Forensic Files Archives - Page 5 of 22

Susie Mowbray: Stalled Heart

Did a Car Dealer’s Wife Get Away with Murder?
(‘Where the Blood Drops,’ Forensic Files)

Susie Mowbray

It’s usually a happy ending when a Forensic Files episode closes with someone exiting prison because of a wrongful conviction.

But “Where the Blood Drops,” the story of car dealer Bill Mowbray’s death, left a lot of observers in a less-than-celebratory mood.

As viewers will remember, Bill conveniently “committed suicide” the day before he was going to remove his wife, Susie, as his insurance beneficiary.

Second go-around. Then, less than a day after witnessing her husband shot through the head in their bedroom, Susie had a painting party there.

A jury found her guilty of murder, and she served nine years in prison.

Then she got a new trial —and won.

Too pert for prison? Susie Mowbray might have convinced a jury of reasonable doubt, but she sure didn’t seem innocent or genuine— even though she looked and sounded like a wholesome mom from an old-time sitcom.

For this week, I delved into whether there were good reasons — other than the fact that the public doesn’t like to see cute women incarcerated for too long — for allowing Susie and her toothy smile to walk free.

So let’s get going on the recap of “Where the Blood Drops,” along with extra information from internet research.

Trailblazer. Jay William “Bill” Mowbray Jr. was born on April 2, 1944 in Washington, D.C. His grandfather and father both worked in the automobile business.

By age 25, Bill was the youngest Cadillac dealer in the world, according to the Brownsville Herald.

In 1974, he debuted a new, five-acre dealership. It nabbed much publicity on the local front.

Spiffy new digs. The Brownsville Herald ran a whole page — which appeared to be a mix of ads, advertorial, and some reporting — about the grand opening of Bill Mowbray Motors.

Photo of the book Forensic Files Now — BOOK IN STORES AND ONLINE!

The paper noted the dealership’s “very fine selection of pre-owned autos” and that its “dust proof booths and drying chambers are your assurance of a perfect auto finish.”

He had 45 employees at the time.

“If you drove a Cadillac, you for sure got your Cadillac at Bill Mowbray Motors,” recalled former news anchor Carey Zayas during her appearance on Accident, Suicide, or Murder, which produced an episode called “Death of a Salesman” about the case.

Cadillac dealership — Bill Mowbray’s trusted assistant, Luke Fruia, ended up taking over the business

Miss Popular. At some point, Bill crossed paths with Freda Sue “Susie” Burnett.

Susie came into the world circa 1948 and grew up in Louisiana. An Associated Press story referred to her as a “debutante who was a cheerleader and homecoming queen in Shreveport.”

By the time she met Bill Mowbray, she had been married and divorced and had two children, Cricket and Wade Burnett. Bill was also divorced, with a daughter named Kristin.

Tripping out. After Susie and Bill married, they had some great years as the money rolled in at Mowbray Motors.

Bill starred in local TV commercials for the sprawling business at 2645 Barnard Road. The perky Susie did as well. The two were local celebrities.

They enjoyed overseas travel and bought two beach condos, plus their huge “monstrosity of a house” in Los Fresnos, Texas. He liked to go hunting in Mexico.

In the red. Unfortunately, Bill also enjoyed chasing down extramarital sex. Susie found out he was cheating on her and moved to Austin with her children for a short time, according to Accident, Suicide, or Murder.

But she returned to Bill.

There were other problems in store for the couple. Bill had begun spending more than he earned.

In what sounds like a plotline from Fargo, he took out two loans on the same inventory from the dealership, according to Carey Zayas’ interview on Accident, Suicide, or Murder.

Premium problem. By 1997, the dealership was operating at a loss of $100,000, according to business manager Sergio Hernandez. Bill himself was reportedly $350,000 in debt and sometimes withdrew money from the dealership for personal expenses. (To his credit, though, the business always made payroll.)

Amid this whole mess, Susie discovered that Bill planned to cancel insurance policies that named her as the beneficiary and instead make his daughter the main recipient of new policies worth $1.8 million.

Bill’s insurance agent would later say that Bill was in the process of changing the policies to have the Small Business Administration and the dealership as the beneficiaries, according to a June 1, 1988 story in the McAllen, Texas newspaper the Monitor. It’s not clear whether these were additional policies or the reports that Bill’s daughter was named beneficiary were mistaken — but either way, Susie was on the brink of losing out big.

Bill and Susie Mowbray call — Bill and Susie Mowbray in happier times

Tonight Show prelude. Still, things were normal enough that on Sept. 15, 1987, Susie, 39, and Bill, 43, called her son, Wade Burnett, to wish him a happy 16th birthday — and Wade and Bill chatted pleasantly at length, according to an AP account.

The next night, Susie and Bill watched the Johnny Carson show and Bill hit the hay, Susie would later explain, but he woke up briefly during David Letterman. She fell asleep and awoke around 2:15 a.m. — to see her husband aiming a Ruger .357-caliber magnum at his head and then shooting himself, she said. He fired the gun with his right arm while he was still lying on his side, according to Susie.

Susie called Bill’s assistant at work, Luke Fruia, to tell him Bill had shot himself. Luke told her to dial 911.

Still respiring. Homicide detective George Gavito arrived to find Susie, dressed in a white nightgown, with a cocktail (she later said it was water) and a cigarette in hand. She wasn’t crying.

The EMTs found Bill tucked in bed, with a bullet wound that originated on his right side, went through his head, and pierced his left hand, which apparently was resting underneath a pillow and his head. There was a lot of blood. Some of it even sprayed the ceiling fan.

Sarah Bush during her appearance on Accident, Suicide, or Murder — Sarah Bush took part in the painting party

Forensic Files didn’t mention it, but Bill was still alive when first responders arrived. Susie said that she knelt by his side after the gun fired and saw his head bleeding — so why didn’t she notice he was still breathing and call the paramedics immediately instead of Luke?

Don’t bank on it. She tried to play it as though she was simply resigned to Bill’s dying at his own hand. During her Forensic Files interview in 2001, Susie claimed that Bill threatened suicide all the time, almost on a weekly basis.

He did have a lot of reasons to feel discouraged. In addition to all his other financial woes, the IRS was investigating him for tax fraud.

During his Forensic Files appearance, Susie’s lawyer Jim Shaw said that Bill had recently rested his head on a bank officer’s desk, cried, and threatened to kill himself if he didn’t get a $200,000 loan.

It’s her party. Still, the timing of the alleged suicide was extremely suspect. Why would Bill kill himself before he finalized his change in insurance beneficiaries? His death conveniently took place right before it went through.

And then there was that painting party just 10 hours after Bill died. The widow and her buddies had removed everything from the room including the carpeting. Bill’s daughter and brother Jim were the first to discover the fiesta when they stopped by the house — they heard music playing upstairs. (I’m guessing it wasn’t a Gregorian chant.)

Sarah Bush, a friend of Susie’s who appeared on Accident, Suicide, or Murder, said that Susie merely wanted to remove the bloodstains before her kids came home and saw them.

Liquidating lass. Meanwhile, investigators didn’t see any splatter or brain matter on Bill’s right hand, and wondered how he managed to tuck himself in after shooting himself.

A lab found blood blowback on Susie Mowbray’s nightgown. An autopsy performed by Lawrence Dahm, M.D., determined Bill’s death was not a suicide.

There were theories that Susie shot Bill through a pillow or that she straddled him and fired.

Loyal son. On Jan. 4, 1988, the Shreveport Journal ran a story about Susie headlined “Ex-Shreveporter in real-life soap opera.” It noted that Bill’s first wife and his daughter disputed his will and contended that Susie was quickly “selling off [Bill’s] things left and right”

Susie was charged with murder and her trial kicked off in 1988. Wade Burnett, then 16, canceled his plans for summer camp so he could attend.

The proceedings sounded like quite the spectacle. The Mowbrays’ king-sized bed with its mirrored headboard was brought into the courtroom. It still had Bill’s blood on it, plus a mannequin lying down on the mattress. And there was a second, bald mannequin — dressed in Susie’s white night gown — propped up on the floor.

Wade Burnett, Susie Mowbray, and Cricket Burnett — Susie Mowbray flanked by her children, Wade and Cricket Burnett

Witness not called. In June 1988, the jury found Susie guilty after deliberating for just two hours. The decision was unanimous on the first vote, a juror would later tell ABC News.

Susie got life in prison.

But her supporters said they had evidence to prove her innocence. For one, Wade found a blood splatter expert who determined that Susie’s white nightgown had no incriminating evidence, but he hadn’t been given a chance to testify.

Ex-spouse on her side. Interestingly, Susie’s side disputed the luminol tests on the nightgown, noting that some types of nonbodily matter — like horseradish — make luminol glow and that the nightgown hadn’t been tested for blood specifically.

In December 1996, Susie’s conviction was overturned thanks in part to her son, by then a law school student at Louisiana State University, and his lawyer father (that’s right, Susie’s ex-husband still cared). They uncovered evidence that the prosecution had suppressed the report from forensic expert Dr. Herbert MacDonell that denied the presence of blood on her nightgown.

The state of Texas released Susie from prison in May 1997 pending the outcome of the new trial.

When Bill Mowbray Motors debuted in 1974, a new Cadillac Sedan Deville cost $7,599

Enough with the nightgown. “Prosecutors made a career for themselves by taking my mom’s life away,” Wade told ABC News in 1998. “And defense attorneys weren’t any better. I know for certain, without any doubt, she was not in a position to have fired that shot.”

The second trial, in January 1998, was colossal news in Brownsville.

Court TV broadcast it.

“She belongs in jail and she belongs there for the rest of her life,” Kristin Mowbray told the media. Jim Mowbray, Bill’s brother, said that defenders were putting too much emphasis on the nightgown — regardless of MacDonnell’s finding.

Colleague buys story. But the defense found cracks to sow seeds of doubt. The prosecution lost some of the bedding evidence. And the scene allegedly wasn’t preserved well because authorities at first believed the suicide story.

Luke Fruia was close to both Susie and Bill Mowbray

A psychiatrist testified that Bill actually shot himself in the chest in a failed suicide attempt a year before his death. And Bill allegedly told friends he would kill himself rather than spend a day in jail.

Luke Fruia later said Bill was a “very lonely person” and the fact that Luke was planning to leave the dealership made Bill feel lost.

He sided with Susie, and said he believed the suicide story.

Unconvinced either way. Toward the end of the trial, Susie, 49, interrupted the proceedings by crying out, “I didn’t do it” and weeping theatrically.

It worked.

On January 24, 1998, the jury found her not guilty. Upon hearing the verdict, Susie rushed to hug her son and daughter.

