A man pulled up in a dark street corner and invited Artis Wick into his car. He promised her money for sex, but once she was inside, he raped her. Unsatisfied, he strangled her and left her for dead. Her body wouldn’t be found for eight months.
Weeks later, Lana Long, a 20-year-old exotic dancer, finished her shift and accepted a ride from a stranger. He pulled off the road, produced a knife, and tied her up. He raped her, then strangled her. Three days later, two boys playing in a field found her decomposed body.
Police noted her hands were bound behind her back, her legs spread wide, and a ligature knot around her neck. They found red carpet fibers on her legs and tire tracks nearby, which they sent to the FBI lab. The killer moved on. On May 26th, Michelle Sims, a former beauty queen supporting her cocaine habit, got into a man’s car for $50.
A mile down the road, he threatened her with a knife, tied her hands, drove to a desolate spot, and raped her. He bludgeoned her head with a club, strangled her, and cut her throat. Her body was found the next day. The ropes used in her strangulation were all cut from the same length.
Police found more red carpet fibers and tire tracks matching the previous murder. Elizabeth Loudenback, a shy assembly-line worker, accepted a ride from a friendly stranger on June 8th. He pulled a knife, took her to an orange grove, tied her up, raped her, and strangled her. Her body was found two weeks later, so decomposed it weighed only 25 pounds.
She was fully clothed and not bound. Her ATM card had been used at various banks. Police questioned her boyfriend, who failed a polygraph, but the crime lab later found the same red fibers on her clothes, linking her to the other murders. Chanel Williams, an 18-year-old street prostitute, got into a mustached man’s car on September 30th.
He raped her, then strangled her. When she resisted, he shot her in the head. Her body was found face down under a fence a week later. She was African-American, and she wasn’t strangled or cut, but she had red carpet fibers on her legs.
Karen Dinsfriend, a 26-year-old prostitute and cocaine user, was picked up on October 14th. He bound her wrists with a bandana, beat her, raped her, and strangled her. When her body was found, red carpet fibers were on her legs. Six months, six bodies, each connected by the same red fibers.
Police formed a task force, working 24/7, even sending undercover female detectives to walk the killer’s hunting grounds, but he slipped away and killed again. On Halloween, police found the mummified remains of Kimberly Hops, strangled with the black cloth choker she wore. On November 3rd, 1984, the killer made a mistake. 17-year-old Lisa McVey finished a double shift at Krispy Kreme and was riding her bike home when she was plucked from the bicycle.
A gun was pressed against her head. She was blindfolded and thrown into a car, kicking and screaming. She managed to peek under her blindfold and saw a knife between the seats, the word “Magnum” on the dash, and red carpet in the vehicle. She was ordered to perform a sex act, tied up, and driven around.
He took her to what she believed was his apartment. For the next 26 hours, she was brutally raped. At one point, he removed her blindfold, and she caught a glimpse of his face. She kept a level head, placating him.
At one point, he showered with her and washed her hair as if she were his girlfriend. At 3:00 a. m. , he told her to get dressed.
To her shock, he drove her a few blocks from her house, told her to take care, and drove away. Lisa rushed home and told her parents she’d been abducted by a white male in his 30s with a mustache and dark hair. She told police he drove a dark red Dodge Magnum with a red interior. Days later, the body of Virginia Johnson was found, just bones with a leash still around her neck and red carpet fibers in her hair.
Kimberly Swan’s body was found dumped under an overpass with her legs spread apart. On November 13th, the FBI confirmed that the red fibers from Lisa McVey’s kidnapping matched the fibers from all the murder victims. The red Dodge Magnum was the critical piece of information. Task force investigators obtained a list of every registered Dodge Magnum in Florida.
One vehicle stood out. They pulled it over, and the owner appeared cooperative, even allowing his photograph to be taken. With no concrete evidence, they let him go. They showed the photograph to Lisa McVey.
