The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers (19 page)

While in prison, Anderson shared a cell with Jeremy Brunner, who contacted the Attorney General’s office in August 1997 with information about Anderson’s crimes. He told them that Anderson bragged excessively and in great detail about the murders of Piper and Larisa during the week in which they shared a cell. Brunner told the authorities that Anderson admitted he was a serial killer and that he kept trophies of his victims at his grandmother’s house. He even gave the precise location of the items. He said Anderson had hidden them between the ceiling and the wall of his grandmother’s basement. The items included a ring and a necklace belonging to Piper and Larisa, as well as his gun. Anderson told Brunner that he believed Walker might tell the authorities about the murders. Anderson told him that he had a feeling that if Walker were ever arrested he would reveal the location of Larisa’s body.

In order to prevent the police from discovering Larisa’s identity if she was ever found, which could link the murder to him, Anderson decided to remove her skull and teeth from the shallow grave. He then threw them from the car window as he drove from the scene. Brunner’s story explained why the police had found only portions of Larisa’s body. Brunner claimed that Anderson
had also bragged about abducting Piper. He said that Anderson admitted to raping and strangling her before disposing of her body in Big Sioux River. Witnesses said that they saw Anderson on several occasions on the day of Piper’s disappearance. Brunner explained that the reason for this was because Anderson had forgotten a couple of items and returned home to retrieve them. The police then went to the house of Anderson’s grandmother, where they found the items in the exact spots as described by Anderson when talking to Brunner.

On 4 September 1997, Anderson was charged with murdering Larisa Dumansky. He was also charged with the rape and murder of Piper Streyle. His trial commenced in the first week of March and lasted one month. Brunner agreed to testify and was given a lighter sentence for the crimes he had committed.

On 6 April, the jury quickly returned its verdict. Anderson was found guilty on four counts including the rape and murder of Piper and the kidnapping and murder of Larisa. Three days later, the same jury sentenced Anderson to death by lethal injection. However, the state would be denied the chance to execute him. On 30 March 2002, while awaiting the outcome of his appeal, he was found dead in his cell, hanging by a sheet tied to a bar.

Glenn Walker was tried for his crimes in March 2000. He pleaded guilty to the attempted kidnapping of Amy Anderson, being an accessory to kidnapping and first-degree murder and conspiracy to kidnap Larisa Dumansky. He received a total of 30 years’ imprisonment.

Alton Coleman (b. 1955) left middle school without completing his education. His mother was a prostitute who regularly used to have sex with her clients in front of him. He eventually went to live with his 73-year-old grandmother and, with no parental guidance, soon came to the notice of the police. Between 1973 and 1983, he was charged with sexual
offences on no less than six occasions. Coleman was due to stand trial in Illinois accused of raping a 14-year-old girl when he fled and began his indiscriminate killing.

Debra Brown (b. 1963) was one of 11 children; she suffered a head injury when very young that left her mentally impaired. She met Coleman in 1983, and up until then, she had been of good character. During the summer of 1984, Coleman, then aged 28, and Brown, aged 21, embarked on a murderous killing spree throughout the American Midwest.

Their crimes began in May 1984 when Coleman befriended Juanita Wheat, who lived in Wisconsin and was the mother of nine-year-old Vernita. On 29 May 1984, Coleman abducted Vernita and murdered her. Her body was discovered on 19 June 1984 in an abandoned building. The body was badly decomposed and the cause of death was ligature strangulation.

On 18 June, two young girls, Tamika Turks and her nine-
year-old
sister Annie, disappeared on their way to the shops. They had been abducted by Brown and Coleman. Annie, the older girl, was forced to watch as Brown and Coleman killed Tamika. Brown held Tamika on the ground and covered her nose and mouth while Coleman continuously jumped up and down on her chest and face until her ribs fractured and punctured her vital organs. The older sister was then was forced to have sex with both Brown and Coleman before being beaten about the head and abandoned. Miraculously, she survived. A day later, Tamika’s brutalised body was found in a wooded area.

The same day Tamika Turks’s body was discovered, Donna Williams, 25, was reported missing by her parents. Her car had also gone missing. A week later, her car was found abandoned in Detroit with a forged identification card showing Brown’s picture. Her disappearance was treated as a murder enquiry, and her body was found in an abandoned house on 11 July; she had been strangled.