Jury foreman Edward Saldivar later said that the not-guilty verdict meant the prosecution was unable to prove its case — not necessarily that the jury thought the accused was innocent.

YouTube gallery. “She got away with murder, literally, and we know the truth and a lot of people know the truth,” said Kristin Mowbray, 27, the AP reported.

Judging by the comments on YouTube, Forensic Files viewers tend to agree: “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” wrote Frankie Wilhite. “She got away with murder but not the money.” His comment got 111 thumbs-ups. “I think she’s a cold blooded murderess with a dang good attorney,” wrote Panda Bear.

The show ended by noting that Susie didn’t receive any of Bill’s insurance money.

Son rising. But, it turns out, at least for a while, she continued to pursue the money. In April 2002, a Texas Court of Appeals denied Susie’s attempt to access funds in an appeal to a previous decision won by Bill’s daughter, Kristin Mowbray Avery, and his ex-wife, Virginia Hale.

Susie’s son, Wade Burnett, went on to a career in litigation. His work “has been featured in the New York Times, 20/20, Dateline NBC, Good Morning America, The Today Show, People Magazine and many other national media outlets,” according to the profile on his professional website, which has since disappeared.

Next up, Wade became a pastor. Today, he works as a consultant to other pastors for the Church Leadership Group.

More believers. His mother is around 74 today — and has kept a much lower profile. She mentioned plans to write a book back in 2001, but Amazon doesn’t list anything by Susie Mowbray.

Susie didn’t appear in the Accident, Suicide, or Murder episode that the Oxygen Network produced in 2021, but a couple of her supporters did, including Mary Lou Ryan Ray, who had served as Bill’s personal attorney. Mary Lou said that she had always thought Susie was innocent and that it was a tragedy she spent time in prison.

Susie Mowbray sitting atop the hood of a car during her appearance on a Cadillac commercial — When she was a queen: Susie as a pitchwoman in the 1980s

Was it? Maybe Susie thought she could get away with murder in the first place because so many of her friends and Bill’s associates liked her and knew that he had suicidal tendencies.

“The worst thing that could ever happen to anyone happened to me,” Susie said during her interview on Forensic Files.

I’d say that Bill Mowbray, his daughter, and his brother got a much rawer deal.

You can watch the Accident, Suicide, or Murder episode on the Oxygen website if you subscribe to cable.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — R.R.

Watch the Forensic Files episode on Tubi

Order the book:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-a-Million
Target
Walmart
Indie Bound

Gary Ackley: Homicidal Meltdown

A Metal Worker’s Foray into Murder Is Not So Bright
(‘Elemental Clue,’ Forensic Files)

During an appearance on Forensic Files, a Washington state prosecutor noted that Gary Ackley was “not a very intelligent fellow.”

I’ll say.

He killed two women and left both of their murder scenes littered with incriminating evidence.

A young Gary Ackley in a closeup — Gary Ackley

Not only was he careless but also oddly inconsistent. On one hand, he lived out a common fantasy by silencing his mother-in-law forever. On the other, he did something that no one aspires to — killing his own best friend.

Fancy stuff. Gary, who was also memorable for sporting a mullet with a salon-fresh look, maintained his innocence and went to trial despite forensics that pointed directly to him. For this post, I got some details on his double murder trial.

So let’s get going on the recap of “Elemental Clue,” along with extra information from internet research:

The story opens with footage of a uniformed server delivering stemmed glassware to passengers on the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train, which looks like a nice ride.

Sew troubling. When the train made an unexpected stop in Woodinville on June 21, 1997, passengers gazing out a window spotted what looked like a body partly covered by some brush and sticks in a creek.

Police found a dead woman wearing a blue nightgown and bedroom slippers. An empty pack of Basic cigarettes lay near her.

Arlene Jensen

Authorities identified the victim as Arlene Jensen, a 53-year-old commercial seamstress missing since May 26, 1997. Her employer had called her son, David, when she didn’t show up for work. The next day, David notified police.

Shiny, shiny. When investigators visited Arlene’s condominium in the Kingsgate building in Bellevue, they saw cigarette ashes littering a table and two Basic brand cigarettes thrown in the toilet — unflushed, so it was pretty clear a woman didn’t do this. Plus, Arlene smoked Marlboros.

Arlene’s blue and white floral bed sheets had bloodstains on them.

The bedding also held tiny metal fragments, similar to ones found with her body in the creek.

No one had stolen anything from the condo.

Out of another era. Suspicion soon fell upon Arlene’s son-in-law, Gary Ackley, 28. He and her daughter Julie, also 28, had two children and had been together for more than a decade. They were common-law husband and wife.

Arlene’s mother, Alice Vermillion, who appeared on Forensic Files, noted that Arlene and Gary didn’t particularly get along. Alice, a proper-looking woman notable for dressing like a 19th-century First Lady, said that in fact, no one in the family liked Gary.

Apparently, Arlene didn’t approve of the way Gary treated her grandchildren and let him know it. (Not to blame the murder victim, but criticizing the way people bring up their kids is not a pathway to a cordial relationship.)

Iron man. According to an AP account, Arlene made some child care arrangements without Gary’s consent and he complained to a co-worker that his “old lady’s mom” was “sticking her nose into my business.” He reportedly called Arlene a bitch and possibly even the C-word.

The Spirit of Washington running through a forested area — The Spirit of Washington featured formal dining service with such meals as “prime rib with mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes and a dish of apple-horseradish sauce,” recalls train enthusiast Glen Brewer

“Arlene had previously threatened to report Ackley to Child Protective Services,” according to court papers, “and in response, Ackley had threatened to kill her.”

Gary smoked Basic cigarettes, and he worked as a machinist at Pacific Tool Inc., where he used lathes and sanders on metals.

Another victim. Scientists identified the metal shavings and fragments from the murder scene as coming from the same source as metal particles found at Gary’s home. In other words, he must have carried those things with him wherever he went. Plus, beige fibers found near Arlene’s body matched the fabric in the backseat of one of Gary’s cars.

Soon, a second homicide in the Seattle area would make headlines.

On Aug. 10, 1997, campers discovered a woman’s body in a shallow grave along Miller River Road near Skykomish. Police identified her as Stephanie Dittrick, 29 years old and missing since July 5, 1997. She worked as an administrative assistant or a circuit board tester (media reports vary).

Stephanie Dittrick

Childhood pals. Small fragments made of steel and brass lay on Stephanie’s body.

Friends remembered seeing Stephanie talking to Gary at a Fourth of July party at her residence in Redmond. One guest recalled that Gary mentioned he played drums in a rock band (hence the extra-long statement mullet).

Stephanie had known Gary since childhood, when both of their families lived in Union Hill, and they were best buddies. Her brother, Todd, was also close to Gary.

Utter disbelief. Neighbors had seen Gary and Stephanie leaving her mother’s house together on July 5.

On August 15, 1997, Gary Ackley was arrested and taken to King County Jail for investigation of two counts of homicide.

“This is not the little boy I remember,” Stephanie’s mother, Diana Russell, told the Associated Press. “My heart is broken.”

Incriminating himself. At the September 1998 trial (an earlier one had quickly ended in a mistrial), prosecutors made a case that Gary worried that Arlene’s interference would end up getting his kids taken away from him.

Photo of an industrial sewing facility — Employees at the sewing factory where Arlene Jensen worked were the first to note her disappearance

He crept into Arlene’s apartment while she was sleeping and killed her —medical examiners never determined the cause of death, noting only “homicidal violence” — and then he put her body in a car and hastily buried it in the wooded area, prosecutors contended.

They believed Gary blurted out his secret that he’d murdered Arlene to Stephanie, then panicked and killed Stephanie to silence her. (Stephanie’s manner of death, like Arlene’s, was attributed to nonspecific homicidal violence.) A shopping bag near Stephanie’s murder scene bore Gary’s fingerprint.

Bad trip. Stephanie’s friend John Johnson testified that Stephanie told him she knew of a secret that might come back to hurt her.

Earlier, Judge Norma Huggins had forbidden him from bringing up something in court that he told prosecutors pretrial: Stephanie asked John, “Do you think Gary Ackley would hurt me?” according to Seattle Times reporting. The judge had also stopped Stephanie’s friend Dan Monise from testifying that Stephanie told him that Gary confessed to Arlene Jensen’s murder; it was hearsay.

But the prosecution won the right to take jury members to visit the locations where the murder victims were found. Gary, who sported short bangs and no more party in the back at the trial, was not happy about that decision.

Alice Vermillion shown in her home with an old-fashioned lamp — Alice Vermillion’s obituary noted that she liked to create blankets and lampshades and write poems

Budding florist? Defense lawyer Jeff Ellis argued that it would prejudice jury members to see Gary wearing shackles and handcuffs while accompanying them to the two sites. Captain Manning of Kings County Jail suggested a concession — putting the hand restraints to the front of Gary’s body and covering them with a jacket or towel. Gary ultimately decided to sit out the field trip.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prosecutor James Konat had circumstantial evidence tying Gary to the murder. For one, the day Arlene went missing, Gary had called in sick to work, saying he’d been vomiting all night. But one witness reported seeing Gary driving his Trans Am and another spotted him in his red Toyota around the time he was supposed to be convulsed in nausea at home.

Despite the particles of metal sprinkled all over both murder scenes, defense lawyer Jeff Ellis argued that no direct evidence linked Gary to the homicides. He maintained that his client was at home playing with his dogs and watering flowers when Arlene disappeared. Ellis rebutted the prosecution’s contention that because Gary had no one to corroborate his alibis, they must be false. Spending time by oneself didn’t add up to guilt, he noted.

Gary claimed he was at the Evergreen Speedway when Stephanie vanished, but it’s not clear whether anyone saw him there.

Gary Ackley shortly before his arrest

Tears and drama. After deliberating for two days, the jury convicted Gary of first degree murder in Arlene Jensen’s death and aggravated murder in Stephanie Dittrick’s. The “aggravated” condition applied because he murdered Stephanie to cover up Arlene’s homicide.

“His face red, [Gary] shook his head and held a tissue to his eyes as King County Superior Court Judge Norma Huggins read the verdict,” the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. “Others in the courtroom on both sides of the case wept as well.”

Before the sentencing hearing took place, there was a wedding.

Open bar celebration. On Oct. 23, 1998, Julie Jensen married Gary Ackley in jail. By this time, they’d had a third child, conceived after Arlene’s death.

“I love him. I care for him. I believe in him,” Julie said at the sentencing hearing.

