-life mysteries are In the face of those odds, a curious researcher may be something else entirely. startled to learn how many cases do get solved (albeit Police officers and prosecutors hate mysteries, slowly in some cases, taking years or even decades). preferring their criminal cases tied up into neat, eas- During preparation of this volume, late-breaking inves- ily explained packages. Defense attorneys generally tigations forced deletion of various tantalizing cases, share that sentiment—unless a phantom suspect including (but not limited to) the following: helps win an acquittal in court. Friends and family of crime victims or missing persons crave nothing more • A stalker of prostitutes in Vancouver, British than an absence of doubt. Archaeologists, psycholo- Columbia, theoretically linked to the disappear- gists, medical researchers, “intelligence” agents—all ance of 67 victims since the 1970s; these and more devote their lives to the proposition • Wichita’s “BTK Strangler,” linked to six slay- that no riddle should remain unsolved. ings in 1974–77, then proved guilty of 10 when And yet . a suspect confessed in 2005; These plentiful exceptions notwithstanding, there • Seattle’s “Green River Killer,” blamed for the is something in an unsolved mystery that appeals deaths of 49 women between 1982 and 1984; to many of us. Some go so far as to publicly hope • The stabbing deaths of at least eight gay that this or that classic case will never be solved, men, murdered around Chesapeake, Virginia, comparing mysterious cases to gaily wrapped pres- between 1987 and 1995; ents forever unopened, never losing their appeal for • A series of hit-and-run murders that claimed armchair detectives. When the package is opened, its two female joggers and a male bicyclist during contents revealed, no amount of excitement or plea- 1991, in Porterville, California; sure can ward off the inevitable letdown. We want to • New York’s “Last Call Killer,” linked to the see the gift, possess it but . perhaps not yet. slayings of five men, lured from gay bars and In the real world, as it happens, unsolved myster- dismembered before their remains were scat- ies are distressingly common. The solution rate for tered along New Jersey highways in 1991–92; U.S. murders has declined from 90-odd percent in • The mysterious deaths of 48 patients at Truman the late 1950s to an average 70 percent (and less, in Memorial Veterans Hospital in Columbia, Mis- some regions) a half century later. Lesser crimes are souri, between January and August 1992; even more likely to go unsolved. Fewer than half of all • The grisly deaths of three Minneapolis prosti- rapes are reported to authorities, much less “cleared” tutes in 1996, stabbed and beaten before they by arrest and conviction. Thousands of thefts go were doused with gasoline and set afire in The- unsolved every year; the number unreported (or unno- odore Wirth Park; ix Ency UC-FM_final.indd ix 7/27/09 12:07:40 PM The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes • The kidnap-murders of three adolescent girls at (e.g., “Jack the Ripper”). Cases with multiple victims Spotsylvania, Virginia, in 1996–97; are identified either by the geographical location (e.g., • The 2000 murder of Jill Behrman in Blooming- Atlanta child murders) or by some recognized media ton, Indiana, apparently solved with the convic- label (e.g., “Golden Years murders”). Blind entries tion of defendant John Myers in 2006 (though link individual victims to entries profiling a serial some critics maintain that Myers is innocent). murder or similar crimes (e.g., Eddowes, Catherine: See “Jack the Ripper”). References within the text to Homicide investigators frequently remind us that subjects possessing their own discrete entries appear the first 24 to 48 hours are critical to solving a crime, in large and small capital letters. but these cases and others like them, cracked long This second edition of the Encyclopedia of after the fact, serve as a daily reminder that justice Unsolved Crimes includes 93 completely new entries, is often delayed. “Cold” cases can be solved by dis- plus various additions to the original bibliography. covery of new evidence, by confession—and, increas- Many others have been updated with new informa- ingly, by the scientific miracle of DNA profiling. tion received since 2002, and several entries from the That said, what constitutes an unsolved case? first edition were deleted, based on solution of the Typically, the term applies to a crime in which no crimes in question by arrest and conviction of the suspects are identified, but that need not be the case. perpetrators. In cases where suspects or “persons of Some crimes are “cleared” by arrest and conviction of an innocent suspect, whether by chance or through interest” have been named by police, but no trial has a deliberate frame-up, thus leaving the real offender been held, the cases remain officially unsolved. at large. Others, some notorious, remain technically As in the previous edition, certain cases listed by unsolved after a known offender was acquitted by a authorities as solved or “cleared” also appear within biased or dim-witted jury. In some cases, authorities these pages, where substantial evidence casts doubt have branded a suspect as guilty on the flimsiest of on the official verdicts. In those cases, whether simple evidence and without benefit of trial. Other crimes error or deliberate frame-ups are indicated, both sides are “solved” by confessions that, upon closer exami- of the ongoing debate are presented, leaving readers nation, seem to be the product of police coercion or to serve as the ultimate jury. Exposure of government disordered minds. For purposes of this volume, we misconduct over the past quarter century, combined shall consider unsolved cases to include: with scientific exoneration of 328 wrongfully con- victed defendants since 1989, clearly demonstrates • Crimes in which no suspect is identified; that official declarations of guilt sometimes deserve • Cases in which the offender is known to police close and critical scrutiny. or the public but cannot be charged for lack of Special thanks are owed to David Frasier, friend, concrete evidence; author, and reference librarian extraordinaire at Indi- • Miscarriages of justice, including cases wherein ana University in Bloomington; to William A. King- innocent suspects are convicted (or otherwise man, for sharing his insight on the case of the New officially blamed), and those in which guilty Orleans Axeman; and to Heather Locken. Every parties are wrongfully acquitted. effort has been made to ensure accuracy in the text Cases in the text are alphabetically arranged, most that follows. Anyone with further knowledge of the often by the victim’s name, although some headers cases covered—or of unsolved crimes in general—is refer to an event (e.g., St. Valentine’s Day Massacre) invited to contact the author, in care of Facts On or to the popular nickname of an unidentified offender File. x Ency UC-FM_final.indd x 7/27/09 12:07:41 PM Entries A–Z Ency UC-FM_final.indd xi 7/27/09 12:07:41 PM A ABDULLAH, Ahmet gangland murder victim (1991) ADKINS, Francis Roy murder victim (1990) An adopted son of the Arif family, a group of Mid- A suspected London mobster, Francis Adkins was dle Eastern racketeers and armed robbers residing identifi ed as the boss of a narcotics smuggling ring in London’s Stockwell district, Ahmet Abdullah was in January 1990, in sworn testimony offered to a identifi ed by Scotland Yard as a narcotics dealer, Chelmsford court.