Tracking path of serial killers takes teamwork
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edition of The Flint Journal newspaper:
Lethal links
Tracking path of serial killers takes teamwork
Sunday, October 24, 1999
By James L. Smith and Kim Crawford
JOURNAL STAFF WRITERS
When the body of Lisa Marie Price was found on Susan Street two weeks
ago,
Flint police began to see a link between her death and the deaths of
three
women earlier this year.
Working with the FBI, police have set up a task force to try to
determine if a
serial killer is at work.
It is familiar territory for area police, who over the past 20 years
have noted
a pattern among slayings or rapes, eventually leading to the arrest of
at least
six serial criminals.
The most recent task force joins another ongoing investigation,
involving the
deaths of prostitutes, that police believe might also be the work of a
serial
killer.
But for police, the challenge is not only in finding a killer or rapist.
They
said it is often difficult to even find the links between crimes that
point to
one suspect.
"Sometimes no one knew what other (detectives) were doing," Burton
Police Chief
John Benthall said. "You didn't realize you had a problem."
The Leslie Allen Williams case demonstrates that.
Williams, of Detroit, was arrested in 1992 and eventually received 11
life
sentences in the slayings or rapes of several young women and girls in
southeastern Michigan, including sisters Melissa and Michelle Urbin, 16
and 14,
of Tyrone Township.
But until Williams' arrest, police said they had difficulty linking one
person
to his multiple crimes.
"There were no similarities to the girls and no geographical
similarities,"
said Oakland County Sheriff's Sgt. Clay Jansson, who served on a task
force
investigating the disappearances of four young women. "The only
similarity was
they were missing girls."
Computer data bases have helped police share information, but
investigators
still have the difficult task of identifying traits of a serial killer.
Victims
in this area have ranged from prostitutes to elderly women living alone.
And a
serial criminal rarely fits the image of a crazed, maniacal person.
"People would feel a lot more comfortable if a serial killer had a
certain look
about him," said Peter Smerick, a retired FBI investigator who drew up
psychological portraits of criminal suspects.
"They often lead double lives," added Smerick, who now works with The
Academy
Group in Manassas, Va., a private behavioral science consulting firm.
"They are
cool, calm and collected until their violent urges kick in, and then
they act
out in a very, very violent manner."
Likely victims
Police said prostitutes often are the target of serial killers or
rapists. The
victims who are the subject of the latest task force were black women
who had
been involved in prostitution, drugs or both. All are from Flint and
have been
found in or near abandoned houses:
• On Oct. 8, the body of Price, 31, was found on Susan Street near Mott
Avenue.
• On Sept. 29, the body of Hermetta Harris, 33, was found in southwest
Whaley
Park by a man walking his dog.
• On Aug. 22, the body of Brenda Millender, 27, was found by police
inside a
house at 609 E. Genesee St. after a couple told neighbors they believed
somebody was dead inside the home.
• On Feb. 15, the body of Helene Fails, 38, was found in an abandoned
home at
630 E. Rankin St. The owner of the home discovered the body while
checking on
his property.
Police are withholding information on how the victims were killed, Flint
police
Lt. Jody Matherly said.
The reasons prostitutes are targeted may be as complicated as a
suspect's
psychological disorder relating to upbringing, said Robert McFadden, a
retired
Flint homicide supervisor. But, more likely, it is just a matter of
availability.
"It's because they're there," said McFadden, adding that prostitutes
willingly
jump into a stranger's car. "It's part of the risk of doing business."
Police still are investigating the deaths of three prostitutes found in
Flint,
Genesee Township and Saginaw County's Thomas Township between September
1993
and June 22, 1994:
• The body of Pamela S. Newton, 35, of Flint was found in a creek June
22,
1994, in Thomas Township.
• The body of Dawn M. Hendon, 30, was found March 20, 1994, by children
playing
outside the Richfield Bowl in Genesee Township.
• A Buick worker found the body of Angela Tate, 39, in the Flint River
near the
Leith Street bridge Sept. 14, 1993.
A Grand Blanc Township man convicted of kidnap and rape was listed as a
suspect
for a time, but no charges have been brought.
Although the Newton, Hendon and Tate slayings are not targeted by the
new task
force, a retired detective said he believes serial killers often take a
forced
break from their killings when they land in prison on other charges.
When they are paroled, the killings can begin anew, said retired Flint
Sgt. Tom
Smith.
"Sometimes when it stops they might be in prison for an unrelated
thing," Smith
said. "They don't stop on their own."
An absence of new crimes rarely means a person has quit committing
crimes,
Smerick said.
"With serial killers, there's a cooling-off period of weeks to months,
sometimes years," Smerick said. "Sometimes a person has left the area,
but
they're still going to have those urges."