But most of those who spoke out at the hearing didn’t feel too kindly toward Gary. Julie’s brother, David, said that Gary had manipulated his sister. James Konat noted that Julie once landed in the hospital after a beating from Gary, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

Buh, bye. Stephanie’s friend Lee Pereira had no fond words for Gary either. “You’ve got control over nothing,” Lee said to him at the hearing. “Someday, you’ll get out — in a box.”

Gary received life without the possibility of parole plus 26½ years.

A package of Basic cigarettes — Ackley clearly didn’t understand the ‘Basics’ of evidence collection

He lost an appeal in 2001.

Today, Gary Ackley is better known as prisoner #946217 at the Monroe Correctional Complex in Monroe City just north of Seattle. The Washington Department of Corrections website doesn’t supply an updated picture so there’s no way of knowing whether or not Gary’s hairdo lives on.

The inmate’s disapproving grandmother-in-law, Alice Vermillion, died at the age of 90 in 2006. “I know that you are with Aunt Arelene & you both are watching over all of us,” wrote one of her grandchildren on her obituary page.

In another development relating to a figure in the case, James Konat resigned from his $147,500-a-year prosecutor job in 2012 amid accusations of racism. At a trial in 2007, he had stated that “black folk don’t testify against black folk.” Yikes.

And speaking of career derailments, the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train went out of business in 2007 because of highway construction and a decline in ridership. But it goes down in history as not only a wholesome tourist attraction but also a factor in finding a missing woman and helping to put a double murderer behind razor wire forever.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Image of Forensic Files Now book cover next to logos of places that wil be selling it — Book available in stores and online

Miriam Helmick: Waltzing into Homicide

A Dance Teacher Cons a Real Estate Developer
(‘Gone Ballistic,’ Forensic Files)

Before launching into this week’s post, I’d like to share some exciting news.

A book version of ForensicFilesNow.com is here. Each chapter consists of an existing blog post along with something extra, a new interview with someone involved in the case or an “update to the update.” Paul Dowling wrote the foreword. Prometheus Books has published it under the name Forensic Files Now: Inside 40 Unforgettable True Crime Cases on Oct. 15, 2022, and it’s available from Barnes & Noble as well as indepedent bookstores, and on Amazon.

Miriam and Alan Helmick dressed up, her holding flowers — Miriam and Alan Helmick

Boilerplate. Now that the book’s MOAM (mother of all manuscripts) is finished, I’m looking forward to spending more time on new recaps for the blog.

“Gone Ballistic” seems like a good place to resume because it offers story elements that are so very Forensic Files: (1.) A spouse makes a clumsy, failed attempt before (2.) successfully killing the other spouse, but (3.) leaves incriminating evidence, and (4.) never imagines that the suspicious death of an earlier husband or wife will draw police scrutiny.

Such was the template that Miriam Helmick (and Barbara Stager and others before her) used.

Student athlete. For this week, I looked for more information about Miriam’s first marriage as well as murder victim Alan Helmick. So let’s start the recap of “Gone Ballistic” along with information from online research.

Alan Clarke Helmick came into the world August 27, 1945. He pitched for the school baseball team at Delta High in Colorado and dated fellow student Sharon Leonard. They married young and had four children, Wendy, Portia, Kristy, and Alan Jr.

After working as a bank manager, Alan Sr. became a land developer and founded Helmick Mortgage. He had ownership interests in several businesses, one of which helped to build Mesa County’s Crista Lee housing subdivision.

Sudden tragedy. In 2003, after 36 years of marriage, Sharon had a fatal heart attack, leaving Alan devastated emotionally.

“I think that he died that day — a big part of him,” Alan Jr. would later tell NBC. “You know, he lost my mother who he’d been with since he was 14, his love, his life. I’m sure that everything that he thought was real was ripped out from under him.”

A stretch of highway outside of Whitewater, Colorado — The highway leading to Whitewater, where Alan and Miriam Helmick lived — and Alan died.

Two years later, he would cross paths with Miriam Giles.

Comfortable life. So who was this cheery-faced femme fatale? Very little of her early life history surfaced in media sources except that she was born Miriam Francis Morgan on Jan. 26, 1957.

In 1976, Miriam met Jack Giles, the man who would become her first husband, while he was working at a grocery store in Brunswick, Georgia, and going to school. They married a year later and eventually moved to Jacksonville, Florida.

Jack worked as a chemical engineer. He and Miriam “weren’t rich, but pretty well off … nice house with a boat, a couple cars,” Jack’s brother Tim Giles would later tell the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

Gone girl. Miriam and Jack had a daughter, Amy, and then a son.

In 2001, a horrible tragedy happened when Amy, 23, died under hazy circumstances, possibly from an overdose.

“To this day, I still don’t know what she died from,” Tim Giles said, as reported by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel on December 12, 2009. “Amy was Jack’s angel, the beauty queen, workaholic. She never took drugs.”

(It’s not clear whether or not Miriam had anything to gain via Amy’s death, but Alan’s daughter Wendy told Forensic Files that Miriam changed her story a number of times about how Amy died.)

Here we go again. The following year, another untimely death shook up the Giles family.

Jack, 46, shot himself in the head while lying in bed next to Miriam in the couple’s home in North Jacksonville on April 15, 2002.

A police officer who just happened to be Miriam’s half-brother arrived at the house and declared Jack’s death a suicide, despite that the scene suggested that the profoundly left-handed Jack had shot himself with his right hand.

A display of greeting cards including the same one that Miriam used — Smoking guns aren’t always made of metal: The card Miriam bought is seen at left middle

‘Bar’ scene. Miriam was the beneficiary of Jack’s $100,000 life insurance policy, but she must have blown through that jackpot quickly.

In 2004, the grieving widow spent three days in a Florida jail thanks to a counterfeit check-cashing scheme, according to a Florida Times-Union account.

It’s not clear exactly when, but Miriam started a career as a dance teacher in Gulfport, Mississippi, after impressing Barb Watts, owner of the Amour Danzar studio.

“I thought she was dynamite,” Watts would later tell the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “She was the greatest thing that ever came by. We put her to work.” At some point, however, Watts came to suspect Miriam of stealing money from the business.

Happiness and grief. Nonetheless, at Miriam’s request, Watts sent her to Colorado to train the staff at her Grand Junction dance studio circa 2005.

Alan Helmick met Miriam after he signed up for ballroom lessons as a way to keep his mind off the sorrow of Sharon’s death.

Miriam enchanted Alan with her dancing, and they commiserated about the pain of losing loved ones.

Lively pair. They started dating despite that Miriam and Alan had signed agreements forbidding students and teachers from socializing outside of the studio, according to a Cox News Service story. (To be fair, it’s only natural for people to fall in love on the dance floor.)

Miriam and Jack “made everything they did fun,” recalled fellow dance student Penny Lyons in an interview with NBC.

The couple married in 2006. They lived in what a local newspaper called a high-end home, in a sprawling subdivision at 34999 Siminoe Road in Whitewater, Colorado.

High-risk investment. Alan enjoyed indulging his new bride. He bought her a dance studio and a horse-breeding farm.

In an interview on NBC, Alan’s accountant, Bob Cucchetti, said that he winced when Alan told him of his plans to go into those two types of businesses, which tend to lose money.

Two of Alan Helmick's daughters crying at the trial — Alan Helmick’s daughters at the trial.

Unfortunately, Bob was right. Dance Junction LLC and Creek Ranch Sporthorses LLC eventually overextended Alan’s finances, according to Oxygen True Crime.

Tanked. Still, there was another, bigger problem brewing: About two years into their marriage, Miriam became determined to kill Alan.

On one occasion, while Alan was sitting in a car waiting for Miriam to return from using a restroom, he saw smoke in the rear-view mirror and quickly exited the 1994 Buick Roadmaster.

Out of the question. Police discovered that someone had dropped a lighted fuse in the gas tank. Because the tank was full, the flames didn’t have enough air to grow quickly, giving Alan time to escape.

When speaking with Alan, police floated the theory that Miriam — who had asked her husband to pop open the trunk minutes before the fire started — was responsible for the sabotage.

Alan said he couldn’t imagine Miriam doing anything “malicious” and he’d be “shocked” if she did, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported on Dec. 23, 2008.

Electronic trail. Little did Alan know that Miriam had inquired about taking out a $250,000 life insurance policy on him and asked the agent whether they could make the transaction without her husband’s participation (the agent said no), according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

Investigators would later discover that after the gas tank incident, Miriam searched online for information about overdosing on the types of prescription drugs that Alan took.

“People tend to be very intimate with their computers — they will ask it questions through Google that they would not ask another human being,” noted investigator Mike Piechota during his Forensic Files interview.

Little to gain? No one knows whether Miriam actually tried and failed to murder Alan with some type of lethal cocktail or abandoned the plan completely.

Meanwhile, Alan saw no reason to distrust Miriam, because they had a prenuptial agreement and he was leaving his money to his children, according to Oxygen True Crime. (Despite financial troubles with the horse farm and dance studio, Alan still owned Helmick Mortgage and was reportedly worth millions.)

Finally, Miriam decided to go low concept.

On June 10, 2008, she sneaked up behind Alan and fired a bullet into the back of his head.

This time, he died.

Few forensics. First responders to the house found 62-year-old Alan lying on the floor in his study, with a shell casing nearby. In another Forensic Files staple, it looked as though someone had ransacked the house but left behind too many valuables.

During Miriam’s interview with the sheriff, she provided shopping receipts as an alibi for the time of the murder, according to the Charmed to Death episode “A Ruthless Repertoire.”

Miriam voluntarily submitted to a gunshot residue test, which came up negative.

Seriously bad idea, lady. Deputies began walking around the subdivision to ask the neighbors for any clues, and a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department cautioned residents, “If you don’t know who’s at your door, don’t answer it.”

Meanwhile, Miriam’s friends described her as happily married to Alan — they were inseparable — but Miriam, 51, apparently felt the need to deflect any doubts about her innocence.

A week after Alan’s funeral, Miriam showed investigators an anonymous greeting card instructing her to “run, run, run” and saying that she was “next.” Someone had left it right outside her door, she said.

An aerial view of the Helmick's house in Whitewater — The Helmick’s former house is valued at upward of $700,000 today, according to real estate websites

Big flap. The note on the card misspelled Alan’s name as “Allen” (cute little trick, Miriam) and someone had cut out the bar code (nice try).

Investigators found no prints or DNA on the card, but this time, they got some help from security cameras. Footage showed Miriam buying the card at Orchard Mesa City Market. She probably thought she was being clever by using cash and going to a store 13 miles from the Helmicks’ house, but now she was busted.

Miriam had no choice but to admit she wrote the card — but only to stir up authorities to investigate the case more extensively, she said.

What she accomplished, of course, was to attract more attention to herself.