The hunt was now on for Brown and Coleman. Police in four states were looking for them. In the meantime, two days after
Williams was reported missing, Brown and Coleman abducted a woman in Detroit. However, she managed to get away by crashing her car into oncoming traffic. Now on the run in Detroit, the pair committed two robberies to obtain money. On 28 June 1984, Coleman and Brown entered the home of Mr and Mrs Palmer Jones of Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Palmer was handcuffed by Coleman and then badly beaten. Mrs Jones was also attacked. Coleman ripped the Jones’s phone from the wall and stole money and their car.

On 5 July 1984, Coleman and Brown arrived in Toledo, Ohio, where Coleman befriended Virginia Temple, the mother of several children. Her eldest child was Rachelle, aged nine. When neighbours were concerned about not having seen her for a time, the police were called. On entering the home, they found the very young children alone and frightened. Virginia’s and Rachelle’s bodies were discovered in a cupboard; both had been strangled. A bracelet was missing from the house, and this would later be found in Cincinnati under the body of Tonnie Storey, another victim of Brown and Coleman.

On 13 July, Brown and Coleman journeyed south, stopping off in Cincinnati. There they murdered Marlene Walters and left her husband Harry for dead. He survived and told the police that Coleman and Brown had enquired about a camper he had put up for sale. Walters sat on the couch as he and Coleman discussed the camper. Coleman picked up a wooden candlestick and, after admiring it, hit Harry Walters on the back of the head. The force of the blow broke the candlestick and drove a chunk of bone against Mr Walters’s brain. From that point on, Mr Walters remembered little else. Sheri Walters, Harry and Marlene’s daughter, came home from work at about 3.45pm. At the bottom of the basement steps, she found her father barely alive and her mother dead. Both had ligatures around their throats and electrical cords tied around their bare feet. Her mother’s hands were bound behind her back and her father’s hands were handcuffed behind his back. Her mother’s head was covered with a bloody sheet.

Marlene Walters had been struck on the head approximately 20–25 times. Twelve lacerations, some of which were made with a pair of vice grips, covered her face and scalp. The back of her skull was smashed to pieces. Parts of her skull and brain were missing.

Coleman and Brown stole the Walters’ car and headed to Kentucky, where they abandoned the vehicle in a cornfield in Williamsburg. They then kidnapped Oline Carmical and drove to Dayton, Ohio, leaving Carmical locked in the trunk of his abandoned car. Police managed to locate the car and the victim was rescued. Brown and Coleman then committed further robberies in Dayton, involving stealing cars and cash from elderly couples.

By now, the murderous pair had been on the run for 53 days. During this time, they had committed eight murders, seven rapes, three kidnappings and 14 armed robberies, but their luck was about to run out. They had been placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. By now, they had arrived in Illinois and while out walking they were seen by a friend of Coleman, who recognised them and told the police.

A major police operation began. Coleman and Brown were located watching baseball in a local park. Shortly before noon on 20 July 1984, police officers began to approach the unsuspecting couple. Coleman began walking away as plainclothes and uniformed officers approached. When challenged, he surrendered with no resistance. However, he told police they were mistaken in their identity, providing them with two aliases, with Brown identifying herself as Denise Johnson. Police searched both of them. Brown was in possession of a loaded revolver and Coleman had a long knife hidden in his boot, though neither went for their weapons.

Now in custody, their real identities were soon revealed but police forces across the US wanted to bring them to trial. In the end, Ohio was successful in convicting Coleman and Brown on two aggravated murder charges as well as other violent crimes.
They were both sentenced to death and then the lengthy appeals process began. In January 1991, the governor of Ohio commuted Brown’s death sentence, saying she was retarded and ‘dominated by’ Coleman. She is now serving two life sentences in Ohio for her crimes. However, there are now legal issues taking place with regard to her being prosecuted in Indiana for murder.