She identified him as her attacker: Bobby Joe Long. Bobby Joe Long was born in West Virginia in 1953. At two, his parents divorced, and he moved to Florida with his mother, who worked at a bar and brought home a different man almost every night. He harbored resentment the rest of his life.
As a teenager, he was a bully with an aggressive attitude. In 1974, he married his high school sweetheart, Cindy. But a motorcycle accident nearly killed him, causing severe brain trauma. Hospital personnel noticed severe personality changes, a vastly shorter temper, and an insatiable appetite for sex.
He lost his job and became emotionally and physically abusive toward Cindy. She once placed a gun to his head while he slept, but couldn’t shoot him. They divorced in 1980. On November 16th, 1984, cops arrested Bobby Joe Long at a local movie theater.
During interrogation, he confessed to murdering eight women, expressing no regret or remorse. He said he would kill whenever he had the urge. He also revealed that before the murders, he’d committed dozens of rapes across Florida, dubbed the “classified ad rapist. ” He’d answer newspaper ads to single out women, showing up at their houses.
If a woman answered the door alone, he’d pull out a gun, beat, and rape them. Because the statute of limitations had expired, no charges were filed. On the day of his arrest, police found the body of Vicki Elliott, and six days later, the body of Artis Wick, the woman investigators believed he murdered first. Long struck a plea deal, pleading guilty to eight charges of murder and the rape and kidnapping of Lisa McVey.
He received 692 years, 39 life sentences, and two death sentences. The story of Bobby Joe Long ended with a conviction, but another killer’s story was just beginning. On June 3rd, 1991, 23-year-old Denise Huber dropped off her friend Rob Calvert after a concert and headed home. She never made it.
Her car was found the next morning on the shoulder of the Corona del Mar Freeway with a flat tire, the spare still in the trunk, and no signs of a struggle. The only item found was a pair of thigh-high stockings on the front seat. A canine unit tracked her scent 75 yards up the freeway, where it ended. Police considered the possibility of homicide.
The case went cold for a year and a half. In July 1994, a paint seller named John in Dewey, Arizona, sold surplus paint to a couple. They noticed a Ryder truck parked in his driveway with an electrical cord running into the house next door. They jotted down the license plate, which was from Massachusetts.
A detective friend discovered the truck had been stolen from Orange County, California, in January 1994. Police dispatched officers to the house, found it suspicious, and called in the narcotics team. Inside the truck, they found a padlocked deep freezer. When they opened it, they found a frozen human body, hands handcuffed behind the back, plastic bags wrapped around the head.
The registered owner of a white pickup nearby was John Joseph Famalaro. He was arrested. A search of his home revealed two boxes marked “Christmas. ” The first contained a claw hammer and nail puller with possible blood stains, empty handcuff box, white plastic bags, duct tape, blood-stained men’s and women’s clothing, and scuffed pumps.
The second box contained identification belonging to numerous women. Detectives tracked them down one by one, verifying they were all alive and accounted for. Except one: Denise Huber. A thumbprint from the frozen victim matched Denise Huber’s driver’s license.
The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the skull, more than 35 blows. The bloody hammer and nail puller were the murder weapons. DNA from the blood residue matched Denise. Famalaro was indicted for first-degree murder.
Investigators determined Denise was murdered in his warehouse in Laguna Hills, and he kept her body in a freezer in a storage unit for over two years. Famalaro was born in Long Island in 1957. His mother was eccentric and abusive, using religion to punish him, saying he would go to hell for misbehaving. She bathed her preteen children once a week, paying special attention to her son’s genitals, and screened them from anything sexual, even listening outside their rooms to catch them masturbating.
Despite his sheltered upbringing, he was popular with women. One ex-girlfriend recalled an incident in 1987 when he handcuffed her to a bar near a hotel window, tore off her nightgown, and left her nude in full view of the street, laughing as he exited. In May 1997, Famalaro was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to death. Another case emerged in March 2000.
Rachel Ciani, a 21-year-old exotic dancer working under the stage name Roxanne, returned to Diva’s International after her shift, flustered. She stayed until 2:15 a. m. , then left with another dancer, Rebecca.