Drama department. Investigators theorized that Miriam shot Alan, then showered and changed her clothes and went to the New Dragon Wall Chinese Buffet restaurant as an alibi. She left phone messages of feigned concern for Alan about why he hadn’t shown up to meet her.

Next, Miriam headed home, where she “discovered” the body. Her weepy 911 “my husband is dead” call sounded rehearsed and melodramatic.

Another red flag for police: If someone other than Miriam shot Alan, how was she so sure he was beyond help? Why didn’t she ask for an ambulance pronto? Authorities would later conclude that she made no effort to revive him despite that the operator gave her instructions.

Wendy Helmick during her Forensic Files appearance

Will be cinematic. Now, police were finding evidence that Miriam had started devising sneaky ways to tap into Alan’s money while he was still alive.

They dug up $40,000 in checks written to Miriam from Alan, and 10 of the them appeared to be forged.

Some circumstantial evidence came up regarding the car fire. Investigators discovered that four days beforehand, the Helmicks had rented the movie No Country for Old Men, which included a scene in which someone dropped a lit wick in a gas tank. (As Forensic Files viewer Rodman Papros commented on YouTube, “I have never heard of a murderer who took gaslighting so literally.”)

Son loyal. The bathroom that Miriam had used in a convenience store on the day of the car incident smelled like lighter fluid, workers told investigators.

Meanwhile, Miriam pointed to Alan’s son, Alan Jr., as a possible suspect in the fire as well as the murder. She cited rumors that the younger Helmick had a methamphetamine addiction, according to Oxygen True Crime.

But Alan Jr. had solid alibis, and he loved his dad.

“My father was probably one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life,” he later told NBC. “And I don’t just say that because I’m his son.”

Prior ‘misfortune.’ The police identified the murder weapon as a 25-caliber handgun that had long belonged to the Helmick family and was kept in Alan and Miriam’s house.

Now, investigators turned their attentions toward the 2002 demise of Miriam’s first husband, Jack Giles.

Miriam claimed Jack was depressed about the overdose death of their daughter and shot himself.

Missed opportunity. Jack’s brother, Tim Giles said that he never believed Jack took his own life. Because of Amy’s death, Jack knew all too well how a suicide could devastate a family, Tim said.

Tim would later criticize the Jacksonville police’s decision not to investigate Miriam more thoroughly after Jack’s death. They could have prevented Alan’s murder, he believed.

In December 2008, while Miriam was staying with her son in Florida and combing online dating sites for new suitors, she received some gentlemen callers who didn’t come from eharmony or OurTime: Colorado deputies accompanied by U.S. Marshalls and Florida law officers arrested Miriam in Arlington.

They found that Miriam had identification that belonged to Sharon Helmick, Alan’s first wife.

Romance killer. Under the name “Sharon,” Miriam had almost snagged another big, or at least medium-sized, fish. Charles Kirkpatrick owned two dance studios and a human resources firm.

They dated for a while, but he would later say that Miriam scared him off by asking too early and too often whether she could move into his place.

Authorities returned Miriam to Colorado, where she appeared “shackled, stooped, and dressed in a high-security red jail jumpsuit” in court, according to a Denver Post account. The court charged her with 11 counts of forgery, attempted murder, and first-degree murder. She was placed in Mesa County Jail on $2 million bond.

Found out? But she had no chance of getting her hands on more of Alan’s money and using it to bail herself out. A court granted oldest daughter Portia Vigil emergency control of her father’s assets.

Before the trial, however, Miriam did score one big win when Judge Valerie Robison ruled as inadmissible any evidence pertaining to Jack Giles’ death.

Prosecutors still had a good deal of material to work with, and they made a case that Alan discovered Miriam pilfering from his business accounts and she wanted to quiet his concerns badly enough to try killing him — first with the car assault and possibly with some drug shenanigans.

Miriam Helmick in a recent mugshot — Miriam Helmick in a recent mug shot

Around the same time Miriam was forging checks from Alan, he fell mysteriously ill, although he did recover.

Time-tested firearm. There was also the matter of her selling some of Alan’s properties after his death, which reportedly robbed his children of monies rightfully theirs.

Miriam had insisted that, despite the prenuptial agreement, all property acquired during the marriage belonged to her, Portia testified.

Prosecutors alleged that Miriam used the Helmick family heirloom 25-caliber gun to shoot Alan. He reportedly kept the weapon in his sock drawer.

Inadvertent slip. No one determined what Miriam did with the gun or the clothes she wore when she pulled the trigger.

An acquaintance of Miriam’s, a horse trainer named Jeri Yarbrough, said that Miriam gave herself away after the fire by blurting out, “I did not know the full tank would not blow.”

Information about Miriam’s alleged fraudulent activities also came out. She had images of 39 different driver’s licenses stored on her computer, according to the prosecution.

Glam gone. Former online friend Charles Kirkpatrick testified that Miriam told him Alan died of a brain disease.

Miriam chose to take the stand. She made sure her appearance didn’t have “scheming seductress” written all over it. She wore eyeglasses and unassuming clothes — dark pants and a striped blue sweater. Her bright lipstick and suntan were gone. She let a little gray go unretouched.

Exterior view of the Denver Women's Correctional Facility — The Denver Women’s Correctional Facility has 984 beds and houses women at all custody levels, according to the Colorado DOC website

Under questioning, she denied her guilt and weepily recounted her narrative of finding Alan shot to death.

Prosecutor Richard Tuttle, who would go on to appear on Forensic Files, told the court that her tears were false.

Different kind of number. A jury agreed and convicted Miriam of first-degree murder

Hence, Miriam attained another component of the Forensic Files template: prison time. She’s currently inmate #148412 at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility.

Her sentence — life plus 108 years — means she has virtually no chance of fox-trotting her way to freedom and preying on other men looking for love.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

To order the book:
Amazon
B&N
Books-a-Million
Indie Bound
Target
Walmart

Viktor Gunnarsson: A Swede Meets Death

A Notorious Scandinavian’s Fate Lies in North Carolina
(‘To the Viktor,’ Forensic Files)

Viktor Gunnarsson craved attention and fabricated stories to suit his ego.

In Sweden, where he was born and raised, he liked to pretend he originally came from the U.S.

He had spent some time in California and, upon his return, he started speaking Swedish with a fake American accent.

Shock and sorrow. He tried to impress women he chatted up at bars, once saying that he had debated Prime Minister Olof Palme and utterly humiliated the popular leader.

On the night that an assassin gunned down Palme on Feb. 28, 1986 — in a crime that devastated the peace-loving country — Gunnarsson, who belonged to a right-wing political group, had been loudly spewing anti-Palme hate speech in a bar not far from the crime scene.

Police detained and questioned Gunnarsson, but the story of a witness who said he had seen him near the murder scene suddenly fizzled, and Stockholm police chief Hands Holmer decided to drop charges against Gunnarsson.

Icy reception. Nevertheless, a cloud of public suspicion remained over Gunnarsson. Many still believed that he was the assassin who first greeted Palme amiably, then shot him in the back as he and his wife exited a movie theater on Sveavägen, a busy street in Stockholm.

In Sweden, Viktor Gunnarsson suddenly found himself about as welcome as an ice storm in summer.

Even the European Labor Party, an extremist group that labeled Palme a Communist, called Gunnarsson a “savage beast” and disowned him.

Tall tales. So Gunnarsson took his act back to the U.S., where most people didn’t know about his ill repute. And, despite his porn-star mustache, many women found him attractive.

Newspaper clipping of young Olof Palme and wife Lisbet — Olof Palme, shown with wife Lisbet, was charismatic and so well liked that he often went out without body guards. During the shooting, a bullet grazed Lisbet

Gunnarsson sometimes told his new acquaintances that he was an FBI agent or a film director capable of turning aspiring actresses into stars.

In reality, he worked as a language tutor. He lived in a rental unit in Lakewood Apartments in Salisbury, North Carolina.

True-crime fame. But he was determined to make a splash in America and he did, just not in the way he hoped.

Instead of landing on 60 Minutes or Biography or The Tonight Show, he ended up as a murder victim portrayed on Forensic Files.

Although “To the Viktor” did a good job of covering the investigation into Gunnarsson’s death, it never mentions who, if anyone, was eventually held liable for Olof Palme’s assassination or whether Gunnarsson remained a hated man in Sweden after his own death.

Grim discovery. For this week, I looked for some answers. So let’s get started on the recap of the Forensic Files episode along with extra information drawn from internet research and the book Blood on the Snow: The Killing of Olof Palme by Jan Bondeson.

Kay Weden

On a frosty January morning in 1994, a North Carolina land surveyor found the body of a middle-aged man in a remote area called Deep Gap in Watauga County, North Carolina. His toes were sticking out of the snow. He was naked except for a watch and a ring.

Police believed it was a professional hit. The man had died of two bullet wounds, one to the head and another to the neck, and his body had been there since late December.

Errant boyfriend. At the scene, police found a long piece of electrical tape containing a bullet hole, blood drops, and human hair.

A photo in a missing person’s database identified the dead man as Viktor Gunnarsson, 40, who lived in the U.S.

Interpol sent fingerprints that confirmed the ID.

A schoolteacher named Kay Weden told police she had been dating Gunnarsson for a few weeks and she hadn’t heard from him since Dec. 3, when he’d taken her out to dinner.

Obsessive ex. Police at first suspected Gunnarsson died in a political assassination tied to the Palme murder.

The truth wasn’t quite so grandiose, although it was a bit sordid.

Kay Weden told detectives that on her last date with Gunnarsson, a car driven by her jealous ex-fiancée, Lamont Claxton “L.C.” Underwood, cruised by her house to spy on the couple, who were sitting outside, according to “Cold Blooded,” an episode of The New Detectives.

L.C. Underwood, seen here in uniform as an active-duty police officer — L.C. Underwood during his active duty years

A female friend of Underwood’s named Shelly Thompson said that the retired cop had written down the license plate of a 1979 Lincoln in front of Kay Weden’s place and then used a police source to find out the name of the owner — Viktor Gunnarsson.

Trusting victim. When police subsequently searched Underwood’s “immaculately clean” house, a sharp-eyed officer noticed that behind a clothes dryer there was some electrical tape similar to the type used to gag Gunnarsson, according to The New Detectives.

Underwood claimed he’d never heard of Viktor Gunnarsson.

Meanwhile, just days after Gunnarsson’s death, a bigger tragedy befell Kay Weden. Her mother, Catherine Miller, was shot to death, apparently by someone she knew. The 77-year-old had been cooking a meal in her apartment when it happened, and there was no sign of a break-in. Like Gunnarsson, she received two shots execution style, although they were from a .38 caliber, a different gun from the one used on Gunnarsson.