Coleman’s case went to numerous appeals over the following years. But after spending 6,000 days on death row, his last-ditch effort to avoid lethal injection was unsuccessful when, on 25 April 2002, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected his final appeal. On 26 April 2002, shortly before 10.00am, wearing a ‘nondenominational’ prayer shawl with crosses and Stars of David over his prison blues, Alton Coleman walked into the death chamber and quietly laid himself on the gurney. He remained still as the guards fastened restraints on him and attached the lines that would contain the three chemicals to a shunt already in place in his arm. He looked over at the witness room and appeared to say something, but it was impossible to hear him through the glass. A prison official asked if he had any final words, he shook his head and then the executioner pushed the button that would begin the execution process. Although just three chemicals are used to execute a prisoner – one to induce unconsciousness, another to stop breathing and a third to stop the heart – eight syringes, operated automatically once the button is pushed, are required. It often takes two or three very long minutes for all the syringes to empty. As the drugs began flowing, Alton Coleman began reciting Psalm 23. By the time he reached ‘he leadeth me beside the still waters’, the sodium pentothal began to take effect and Coleman lost consciousness. He was pronounced dead at 10.13am. He died without ever showing any remorse for his victims.

His mother, who had wanted a girl, rejected Jerry Brudos (b. 1939) at an early age; as a result, she often ignored and belittled
him. His fetish for women’s shoes manifested itself from the age of five, and he spent his teenage years in and out of mental hospitals. As a teenager he began stalking women, attacking them from behind. Knocking them down and then choking them and rendering them unconscious, he would then take their shoes and run off. At the age of 17, he dug a hole and kept young girls as sex slaves in it. Shortly after, he was found out and taken to a psychiatric hospital in Portland, Oregon, where he spent nine months. During this period, he was assessed and his fantasies were found to stem from the hatred he felt towards his mother in particular and women in general.

Brudos managed to curb his fantasies and married in 1961. It was at about this time, however, that he began complaining of bad headaches and blackouts, finding the only way to ease the pains was to prowl the streets after dark, stealing ladies’ shoes and lacy underwear. From then on, he became more brazen, stalking women in and around Portland, Oregon.

On 26 January 1968, 19-year-old Linda Slawson disappeared while making her final house-call. She worked as a door-to-door saleswoman selling volumes of encyclopedias. On 21 April 1969, Sharon Wood, 24, left her secretarial job. She entered the basement level of a car park to look for her car. She sensed someone behind her and tried to return to an area where other people might be. But then someone tapped her shoulder and she turned around. A tall, podgy man confronted her, holding a pistol. He told her not to scream. She decided to fight him. She screamed and stepped away from him, but he grabbed her and held her in an arm-lock around the throat. He was twice her weight; she had barely a chance against him. She believed she was about to die. She kicked at him with her high-heeled shoes and screamed, grabbing the gun. Her attacker tried to silence her by putting his hand over her mouth; in an attempt to get him off she bit him, hard. She knew that she’d drawn blood. He tried to free himself but could not, so now he was struggling with her. He grabbed her hair and tried to force her to the floor, but she
continued to resist with all her strength. He slammed her head on the concrete, dazing her. She then heard a car coming and her attacker picked up the gun he’d dropped and ran off. She then passed out. Miraculously, Sharon Wood survived. However, the next victim would not be as fortunate.

On 26 November 1968, another woman, Jan Whitney, 23, disappeared as she was on her way home. Her car was found locked in a lay-by. Four months later, on 27 March 1969, Karen Sprinker, 19, also went missing. She had failed to meet her mother for lunch. Her car was found in a car park near where she should have met her mother. Witnesses in the area described seeing a very tall and strange-looking man. One female witness said that when this person got close to her, she saw that he was in drag.

Four weeks later, Linda Salee, 22, disappeared from a shopping mall. She had gone to shop and was supposed to meet her boyfriend afterwards, but had failed to meet him that evening. Her car was later found abandoned. By now, the police saw a pattern emerging with the disappearances of all these young girls. Their worst fears were confirmed when the body of a woman was found by a fisherman in a nearby river. The body had been tied to an engine block in an attempt to weight it down. Closer examination showed that a nylon rope had been used to attach the body to the engine block. Copper wire had also been attached in a specific way, indicating that the killer may have been an electrician. It was believed that the cause of death was strangulation. They also found two small puncture wounds, each circled by a burn, on opposite sides of the rib cage, which appeared to have been caused by a needle. Dental records showed that the body was that of Linda Salee.