Profiling a criminal
Smerick said part of the difficulty in identifying a serial criminal is
in
identifying his or her personality. Often, their crimes are linked to
psychological disorders or childhood disturbances.
And often, they seem like quiet, mild-mannered people to most of
society.
Williams, investigators said, seemed like a polite, nice-guy neighbor.
But at
the time of his 1992 arrest, he was an ex-con with a record of rapes,
abductions and burglaries dating back to the 1970s.
"When we interviewed him, he was a very pleasant man, very polite, and
there
was never a bad word out of his mouth," Jansson said. "But he wasn't
polite
with them (his victims).
"His crimes were so heinous, but he's a smooth talker."
Jansson theorized Williams wanted to get caught because with each new
victim,
he became bolder and more reckless until he abducted a woman from a busy
cemetery on a holiday. Witnesses in that case led police to him.
Williams eventually offered police his own profile of himself.
"I'm a disease-ridden, full-fledged, card-carrying, convicted power
rapist,"
Williams said at his last sentencing in Oakland County Circuit Court.
Alden Knopek, a serial rapist active in the Flint area in the 1980s, was
also a
quiet, well-mannered man, say those who knew him.
"He is a quiet, smallish, unaffected type," said Flint attorney Sanford
Kesten,
who represented Knopek on a string of criminal cases. "You would never
pick him
out of a lineup as being a violent offender - at least, I wouldn't."
But Knopek, a machinist from Elba Township, was identified by police as
a
suspect in nearly a dozen rapes in suburban Flint and northern Oakland
County.
He was convicted in attacks on women in Burton and Davison, plus several
others
in Oakland County.
In the case of Chester L. Kelly, nicknamed "Chester the Molester" by
police,
his violent criminal career has been linked by experts to a homosexual
rape
when Kelly was 12.
After his release from prison in 1989, Kelly was linked to 15 rapes
until his
arrest in 1991. After his third rape in March 1990, police were
convinced they
were dealing with a serial rapist and an ex-convict, Benthall said.
Armed with an FBI profile, police arrested Kelly, then 32, in spring
1992 after
wading through 6,000 possible suspects. Judge Donald R. Freeman ordered
him to
spend 65 to 100 years in prison.
The numbers
Serial crime statistics are not available on a regional basis, so it is
not
known how the Flint area compares with other regions.
If states begin to create and share DNA information on violent
offenders, more
arrests and identifications of serial criminals possibly will be made,
Smerick
said.
While it seems there are more serial crimes today, it might simply be
that more
serial crimes are being identified and reported through better police
communication and media attention.
"Sixty years ago, there were serial killers operating, but we didn't
have the
communication between law enforcement agencies and nationwide news
coverage,"
Smerick said.
Journal staff writer Ken Palmer contributed to this report. James L.
Smith
covers suburban police and crime issues.
--------------------------------------------------------
Serial criminals have plagued area over past 20 years
Sunday, October 24, 1999
By Kim Crawford
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
The most notorious serial criminal to strike in the Flint area
undoubtedly was
Leslie Allen Williams, the ex-con with a record of rapes, abductions,
burglaries and paroles going back into the 1970s. Williams of Detroit,
then 38,
was arrested in May 1992 by an Oakland County sheriff's deputy after
trying to
abduct a woman from a cemetery in Springfield Township.
Within days, investigators realized there was a passing acquaintance
between
Williams and Kami Villanueva, 18, of South Lyon, who had been missing
for
several months. They also learned he was familiar with the Milford area,
where
Cynthia Jones, 15, had been abducted and missing since that January.
The detectives started asking, and Williams started talking. He soon
admitted
he had raped and killed those girls - and Melissa and Michelle Urbin, 16
and
14, of Tyrone Township, who had disappeared Sept. 29, 1991. Authorities
guided
by Williams immediately began to recover the bodies of his victims.
On May 28, 1992, Williams led police to Fenton's Oakwood Cemetery, where
he had
placed the Urbin girls' bodies in a open grave. It turned out that
Williams was
familiar with the Fenton area also because he had seen a therapist there
as
part of his 1990 parole.
In addition to the murders and abductions, Williams also pleaded guilty
to
raping a 9-year-old Wixom girl in 1991.
What made Williams a serial murderer and rapist? Family members said
Williams'
mother had been a prostitute and his father abusive, but Williams said
he had
been physically and sexually abused when he was placed in a children's
home
after his mother died.
After pleading guilty in the summer of 1992 to the murders, rapes and
kidnappings he committed, Williams received 11 life-in-prison sentences.
In 1995, he was stabbed by another inmate with an ice pick-type weapon
at the
state prison at Marquette but was not seriously injured.
The Flint area has had several other serial criminals over the past two
decades.:
"The Teddy Bear Killer"
• Talmadge Marshall of Flint. Marshall was only 14 in 1978 when he began
a
string of assaults and robberies on elderly women on the city's near
north
side, killing one and attempting to kill another.