Cold greeting. But police found plenty of evidence, both circumstantial and forensic.

Underwood, who was bitter about his breakup with Kay Weden, had at one time confronted Catherine Miller and accused her of ruining his relationship with Weden, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.

He had also dumped a glass of iced tea in Weden’s lap at a restaurant.

Troubling record. The iced tea incident wasn’t exactly proof of murderous intent, but strands of Gunnarsson’s hair found in the trunk of Underwood’s car looked pretty incriminating.

A typewriter ribbon in Underwood’s house revealed the same language used in anonymous threatening notes that Weden had received in the run-up to the murders.

Plus, Underwood, who had been married and divorced three times, had a history of stalking women once their relationships started to sink. (He probably feared abandonment — Underwood lived in a children’s home from ages 3 to 18, according to a newspaper account.)

March into forest. Investigators theorized that Underwood killed Viktor Gunnarsson and Catherine Miller because he wanted to create havoc in Weden’s life so that she would rush back into his arms for consolation.

They believe Underwood abducted Gunnarsson at gunpoint, bound him and gagged him with the black electrical tape, put him in the trunk, drove 90 miles to Deep Back, made him walk into the woods, and shot him to death. To eliminate forensic evidence, he either forced Gunnarsson to disrobe or undressed him after killing him.

Viktor Gunnarsson in a suit and sunglasses — Viktor Gunnarsson had delusions of grandeur never quite fulfilled

Next, he dropped by Catherine Miller’s house and murdered her.

At the trial for Gunnarsson’s homicide, the defense tried to play the Olaf Palme card. Underwood’s lawyer trotted out a witness who claimed a federal inmate told him that the Russian government had killed Gunnarsson to deflect attention from Palme’s real assassin.

Not a cause celébrè. The jury didn’t buy it and convicted Underwood in July 1997. He got a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

Authorities never tried Underwood for the murder of Catherine Miller, probably because he already had little chance of getting out of prison on two feet — and Kay Weden had suffered through enough court proceedings.

In 2004, a local innocence group looked into Underwood’s case, but it’s not clear how far they took it. A federal court vacated his conviction in 2010 on the basis of ineffective counsel and granted him a new trial, but another court put the kibosh on that.

Elusive resolution. Underwood died in the hospital while serving his sentence at Central Prison in Raleigh on Dec. 23, 2018.

So, back in Sweden, did authorities ever find out who killed Olof Palme?

Well, not exactly.

They succeeded in prosecuting ex-convict Christer Pettersson after the prime minister’s widow, Lisbet Palme, identified him in a police lineup. But the courts later voided the conviction for lack of evidence, namely the missing murder weapon. Pettersson received $50,000 for wrongful conviction. He spent it all on drugs and alcohol, according to the Observer.

Renewed interest. In 2004, Pettersson died of natural causes, with many still believing him guilty. Others speculated that South Africa had ordered Palme’s hit because he was anti-apartheid.

Catherin Miller, Kay Weden's mother — Catherine Miller

Authorities still haven’t given up on the case. Sweden changed its homicide laws to extend the statute of limitation beyond 25 years.

In 2016, the country appointed a prosecutor to start a new probe into Palme’s murder.

In the meantime, the population remains divided as to whether new forensic technology will help authorities crack the case or whether it’s time to admit defeat and close the files, according to an article published on the 25th anniversary of Olof Palme’s death on Swedish news website The Local. Over the years, police had already questioned 10,000 people in connection with the assassination and 134 individuals falsely took responsibility for the crime.

Fanciful contention. In any case, suspicion toward Viktor Gunnarsson had faded in his country of birth by the time of his death.

One conspiracy theory holds that the real assassins set up Gunnarsson as a suspect and then had him murdered in the U.S. in hopes that Swedish authorities would close the books on the case.

Gunnarsson and his ego would probably find that explanation for his death more satisfying than the real story — that he got tangled up in a love triangle with a couple of public-sector employees.

That’s all for the week. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on Tubi

Forensic Files Ranked

Which Episodes Keep You Up at Night?

This past spring, producers asked viewers to tell them which of the 400 Forensic Files episodes amused, haunted, enlightened, and otherwise seared themselves into their cerebrums.

Graphic with a gun and fingerprint promoting Forensic Files A Special Tribute. — The 25th anniversary special includes reminiscences from series creator Paul Dowling

The survey results determined which clips made it into a 45-minute program celebrating the show’s 25th anniversary. I was glad to see a lot of my own favorites turn up in the responses — and surprised at a few greats I’d almost forgotten.

At the end of Forensic Files: A Special Tribute, you can see some of the survey responses flicker by during the credits.

Just for fun, please witness the full results, below. I’ve put in links to relevant recaps from this blog.

Most Memorable Episode
1. The List Murders
2. The Disappearance of Helle Crafts
3. Kill’igraphy

Scariest Criminal or Criminal Pair
1. Erika and B.J. Sifrit (Dirty Little Secret)
2. Jason Massey (Pure Evil)
3. John Schneeberger, M.D. (Bad Blood)

Dumbest Criminal or Criminal Pair
1. Molly and Clay Daniels (Grave Danger)
2. Jason Funk (Muffled Cries)
3. George Hansen (Frozen Assets)

Most Memorable Exoneration
1. Ray Krone (Once Bitten)
2. Patricia Stallings (Deadly Formula)
3. Clayton Johnson (Accident or Murder)

Most Groundbreaking Forensic Science
1. DNA Profiling
2. Polymerase chain reaction
3. AFIS

Best Reenactment
1. Murder of the List Family (The List Murders)
2. Drowning of Joan Rogers and her two daughters (Water Logged)
3. Drugs sneaked into pregnant fiancée’s drinks by Maynard Muntzing, M.D. (Bitter Pill to Swallow)

Best Interview
1. Skip Palenik
2. Trey Gowdy
3. Candy Fonagy

Creepiest Crime Scene
1. B.J. Sifrit in bathtub with victims’ heads (Dirty Little Secret)
2. Entire family shot to death by John List (The List Murders)
3. Christopher Porco’s ax attack on his parents (Family Ties)

Favorite Forensic Tool or Technique
1. Luminol
2. Forensic genealogy
3. Mass spectrometry

Favorite Phrase or Quote
1. “Is it common for a bomber to blow himself up?” “Not common enough.” (Postal Mortem)
2. “It’s from the book of Who Cares” (Slippery Motives)
3. “Those goddamn black shoes!” (Hell’s Kitchen)

Most Surprising Clue
1. Blood vial implanted in arm of John Schneeberger, M.D. (Bad Blood)
2. Hamburger bun with killer’s print (Purebread Murder)
3. Cat hair (Purr-Fect Match)

Most Difficult-to-Solve Murder(s)
1. Zodiac Killer’s victims (Sign of the Zodiac)
2. Reyna Marroquin (A Voice from Beyond)
3. Helle Crafts (The Disappearance of Helle Crafts)

Most Creative Alibi
1. Kevin Dowling’s fishing video (Shadow of a Doubt)
2. Dana Ewell’s being with FBI agent John Zent at the time of the Ewell family murders (Two in a Million)
3. Thomas Jabin Berry’s claim that he frequently had consensual sex with strangers he just met at the beach (A Cinderella Story)

Best Takeaway from Series
1. Technology and investigative techniques are constantly improving.
2. The odds of getting away with crimes are slim.
3. Criminals are dumb.

One-Off Favorite Forensic Files Quotes
• “We will NOT reveal the name of the poison on this program.”
• “He stopped at an ice cream store and got a dessert known as a ‘blizzard.’”
• “Let’s go after that bitch.”

Random Comments From Survey Takers
• “This was such a hard survey to answer! It was like asking me who my favorite child is — and I only have 4 kids, not 400.”
• “Antifree made Stacey Castor Anti-free.”
• “Never trust anyone with trilobal carpet fibers”
• “I only wish that Peter Thomas can see this event or episode.”
• “Best time to watch Forensic Files: midnight after the meds kick in.”

In addition to YouTube, you can watch Forensic Files: A Special Tribute on Pluto or Tubi as well as on Discover+ and Fox Nation.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Book cover of Forensic Files Now — Book available in stores or online!

Deana Wild (aka Donna Hartman) Falls for a Con

With Friends Like Virginia McGinnis…
(‘Financial Downfall,’ Forensic Files)

Before jumping into this week’s recap, I want to address something that readers brought to my attention: Forensic Files has exited Netflix. I usually watch the show on HLN or YouTube and thus was asleep at the switch when the news broke.

Gary Lico, Forensic Files global marketing executive, officially confirmed the change.

“Forensic Files is indeed off Netflix, much to the dismay of many,” Gary said in a statement to ForensicFilesNow.com. “Viewers were concerned they’d lose their favorite show. This will be a boon to our other streaming partners: FilmRise, Pluto, Discovery +, and HBO MAX, in particular. We’ve all seen the power of one program, in this case, Forensic Files, increasing a platform’s audience.”

In other words, we won’t need GPS or sniffing dogs to find places to watch Forensic Files in 2022. So let’s enjoy the new year and turn our attention toward “Financial Downfall”:

Forensic Files evildoers who plan ahead often rely on feigned sentiment, staged death scenes, and insurance fraud to win their fortunes.

In 1987, Virginia Agnes McGinnis did just that. Fifty-year-old Virginia and her husband bamboozled a trusting 20-year-old woman whose real name was Deana Jalynn Hubbard Wild but whom Forensic Files calls Donna Hartman.

After manipulating Deana into taking out a $35,000 insurance policy, Virginia and Billie Joe “B.J.” McGinnis killed her and made it look like an accident.

Deana Wild dressed in a jeans and high heels while sitting on a rock — Deana Wild at a Seal Beach overlook

Virginia, we discover, didn’t limit her betrayal to friends. She allegedly killed one of her husbands and two of her own blood relatives as well.

So what made Virginia into a scheming killer who felt loyalty to no one but herself? And why was Deana Wild spending her time with a middle-aged couple instead of making friends her own age?

For this week, I looked for answers. So let’s get going on the recap along with extra information from internet research:

Deana Hubbard was born in Kentucky in 1967, and her parents divorced three years later. Her mother, Bobbie Jo Roberts, who worked as a school teacher, then married a law student whose last name was Marshall, according to the True Crime Brewery podcast. That union also ended in divorce.

Bobbie’s high hopes for her little daughter’s future fell when a school test revealed Deana’s IQ as 85, right on the marker between normalcy and mild intellectual impairment —if one trusts those kinds of metrics to gauge a person’s potential (I don’t).