While they talked, an officer saw a man banging on the club’s door. Rachel recognized him as Jack Denofa, one of her best tippers, and jumped out to say hi. Rebecca watched for a minute, then drove off. The officer observed them walk to the Econo Lodge next door and enter the lobby.
Rachel never showed up for her next shift. Her body was found on April 1st below the Delaware River Turnpike Bridge. She was wearing a white sweater, jeans, and clean white socks. Her shoes were gone.
The clean socks and lack of drag marks suggested she was thrown from the bridge. The autopsy revealed a hinge fracture at the base of the skull and a lacerated liver, consistent with a fall. But there was also evidence she’d been injured before hitting the ground, and her fingernails had broken off, indicating she’d fought her assailant. The club manager identified her from a news report.
Investigators questioned Jack Denofa, who admitted Rachel accompanied him back to the hotel but said she never went up to his room. The night auditor recalled he checked out smelling strongly of soap. A blood stain was found on the sidewalk below his room’s window. Surveillance footage from the turnpike toll booth showed the shape of a human body in the bed of Denofa’s red Dodge truck at 3:13 a.
m. Blood from the sidewalk and from the underside of his truck’s bed liner matched Rachel Ciani. Jack Denofa was arrested and found guilty of first-degree murder. In October 2004, in Richmond, Virginia, a series of gunshots woke Bob McCartle.
He saw a figure sprint past his home but couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Police found his neighbor, 52-year-old Fred Jablin, dead in his driveway with gunshot wounds to his back and arm. Fred’s ex-wife, Piper Rountree, was immediately suggested as a suspect. She had fought a bitter divorce with Fred, who had sole custody of their three kids.
Cell tower records showed Piper’s phone pinged near Fred’s house the day before the murder. Her sister, Tina, flew from Baltimore to Houston on a ticket purchased with a friend’s debit card. Records showed the card bought red and blonde wigs, and security footage showed a blonde woman who looked just like Piper entering a 7-Eleven. She had checked into a hotel under the alias Jerilyn Smith, and rented a car using Tina’s driver’s license.
A TSA agent identified Piper as the woman who checked a . 38 revolver in her luggage. Tina’s friend eventually told police that Tina had confessed Piper went to Virginia and killed her ex-husband, and that Tina had helped dispose of evidence. Piper Rountree was arrested for first-degree murder.
She had a history of depression, postpartum depression, and erratic behavior, and had lost custody of her children. The jury found her guilty. She was sentenced to life in prison plus three years. Tina Rountree pleaded guilty to evidence tampering.
In May 1999, in Moose Lake, Minnesota, a woman entered DJ’s Expressway and found no attendant. The clerk, 19-year-old Katie Poirier, was missing. Security footage showed a man entering the store, holding Katie by the throat, and forcing her out. Her purse and keys were behind the register.
Police circulated a sketch and tips poured in, but none panned out. A Subway employee recalled seeing a suspicious man in a black Ford F-150 with a partial license plate, 557-Y. Police focused on Donald Christianson, but he was ruled out. Then a co-worker of a janitor named Donald Hutchinson called in a tip.
Hutchinson had stopped driving his black Ford pickup to work, had gotten a drastic haircut and a dye job, and had grown a mustache. He had a lengthy criminal record for kidnapping and rape. He used his wife’s maiden name, Blom. Police searched his residence and found the black Ford pickup.
They learned he owned a rental property near the store where Katie was abducted. A search of the fire pit on the property revealed fragments of human bones and a tooth. The tooth’s filling contained an unusual combination of zirconium and silicone, matching the dental cement used by Katie’s dentist just two weeks before her abduction. Donald Blom was arrested and confessed to abducting and killing Katie, but he recanted days later.
He had a history of violence against women, including a previous kidnapping and rape conviction where he was released after serving only three years of a 40-year sentence. Despite recanting, the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison.