Marshall, who had a knack for escaping authorities, was then a short,
stocky
kid with what police called "an angelic appearance." He was arrested in
January
1978, just two days after he robbed an 84-year-old woman at knife-point
and
tried to kill her by setting her house on fire.
But Marshall feigned illness and escaped from a security guard when he
was
taken to Flint General Hospital. On March 30, he forced his way into the
Grand
Traverse home of Agnes Watt, 78, with whom he had talked to previously,
threatened her with a knife and demanded money.
When Marshall was arrested in April, he confessed he had shoved and
kicked Watt
down the basement stairs; she died from head and spinal injuries.
Marshall also
said he robbed two other elderly women, though he couldn't say exactly
when.
But because Marshall was 14, he could not be tried as an adult. And
because he
was already in the charge of state Department of Social Services for
attempted
murder, arson and robbery, he wasn't charged with Watt's murder. Flint
police
called him "the Teddy Bear Killer."
From then until 1981, Marshall escaped three times from the Maxey Boys
Training
Facility near Whitmore Lake.
At 18, he was arrested again as a suspect in a series of break-ins of
senior
citizens' homes; he was charged in the unarmed robbery of two elderly
women but
pleaded guilty to a larceny charge and was sent to prison.
In 1988, Marshall was arrested again in the robberies of elderly people
- one
in a wheelchair - whom he blinded with a flashlight, beat, choked,
threatened
and robbed. He got minimum sentences of 40 and 50 years in prison after
being
convicted in two cases in 1989.
Genesee Circuit Judge Donald R. Freeman said Marshall had to be dealt
with
"like a cancer. There's nothing you can do but remove it."
As an adult, Marshall's escape attempts continued - from state prisons,
rather
than the youth facilities of his past. In 1991, he was sentenced to an
additional 2 to 5 years for trying to escape from the Thumb Correctional
Facility.
"Jekyl and Hyde" actions
• Robert C. Goedike of Flushing Township. With a history of sex crimes
and
arrests dating back to 1979, the 44-year-old Buick employee was shot and
killed
by Lansing police as he fled after struggling in his car with a woman
screaming
"rape" on a late summer night in 1990.
The strange case of Goedike goes back even further: He received a
gunshot wound
to the head in the spring of 1971, when he was 25, in what he told
police was
an attempt by a man to rob him at Dewey and North streets.
At that time, Goedike already was on probation in a 1970 armed robbery
of a
rural gas station, for which he had been allowed to plead guilty to a
lesser
charge of larceny.
In the fall of 1979, Goedike, then 33, kidnapped a 23-year-old Flint
woman
outside her apartment on the south side, holding a sharp object to her
neck and
forcing her to get into his truck. He forced her to perform sex acts;
when he
ordered her out of his vehicle she got his license plate number.
Goedike at first maintained his innocence, but he later pleaded guilty
but
mentally ill in spring 1981. As part of the plea agreement, a felonious
assault
charge on a Flint police officer was dropped.
Duncan Beagle, then-deputy chief assistant prosecutor, said two
prostitutes had
made assault complaints against Goedike, and he confessed he had a
history of
hiring prostitutes but then taking back his money.
Genesee Circuit Judge Thomas Yeotis compared Goedike's actions to "a
Jekyll-and-Hyde-type situation" and placed him on a year's work-release
from
jail, 5 years of probation and psychiatric counseling.
Two weeks after Goedike completed his probation in the spring of 1985,
he was
arrested after kidnapping a Lansing woman at knife-point and sexually
assaulting her on the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing.
That
case never went to trial.
The end for Goedike came early on the morning of Aug. 31, 1990. Lansing
police
officers entered an alley when someone reported a woman was screaming
for help.
As they approached a parked car - Goedike's car - they could see a man
and a
woman struggling inside. As officers ordered him to open his car door,
the
woman was suddenly pushed from the vehicle. Goedike put the car into
reverse.
The officers shouted for him to stop as he tried to drive away. Officer
Larry
Klaus said later that he fired his handgun at the car, believing the
driver was
trying to run down his partner. The bullet struck Goedike in the head,
killing
him.
An inquest was held; in addition to the rape victim and the police
involved in
the shooting, officers from Lansing, Flint and Grand Rapids testified
about
their dealings with Goedike.
The panel considering the circumstances of Goedike's death was out for
20
minutes before ruling the shooting justifiable.
"Chester the Molester"
• Chester L. Kelly of Flint. Nicknamed "Chester the Molester" by police,
he was
linked to 15 rapes after his release from prison in 1989 until his
arrest early
in 1991. One prosecutor called him "a one-man crime spree."
Kelly's criminal record of sex crimes dated back to 1970, when as a
12-year-old
he sodomized another boy and was placed on probation.