A couple of Deana’s best girlfriends from high school who appeared on the Oxygen show Accident, Suicide or Murder described Deana as fun to be with and part of a lively social circle.

Virginia McGinnis as a young adult — One of the few existing photos of Virginia McGinnis

At 17, she fell in love with a Navy man named Jay Wild. Two years later, they married and moved to San Diego, where he was stationed, but his absences while at sea strained the marriage and they separated in 1987.

Deana stayed in California and met Virginia and B.J. McGinnis.

Virginia was born in 1937 in Ithaca, New York, to a dairy farmer named Christie Hoffman and his wife, Mary. The family lived in poverty, and Virginia suffered sexual abuse, according to research from Radford University. In childhood, she exhibited the three conditions of the MacDonald triad theorized to presage violent behavior in adults.

Virginia had a son named James Coates, and media accounts vary widely on his relationship status with Deana. They were anywhere from headed to the altar to mere strangers

Like Deana, Virginia and B.J. had lived in Kentucky, which made her feel comfortable with them. Deana moved in with them in their Chula Vista, California house in December 1986 while she looked for a job and an apartment, according to the Oxygen Network.

Deana’s mother tried to check up on her, but Virginia reportedly interfered. After Bobbie sent her a plane ticket, Deana visited her in Kentucky, but the two clashed and she returned to the McGinnises.

On April 1, 1987, Virginia brought Deana to an insurance agency and they took out a $35,000 policy on Deana. Virginia claimed Deana was traveling to Mexico and thought life insurance made sense.

In reality, the McGinnises were taking Deana on a sightseeing trip to the Big Sur region of California, where the Pacific Ocean’s dramatic coastline lies at the foot of the Santa Lucia Range of mountains. The three tourists arrived at Seal Beach on April 2, 1987.

Sea lions sunning themselves on the sand on Seal Beach — Deana reportedly had a fear of heights, but she probably couldn’t resist looking around for Seal Beach residents like these

Deana enjoyed gazing down at the waves crashing into rocks so much that she stayed behind after her friends headed back to the car, the couple later explained.

Suddenly, Virginia and B.J. realized that Deana had disappeared, they said. One of her blue high-heeled shoes lay at the site.

Virginia ran to a nearby art gallery to call for help. A Monterey County rescue team arrived at the scene.

The couple told Police Officer Jess Mason that they didn’t hear Deana yell or scream; she silently vanished.

Mason would later describe the McGinnises as calm — but it didn’t seem suspicious because the missing woman wasn’t a blood relative.

By the time first responders found Deana’s body, she had dried blood covering her face. They could also see severe wounds on the backs of her hands and fingers. She had fallen anywhere from 390 t0 500 feet and died of head trauma.

Once the McGinnises learned about the discovery, they seemed appropriately distraught.

Authorities at first believed the couple’s story about an accidental fall. Sadly, things like that happened a lot on the cliffs of Big Sur.

Virginia immediately filed a claim for the insurance payout on Deana.

Photos showing the real Deana Wild and the woman Forensic Files portrays as Donna Hartman — Deana Wild, left, was the real woman portrayed as ‘Donna Hartman,’ right

Meanwhile back in Kentucky, after Deana’s funeral, her mother was having trouble collecting on a $2,500 burial insurance policy that her employer provided, according to the book Death Benefit by David Heilbroner. The insurance company was holding up the claim pending some fact-finding. At church, Bobbie approached a fellow parishioner, a tax attorney named Steve Keeney, and asked for help.

Independently, Keeney started checking out Virginia’s background and discovered her history as an insurance payout queen. She pursued small amounts of money because — as Forensic Files watchers know well — it’s not cost-effective for the companies to investigate modest claims. Virginia went for quantity, with each policy amounting to around $35,000.

In one fishy case, second husband Sylvestor “Bud” Rearden, a cancer patient in the hospital, was released to Virginia after she falsely identified herself as a nurse qualified to care for him. He promptly died on Virginia’s watch.

The same thing happened to Virginia’s mother.

In both cases, Virginia benefitted from their life insurance policies.

And horror of horrors, it turned out that more than two decades before Deana’s death, Virginia’s 3-year-old daughter, Cynthia Elaine Coates, had been found dead in a barn. The little girl was riding a pony and somehow got tangled up in cords, accidentally hanging herself from the ceiling, Virginia said. Again, she collected an insurance payout.

She had also profited from a number of suspicious fires earlier in her “career.”

With Virginia’s track record exposed, police investigated Deana’s death as a possible homicide. A sequence of photos that the McGinnises took at Seal Beach suggested that Deana had grown sleepy as the day passed. In the last images, B.J. appeared poised to push Deana off the cliff.

A lab found that Deana’s blood contained Elavil, an early treatment for depression. The drug, usually taken just before bedtime, causes drowsiness.

And one more thing: James Coates — Virginia’s son and insurance co-beneficiary — was in prison for a parole violation and married to someone else.

Still, the McGinnises maintained that Deana and James were engaged and it was only natural for them to have an insurance policy on their future daughter-in-law.

Investigators would ultimately conclude that the McGinnises took the naive Deana out for a bite and sneaked the Elavil into her beverage before heading off to Seal Beach. Once they thought she was too drowsy to fight back, B.J. pushed her off the cliff.

Deana’s medical records showed that Deana never had a prescription for Elavil.

But B.J. did.

The wounds to the back of Deana’s hands and her fingers suggested someone had stomped on them, perhaps as she tried desperately to hold onto a ledge or brush.

Virginia and B.J. McGinnis were arrested and charged with murder on Sept. 15, 1989, under a no-bail warrant. (One source says that the judge did set bail, for $5 million. Either way, the authorities were not letting this killing machine and her spouse out of their sight.)

The trial kicked off on Jan. 6, 1992. The court transported jury members to Seal Beach so they could study the drop-off where Deana died in horror.

During the open-air part of the trial, the jurors could hear sea lions barking on the coast below, an AP account noted.

Virginia’s lawyer, Albert Tamayo, blamed Deana’s death on her high-heeled shoes.

In typical smear-the-victim fashion, Virginia claimed that Deana was a pill popper who would help herself to any drug, hence the presence of her husband’s Elavil in her blood.

It took the jury three days to convict Virginia of forgery, insurance fraud, and first-degree murder.

Deana Wild and B.J. McGinnis pose for a photo at Seal Beach — Deana Wild with B.J. McGinnis

“I don’t for a moment entertain the thought of Deana wanting life insurance for herself,” said Superior Court Judge Bernard Revak. “I don’t think this 20-year-old girl thought about her death.”

He also noted, “There are too many coincidences for this to be a coincidental death.”

Virginia went off to prison.

B.J. McGinnis had already died from complications due to AIDS while in jail awaiting trial.

On an interesting tangent to the legal drama, some controversy arose over Steve Keeney’s portrayal as the crusading lawyer who cracked the case wide open.

In an April 10, 1993 review of the book Death Benefit, Louisville’s Courier-Journal newspaper suggested that the tome overglorified Keeney, depicting him as “a cross between Perry Mason and Mother Teresa, a character whose only sin is working too hard and caring too much.”

Keeney supposedly sank $250,000’s worth of time and expenses into the investigation, all pro bono. But he reportedly had a deal for a portion of the proceeds from David Heilbroner’s book (which got great views on Amazon), and both men allegedly got money for a Lifetime Channel movie based on the case.

An overlook at Seal Beach — Although the scene of the crime at Seal Beach lies in Monterey County, the insurance was purchased in San Diego County, hence Virginia’s trial there

Forensic Files interviewed Keeney on camera, but the episode also focuses on the work done by homicide detective Scott Lawrence and prosecutor Luis Aragon.

As for the Lifetime production, Justice for Annie: A Moment of Truth Movie first aired in 1996 and starred Peggy Lipton and Danica McKellar.

No word on whether Virginia got to watch actress Susan Ruttan play the character based on her in Justice for Annie, but she definitely missed her portrayal on the Oxygen show in 2021 — Virginia died in prison at the age of 74 on June 25, 2011.

You can watch Justice for Annie on YouTube, where it’s collected 2 million views. If you have a cable subscription, you can see the Accident, Suicide or Murder episode “Fallen” online for free.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Collier Boyle Today: Moving Past Murder

John and Noreen Boyle’s Son Reveals More of His Story
(‘Foundation of Lies,’ Forensic Files)

When Noreen Boyle suddenly disappeared from her home in Mansfield, Ohio, her husband, John “Jack” Boyle, told friends and family that she simply had gone off on a jaunt. No big deal.

Collier Landry Boyle wearing a black t-shirt — Collier Landry

But their 11-year-old son, Collier Boyle, immediately went into overdrive.

He sensed something terrible had happened. Collier pushed for an investigation that ultimately led to the discovery of Noreen’s body buried beneath the concrete floor of a new home in Erie, Pennsylvania that Jack hoped to share with his pregnant mistress.

In 1990, Collier served as the star witness for the prosecution at the sensational murder trial. A jury convicted Jack Boyle, M.D., a popular doctor with a huge practice, and he’s lived behind razor wire ever since.

His son, now known as Collier Landry, grew up to become a freelance cinematographer out of Los Angeles and pitched the idea for the documentary A Murder in Mansfield, which first aired on the ID Network in 2018.

In 2021, Collier started a podcast series. He aims to make Moving Past Murder not just a vehicle for storytelling but also therapy and outreach for listeners.

Collier recently answered some of my questions about his work and life. Edited excerpts of our conversation appear below:

Forensic Files and the ID documentary told the story of your mother’s homicide. Where does the podcast fit in? It’s a true-crime podcast from someone who knows about murder. My message is that you can come through extraordinary things and be a functional person. I’ve stared at the nadir and survived. My mother gave me resiliency. I don’t want her death to be in vain.

What was your mother like? My mom was a kind, giving, wonderful person who often put the needs of others before her own. Every year for Christmas, I would have to donate half my toys to other children because I was fortunate and I should share with others who need it.

She disappeared on New Year’s Eve 1990. How did your father explain that to you? He said she took a little vacation. I knew my mother would never leave my sister and me.

What did you do first? I stored notes with her phone numbers in a Garfield. I was secretly calling her friends to find out where she was. That’s how everyone knew she was gone. People were devastated. She was the light of people’s lives and they were shocked this could happen to her.

Noreen Boyle in a pink Polo shirt with the sea in the background — Noreen Boyle was sweet but ‘didn’t suffer fools,’ according to her son

How did the disappearance transition from a missing-person case to a murder investigation? A Mansfield police officer named Dave Messmore saw the case cross his desk over a holiday when there wasn’t a lot going on. I told him, “She’s dead.” Dave didn’t care if my dad was a doctor — he was going to investigate him like any suspect.

It turned out that my father had been accused of molesting my uncle’s daughters and the Maryland police were about to arrest him for that crime, but the girls couldn’t go through the trauma again. The police in Maryland believed he killed my mom.

What happened to you after they finally arrested your dad? My entire family abandoned me. My father’s side didn’t want anything to do with me. And my mother’s side didn’t either because I look like my father. I went into foster care before I was finally adopted.

Your sister, Elizabeth, was just a toddler when this happened. Where did she go? When my sister and I were playing together in a foster home, they would take her away and say we weren’t bonded so they could adopt her out. I haven’t been able to find her.

Can your listeners relate to your history with your father? The manipulations by my father are incredible. He’s written around 500 letters to me from prison. I read the letters on the podcast and people say, “This is just like my abusive father and husband.”

You’ve said you can relate to the emotional side of sheltering in place during the Covid-19 crisis. How so? When I was 12 years old, for six months, I was basically not allowed to talk to anyone because I was preparing to testify.

So I get it with the pandemic. There are kids in abusive homes for whom school is their only relief. Now they’re stuck at home.

Have you ever found yourself attracted to someone who shares your dad’s traits? I got involved with a woman and then realized she was narcissistic and a horrible person. And when I broke up with her, she wanted to destroy me. I’m glad we ended it before the pandemic because if I’d been stuck with her in the same place, I think I would have offed myself. True narcissism is so insidious.♠

You can hear the Moving Past Murder podcast, including an episode in which Collier interviewed me about my blog, on Spotify or Audible or YouTube or Apple Podcasts.

That’s all for this week. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

To buy the book:
B&N
Amazon
BAM
Indie
Target
Walmart

Gerald Mason: A Rapist and Killer Self-Reforms

He Got Away With It — But Only for 46 Years
(“Marked for Life,” Forensic Files)

“Marked for Life” is one of just a handful of Forensic Files episodes involving a respected retiree harboring a horrible secret from his own ancient history.

Gerald Mason as an old man — Gerald Mason as a young man

Howard Elkins, for example, a long-married former factory owner, committed suicide a day after police showed up at his house in 1999 bearing evidence that he killed his pregnant girlfriend in 1967.

The Blowback. Gerald Mason, the subject of this week’s post, caused an even greater tragedy and eluded the law for longer. During one night in 1957, he terrorized and robbed four teenagers, sexually assaulted one of them, and shot two police officers to death. Investigators didn’t identify and track him down until 2003.

But instead of taking his own life, he admitted to his crimes and went to prison.

In cases like Mason’s — in which most of those involved have either died or stopped talking to the media — I like to look into the reactions that friends and neighbors had upon first learning about the past of the once upright-seeming man who lived peacefully among them.

Happy days. I also searched for more information about what Mason did between the time he vanished into a prosaic life and the day the law exposed him as a rapist and double murderer.

So let’s get going on the recap of “Marked for Life” along with extra information from internet research:

The episode starts out with black & white footage of Eisenhower-era police cars, beachgoers in swimsuits that didn’t require Brazilian waxing, and several scenes from Leave It to Beaver. It sets the stage for what Forensic Files calls a simpler, more innocent time (although it was probably pretty much like today except the ugly things stayed beneath the surface).

An El Segundo street scene with palm trees — El Segundo lies in Los Angeles County just 10 minutes from the dimly lit murder scene

Fateful foursome. As if the producers weren’t already going above and beyond with the great retro clips, they found and interviewed one of the teenage robbery victims, Robert E. Dewar, a man well into his AARP years by the time the episode first aired in 2005.

On July 22, 1957, Robert and his buddy and their dates were parked at a lover’s lane on Van Ness Avenue in Hawthorne, near El Segundo, California. When Robert rolled down a window, a man pointing a firearm at him suddenly appeared. The gunman took their money and jewelry and made all of them undress, bound them, raped one of the girls inside the car, and then stole their 1949 Ford sedan.

Parting shot. About an hour and half later, two police officers — who had no idea that Mason had committed violent felonies earlier that night — stopped him for going through a red light on Rosecrans Avenue and Sepulveda Boulevard, and prepared to give him a ticket. Mason should have just taken the summons and gone on his way. Instead, he pulled out his gun and shot the officers three times each. Richard Phillips, 28, radioed for an ambulance, but he died before it got there, as did partner Milton Curtis, 25.

Milton Curtis with his wife and son and daughter — Rookie police officer Milton Curtis with the family he left behind

Ballistic evidence at the scene suggested that Phillips, known for his marksmanship, had shot the attacker once before he fled.

But the mystery man had vanished after ditching the stolen vehicle.

Police found skirts belonging to the female victims inside the car.

Random finds. Robert Dewar described the assailant as soft spoken and uneducated with a Southern accent. Charlie Porter, a police officer who had driven past the scene where Phillips and Curtis had just stopped Gerald Mason, described him as about 6 feet tall, having short hair, and appearing arrogant (apparently a law officer can spot that from a distance), according to the 48 Hours episode “The Ghosts of El Segundo.”

Investigators lifted a thumbprint from the stolen car’s steering wheel but found no matches in their files.

Progress on the case stalled.

Richard Phillips' wife and three young children — A newspaper clipping showing Richard Phillips’ survivors

Three years later, Manhattan Beach homeowner Doug Tuley turned over two watches and a .22 caliber handgun he found while digging up weeds on his property. The timepieces belonged to the robbed teenagers. The attacker had apparently dropped the items while fleeing after abandoning the stolen car on that night in 1957.

Lots of legwork. Police traced the gun’s serial number to a Sears in Shreveport, Louisiana, which recorded the buyer’s name as “G.D. Wilson.” The gun, the least expensive one the store carried, cost $29.95.

Investigators discovered that a “George D. Wilson” had rented a room in a YMCA near the Sears store, but he’d given a fake address in Florida.

Police spent years checking up on every George D. Wilson they could find, but none panned out.

The case even made a 1958 issue of True Detective magazine, which appealed to the public for help catching the so-called Lover’s Lane Bandit (although “bandit” sounds like a rather light suggestion of his crimes). But that and other media efforts never yielded a viable suspect.

Confronted by his past. Then, in 2002, a woman told El Segundo police that her late uncle had bragged about killing two police officers. It turned out to be a dead end, but it kick-started interest in the case again. Investigators used the newly available Automated Fingerprint Identification System, also known as AFIS, to run the fingerprint from the teenagers’ stolen car. Up popped the name of Gerald Fiten Mason, a prosperous retiree who lived in South Carolina.

His handwriting matched the signatures on the YMCA and Sears records.

Police, who surveilled him for weeks and observed him playing golf with friends and enjoying other innocent diversions, finally knocked on his door on Jan. 26, 2003. Depending on which media account you read, his response was utter disbelief, denial, annoyance, or cockiness.

“His jaw dropped to his knees,” officer Dan McElderry told the The Times of Shreveport Louisiana.

Successful entrepreneur. Yet a different publication said Mason’s attitude was basically, “Why are ya’ bugging me for that now?” Another article described Mason as acting as though he didn’t understand why they suspected him. But he immediately spoke of getting a lawyer once the lawmen materialized at his house, one source said.

A high school yearbook photo of Robert E. Dewar — Robert E. Dewar around the time Gerald Mason attacked him and his friends

Gerald Fiten Mason had made a small fortune by buying, selling, and operating gas stations and convenience stores, according to The Times of Shreveport. He was living quietly in Columbia, the same South Carolina city where he was born on Jan. 31, 1934. He had served a year in jail for burglary in 1956 but had no other criminal record whatsoever.

The army veteran was ensconced in a “comfortable suburban tract” with his wife, Betty Claire Blackmon Mason, the New York Times reported. The couple had two daughters and three grandchildren.

Loyal to Dad. A neighbor told the NY Times that the law must have the wrong man — why would a fugitive live out in the open as he had done for years in South Carolina?

A friend told CBS that the revelations were “flabbergasting.”

Jerri Mason Whittaker, daughter of the accused killer and rapist, would later tell People magazine that she “could not have had a better father.”

Richard Phillips in his police uniform — Richard Phillips

According to an LA Times account, Mason “was a genial fellow who checked up on neighboring widows and was always willing to lend them a hand with a man’s traditional chores: painting a mailbox or fixing an electrical glitch.”

Reunion of sorts. Dayton Sisson, who had lived next-door to Mason for 30 years, told the media that the two of them helped each other out when one needed to cut down invasive trees or renovate his garage. “If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have no garage like this,” Sisson told the Associated Press.

Mason went bowling regularly and was an “above average player.”

After his arrest, he was detained at a Columbia facility but ultimately returned to Los Angeles County to face a judge.

“Officers that hadn’t been around for 20 years came in walking on canes,” Assistant District Attorney Darren Levine told CBS.

Back bears evidence. Also in attendance was Howard Speaks, the investigator who had lifted the fingerprint off the steering wheel of the stolen car back in 1957.

In March 2003, Gerald Mason, who had a bullet-shaped wound in his back thanks to the dying Richard Phillip’s accuracy, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder. It’s not clear why he didn’t face any charges for rape.

Gerald Mason cries in court in 2003 — Gerald Mason in court

He teared up while apologizing for his actions, saying they didn’t “fit in his life” and he didn’t know why he did it. Mason would later characterize the crime spree as a baffling anomaly. (But he certainly prepared for it like a pro, with surgical tape, a flashlight, and a gun. And a handy pseudonym.)

Deprived youngster? Mason said he had the gun only for safety while hitchhiking and that he ended up in the lover’s lane while drifting.

He said he didn’t remember why he raped the girl.

He also tried playing the unhappy childhood card, alleging that he had never had a normal family life (although he had two brothers who attended his hearing in South Carolina, according to the LA Times).

Sorry, fella. The families of his victims didn’t feel a whole lot of sympathy for the guy.

“Your cowardly act shattered our lives forever,” said Carolyn Phillips, the daughter of Richard Phillips. “You caused our mother to become a widow with three babies to raise alone.”

The court honored Mason’s request to serve his sentence in South Carolina so he could be closer to his wife and children.

Mason lost a 2009 bid for parole.

On Jan 22, 2017, he died of natural causes in prison, never having quite explained how he rehabbed himself into a law-abiding neighbor and family man in the 46 years since he’d left trauma and tragedy in his wake.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

To buy the book:
B&N
Amazon
BAM
Indie
Target
W’mart

Buried in the Jack Boyle Case

A Reporter Recalls Mansfield’s Trial of the Century
(‘Foundation of Lies,’ Forensic Files)

John “Jack” Boyle clearly saw too many Vincent Price movies. Or maybe he didn’t need to watch any horror films because he already had macabre impulses inside him.