Within the next three years, he was convicted three more times of
sodomy, as
well as property crimes. In two of those sex crime cases, he received
sentences
to juvenile halfway houses; he was placed on probation for the other
crimes.
In 1976, Kelly, then 17, was sentenced to prison for forgery in
Louisiana. Less
than two years later, he was back in Flint and received suspended
sentences and
probation for three weapons charges between 1978 and 1984.
Violent crime appeared on his record again in late 1984, when he was
convicted
of felonious assault and second-degree criminal sexual conduct, but he
was not
jailed and did appear for sentencing in Genesee Circuit Court.
When Kelly was arrested more than a year later in 1986, he was sentenced
to
prison by Judge Harry McAra and was paroled in December 1989.
Police believe Kelly, who refused to attend psychotherapy sessions in
prison,
raped his first victim 20 days after his parole. Investigators later
claimed
they knew they were dealing with a serial rapist by the time Kelly
committed
the third rape in his series in March 1990.
Using a nylon stocking as a mask and long-bladed scissors as a weapon,
Kelly
for the next year terrorized women in assaults from the Lapeer Road
neighborhood on the south side along N. Saginaw Street, north along N.
Saginaw
and King Avenue up to near W. Coldwater Road in Mt. Morris Township.
He targeted low-income, young black women with children or female
relatives
living in rental houses. He was believed responsible for more than a
dozen
rapes.
Kelly was 32 when police arrested him in spring 1992 after wading
through
nearly 6,000 possible suspects. He was tried in three separate cases of
rape
and break-ins in Genesee Circuit Court and convicted on all counts.
The toughest sentence came from Judge Donald R. Freeman, who gave Kelly
65 to
100 years in prison. If he serves the minimum term, Kelly will be nearly
100
when released from prison, although he could be eligible for parole
before
that.
First DNA case
• Alden Knopek of Elba Township in Lapeer County. From May through
November
1990, Knopek broke into apartments and was suspected of raping nearly a
dozen
women in northern Oakland County and Flint suburbs, tying up his victims
and
stealing money and credit cards.
Knopek, who worked as a machinist in Oxford, was arrested in July 1991
after
Davison Township police were able to identify him using pictures taken
by a
bank security camera in Flint as he used a stolen card.
He had a criminal record dating back to 1971, with arrests and
convictions in
four counties on various charges related to robbery, burglary and theft.
Knopek wore gloves and a stocking mask when he broke into first-floor
apartments and homes, targeting women who were single or who had
children but
were not married. Some of his victims said their attacker punched and
bit them
and terrorized their children.
The cases against Knopek, who was 37 when arrested, started to come
together in
fall 1991, when he was convicted of burglary and assault with intent to
commit
sexual penetration on a Burton woman. He immediately pleaded guilty to
being a
habitual criminal offender.
Knopek was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison by Judge Valdemar
Washington,
but that was just the beginning. In what was probably the first criminal
case
in Genesee County to use DNA evidence, Knopek also was convicted in the
robbery
and rape of a Davison woman in March 1992.
Even though the victim could not positively identify Knopek as her
attacker, it
was believed the jury accepted the scientific evidence presented by
state
police crime lab experts.
The experts testified that the DNA sample taken from blood and semen
specimens
left at the crime scene matched specimens from Knopek. Judge Duncan
Beagle
sentenced him to 42 years in prison.
That summer, Knopek went on to plead guilty to five charges of
first-degree
sexual assault and two charges of breaking-and-entering in Oakland
County. He
was sentenced to a minimum of 50 years in prison.
"He will be sent away until he's at an age when he can do no harm to
others,"
said Oakland Circuit Judge Gene Schnelz.
Muscular predator
• Marcus E. George of Flint. He was 24 at the time of three separate
attacks on
local women in November and December 1996. Police and Prosecutor Arthur
Busch
described him as a "serial rapist."
He was, however, convicted on one assault charge and pleaded no contest
to
another in two of the cases brought against him.
But on other charges - including first-degree criminal sexual conduct,
kidnapping and armed robbery - George was acquitted in two of three
cases. In
the third case, similar charges were dropped or amended in a deal with
the
prosecutor's office.
Police alleged that George was a muscular predator who would pick up
women
along the N. Saginaw Street corridor and take them to a remote area in
Genesee
Township where he would assault them.
Defense attorney Dennis Lazar maintained the three women were
prostitutes who
agreed to have sex with George in exchange for money and drugs; the
women only
claimed they were raped after George provided them with fake dope, Lazar
argued.
In 1998, Genesee Circuit Judge Archie Hayman sentenced George to 4 to 10
years
in prison on the first of the assault charges; Judge Richard B. Yuille
gave him
the same sentence, to run concurrently, on the second.
Even though George was not convicted on any of the sex crimes charges,
Yuille
said he was concerned by the pattern of George's attacks.