After the wealthy doctor from Mansfield, Ohio impregnated his girlfriend, he hoped to marry her without the financial inconveniences of a split from Noreen Boyle, the mother of his son, Collier, 11, and daughter, Elizabeth, 3.

Noreen and Collier Boyle sitting on a dock — Collier and Noreen Boyle

Jack avoided a divorce by killing Noreen just before New Year’s day of 1990. And here’s the unusually ghastly part of the murder: He buried her beneath a fresh layer of concrete in the basement of the new house that he intended to occupy with Sherri Campbell in Erie, Pennsylvania.

But instead of winning himself a second chance at marriage, he earned a prison sentence of 20 years to life.

I feel a personal connection with the case because I grew up 40 miles from Erie — it was the big city we went to if we couldn’t find something in Meadville — and I had relatives in Mansfield, Ohio.

A previous post discussed the denouement of the crime and its consequences for Noreen’s son, now known as Collier Landry.

This time, I looked into the homicide’s effect on the community of Mansfield — population 46,000 — courtesy of a phone interview with journalist John Futty, a native who wrote about the case for the Mansfield News Journal.

“I’ve covered courts and cops for four decades now,” says John, “but I’ve never covered anything that had that level of public interest or was reported so comprehensively.”

Below are excerpts from my phone conversation with John, who now works for the Columbus Dispatch:

According to Forensic Files, Jack Boyle had a hugely successful medical practice. Had you heard of him before the murder? No, I don’t believe I had. My recollection was that Noreen and John weren’t too involved in the community. But we heard from a lot of patients who were surprised because they really liked him as a physician.

How did locals react to the case? The community was obsessed with it all the way throughout the trial. It’s not your typical murder case. We’re talking about someone from Woodland, one of the most prestigious areas in town, who transported a body to a new home he hoped to share with his pregnant girlfriend.

Was there a lot of sympathy for Collier, who was 12 years old when he testified? Yes. Collier’s testimony was seen by pretty much everyone and it was fascinating. Obviously, a pretty bright kid.

What about Noreen — was there sympathy for her? Yes, especially because her husband had a pregnant girlfriend.

What did people think of the character assassination Jack and his brother waged against Noreen? They claimed she was a gold smuggler and baby seller. That came after he went to prison, when he was trying to get a new trial. The people who knew Noreen didn’t buy it.

A prison mugshot of Jack Boyle with gray hair and a gray beard and mustache — Jack Boyle’s most recent prison mug shot. He has a chance of parole in 2025.

Back to the trial — I assume the courtroom was packed every day. The public had to get there early if they wanted to get a seat inside. There was a video monitor outside for those who couldn’t fit. The judge didn’t want people going in and out of the courtroom.

What was it like to cover the trial as a reporter for a small-town newspaper? There were two of us. We would have a tape recorder running during the trial. We had to transcribe the testimony ourselves. The two of us would stay late into the night to type big sections of key testimony so we could fill a couple of inside pages in the paper the next day.

Did you appear on any of the true crime shows about the Jack and Noreen Boyle case? More often or not, I turn down requests to be on shows. They take your time. You have to go somewhere where they’re doing the filming. You might sit there in the interview for an hour or more and end up with a couple snippets on TV.♠

That’s all for the post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime

Belynda Tillery: Lost at 17

A Teenager Barely Gets a Chance to Live
(‘Headquarters,’ Forensic Files)

Belynda Tiller with her three older brothers — Belynda Tillery was the only daughter in the family for eight years

Those who saw the photo of 8-year-old Belynda Tillery on rollerskates in the Lubbock Evening Journal in 1983 probably imagined the carefree-looking child would go on to live a charmed life.

But the golden-haired girl’s circumstances changed drastically sometime between then and 1992, when she disappeared.

For this week, I looked into why her trajectory took a dangerous turn and what happened to the boyfriend who ended her life. And because a number of YouTube viewers expressed shock that a strip club hired Belynda as a dancer when she was a minor, I looked around for an explanation.

So let’s get going on the recap of “Headquarters” along with extra information from internet research and online correspondence with Belynda’s younger sister.

Brothers aplenty. Belynda Kay Tillery came into the world in Hobbs, New Mexico, on Dec. 27, 1974, the daughter of Beverly Lutz Tillery and Robert Earl Tillery.

A newspaper clipping of Belynda Tillery on roller skates when she was eight years old — *A clipping from the Lubbock Evening Journal on August 4, 1983.*

Just a small amount of background information about Belynda’s parents came up online. Their 1969 wedding announcement in the Lubbock Avalanche noted that Beverly worked at Litton Industries (an electronics manufacturer) and attended Azusa Pacific College.

The newspaper item described Robert Tillery as a Poco Taco employee attending South Plains College. It’s not clear how long Belynda’s father stayed in her life or what type of work he did at the time of her birth.

But the couple had plenty of children to support. Belynda was the fourth of the Tillerys’ five children and the first girl. The family lived in Lubbock, where they attended the First Church of the Nazarene.

Veering off course. Growing up, Belynda was “best friends” with her brother Danny and “a bit of a tomboy,” according to her sister, Robyn Tillery. But Belynda “enjoyed her Easy-Bake Oven” and “playing in her makeup — and was quite good with end results.”

In school, Belynda showed little interest in extracurricular activities, Robyn said. “In her early teenage years, she became quite the rebel and found herself drawn to the bad kids. She loved the party life but still made time for her family.”

Angela Allen during her appearance on Forensic Files — *Angela Allen* *during her appearance on Forensic Files*

At 13, Belynda was removed from the Tillery household and placed in some type of children’s home. About four years later, she was returned to her mother and got a job dancing at the gentleman’s club.

Tasmanian devils? Although no media source gives the name of the establishment, Forensic Files mentioned that the Bandidos owned it.

The Bandidos were a multistate motorcycle group “so fearsome that when a rumor spread through a town that they were coming, people literally headed inside their homes and locked their doors,” according to a Texas Monthly story by Chris Hollandsworth.

That probably explains how the Bandidos got away with employing dancers younger than 18. (By the way, Texas has since raised the required age to 21 for all types of strip club workers as well as customers.)

But the real danger that stalked Belynda came not from a 220-pound tough on a Harley with no muffler but rather a skinny unaffiliated loser named Troy Armstrong.

Baneful boyfriend. Troy, who Forensic Files describes as a petty thief and drug user in his late 20s, began dating Belynda while she was working at the club.

As if he weren’t already bad news, Troy was two-timing Belynda with girlfriend Angela Allen, who viewers will remember from her appearance on Forensic Files.

A night-time photo of the strip club where Belynda danced — *Lubbock police once had to use an armored vehicle to breech a fenced-in compound owned by the Bandidos — who also ran the strip club — according to Texas Monthly.*

Belynda ended up pregnant, which riled Troy, although media accounts give varying reasons: Troy didn’t want to pay child support. Or he was mad that the baby belonged to another man. Or it was Troy’s and he was angry that Angela broke up with him because of it.

Regardless of any turmoil, Belynda wanted to continue the pregnancy. “She loved children and showered her nieces and nephews with plenty of love and attention,” Robyn said. “She was over-the-top excited when she learned that she would be having a child of her own.”

Remains of the day. In 1992, Troy took Belynda camping, ostensibly so they could discuss the pregnancy.

She vanished afterward.

Two years later, in 1994, a couple of hunters stumbled upon an unidentified skull, some bones, and a white high-heeled shoe in a field in Yellow House Canyon. Forensic evidence suggested that the remains belonged to a woman who died of a stabbing attack and was no older than 24.

A black and white photo of Belinda Tillery in her teen years — *To her older brothers,* *Belynda* *‘was their princess’*

Forensic artist Karen T. Taylor created a portrait of the anonymous female.

Passing likeness. After police released the drawing to the public, they got tips from the usual mix of people genuinely trying to help and a few oddballs — some who thought she was a woman missing since the 1950s, according to lead investigator Tom Watson. He also noted that one caller told him that her “knife freak” husband committed the murder and added, “By the way we’re having a custody battle tomorrow — can you give me a copy of the report for my lawyer?”

Fortunately, Beverly Tillery recognized the portrait as looking like her own missing daughter, and dental records confirmed it.

Angela, Troy’s other girlfriend, surrendered any loyalty to him and told investigators that Troy had shown up at her door with blood on his hands after the camping trip with Belynda. She turned over a jagged-edged knife he owned to police.

Then it was Troy’s turn to disappear.

Evidence in storage. The authorities finally apprehended him in January 1996, when they used GPS to track down a trucker friend of Troy’s on Interstate 80 in Nebraska. They dragged Troy out of his hiding place in the back of the tractor-trailer.

Police discovered he had a key to a New Mexico storage locker with Belynda’s driver’s license and other possessions. All together, they had enough evidence to charge him.

For the court proceedings, Troy cut his longish brown hair and put on a suit. He looked more like a nervous CVS clerk who shoplifted Marlboro Lights than a knife-wielding killer.

At the trial, prosecutors contended that Troy and Belynda argued during the camping trip and he stabbed her numerous times in the back, then deserted her body on or about July 24, 1992.

Troy Armstrong in a tie, button-down shirt, and suit jacket — *Troy Armstrong, seen here during the time of his court proceedings, was a “little man with a big ego,” according to investigator Tom Watson.*

More loss. Angela testified that Troy admitted to committing the murder and threatened he’d kill her children and her father if she told anyone.

The jury took two hours to find him guilty on Dec. 5, 1996. He got a life sentence.

Today, Troy Armstrong resides in the Alfred Hughes facility in Gatesville, Texas. The board declined to grant him parole in January 2021 based on the crime’s brutality, the likelihood he would reoffend, and his “drug abuse involvement.”

Although the Tillerys won justice for Belynda, tragedy would strike their mother again. Beverly’s obituary — she died at age 62 in in 2010 — notes that she had a 12-year-old son, Michael Canales, as well as a granddaughter whose lives ended before hers did.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Category: Forensic Files

Susie Mowbray: Stalled Heart

Like this:

Gary Ackley: Homicidal Meltdown

Like this:

Miriam Helmick: Waltzing into Homicide

Like this:

Viktor Gunnarsson: A Swede Meets Death

Like this:

Forensic Files Ranked

Like this:

Deana Wild (aka Donna Hartman) Falls for a Con

Like this:

Collier Boyle Today: Moving Past Murder

Like this:

Gerald Mason: A Rapist and Killer Self-Reforms

Like this:

Buried in the Jack Boyle Case

Like this:

Belynda Tillery: Lost at 17

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: