Frank will be discussing The I-94 Murders at The Beirstube in Hastings on Thursday, December 20 at 6:30 p.m. When Frank presented on Murder Book at the Bierstube last year the room was packed, so arrive early and grab a bite to eat or enjoy a cold beverage. It’s a relaxing and enjoyable place to have a conversation about a mystery! The Bierstube is located at 109 11th Street West, Hastings, MN. This week, the Fargo Forum recommended The I-94 Murders as a good book for a Christmas gift this holiday season! See article I am finishing the third book, Last Call, in what I considered to be a possible trilogy. (Murder Book, The I-94 Murders and Last Call) I am in the final rewrite. I will leave it to the readers to decide if I should continue the series. One of the critical issues in the book is “admissible evidence.” I will give you an example of how this can be a major issue in gaining a conviction. I want to say thank you for the great support I’ve received from family members of the victims in cases I describe in my blogs. I have been contacted numerous times and thanked for talking about their deceased loved ones as people rather than just statistics. 6:00 p.m., November 29, 1987, was chilly and rainy in Delaware. Shirley Anne Ellis was carrying a Thanksgiving platter for an AIDS patient undergoing treatment at Wilmington Hospital. Shortly before 6:00 p.m., she left the warmth of her family's home in Newark and began hitchhiking the 14-mile trek. Shirley Ellis had a tough start and at age 23, she was already a former sex worker who had come to know Route 40 well. She had tried to leave her life of a streetwalker, even purchasing books for nursing school. As she walked along the corridor on route 40, just south of Wilmington, a car pulled up and offered her a ride. Two teenagers looking for a remote place to park, found Shirley’s body around 9:25 p.m. that evening. Her breasts were exposed, her legs spread apart. The autopsy told a macabre story of how work tools were used to torture and mutilate her. Ellis had been bound at the feet and the ankles. Duct tape, which had been used to silence her, was still attached to strands of her hair. The killer then wrapped a ligature around her neck and repeatedly struck her over the head with a hammer. Curiously, there was no indication that the killer had sex with her. Investigators were stumped. "There was no reason for Shirley Ellis to be killed," recalls Kathleen Jennings, the state prosecutor who eventually stared the accused down in a tough cross-examination. "No angry boyfriend or anything that would connect a murderer to her death. For a time, people believed it was an interstate trucker." 7 months later, on June 28, 1988, Catherine DiMauro was walking along Route 40 around 11:30 p.m. The 31-year-old divorcee had a history of prostitution arrests, but it's unclear if she was working that night when she accepted a ride from a stranger in a blue van. A construction crew working on the Fox Run apartment complex found her body at 6:25 a.m. the next morning. Catherine was found completely naked. Her wrists and ankles were bound, and she was silenced with duct tape. Again, even though she was tortured with work tools, there was no evidence the killer had sex with her. Catherine was also strangled with a ligature and bludgeoned with a hammer. This time, however, the killer left a clue: Catherine was covered head to toe in blue carpet fiber. 2 months later, August 22, Margaret Lynn Finner, a sex worker, went missing. She was working the streets along U.S. 13. Witnesses last saw her leave in a blue Ford panel van with round headlights driven by a white male. Her body was found three months later, near the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. Margaret’s body in such an advanced state of decay that a cause of death couldn't be determined. Task-force members met with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia. The bureau concluded Delaware’s first serial killer was traveling Route 40. Soon, undercover female officers dressed as prostitutes walked the stretch of highway looking for clues while task-force members were tried to identify the origin of the blue fibers. On Sept. 14, 1988, a 23-year-old undercover New Castle County police officer, Renee Taschner was walking Route 40 disguised as a prostitute in an effort to find something that could solve the murders. An investigator stated, "We had a gamut of people stop for her. Doctors, lawyers, schoolteachers. At one point, there was a line of five or six vehicles with men waiting to talk to her." Renee noticed, a blue Ford panel van with round headlights drive past. It stopped a little farther down the road, stopped again and turned around. Renee Taschner estimated the van drove past her seven times in 20 minutes. So she walked to a more secluded area. The van stopped then approached her. A white male opened the side panel. Renee immediately noticed the blue carpet covering the van's interior. She remembered his dark scary eyes, and she felt was in the presence of evil. She stated, "He was different than any other person who stopped for me. It was hard to get into a conversation. He wasn't in the moment. He was looking right through me." Realizing this was potentially the killer she asked to look in the back of his van, and then playfully rubbed her hand against the carpeting on the van's floor, telling him how wonderful the van was, as she pulled out blue fibers for testing. The driver demanded that Renee get in the van. She refused. He asked again. She made up a story about being tired from partying all day and needing to sleep. The driver became suspicious and drove off. Investigators identified that the car was registered to Steven Brian Pennell, a Delaware electrician with no criminal record. Pennell was married with two children. The blue fibers were sent to a lab for testing. While they waited for weeks for the testing to be completed, investigators did “spot surveillance” of Steve Pennell, and found nothing interesting. He went to work, spent time at home, and when the lights went out at the home, the surveillance crew waited an hour or two and then left. 2 days later, on Sept. 16, 1988, Michelle Gordon, a 22-year-old New Castle resident, disappeared. Michelle was last seen on Route 40, hopping into the passenger side of a blue Ford panel van. Michelle was also a sex worker. A witness identified the vehicle. Michelle’s body washed up on the banks of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal on Sept. 20. Michelle was a cocaine addict, and the medical examiner testified that the drugs in her system made her heart incapable of withstanding her beating. She died during her torture. (It’s not uncommon for someone who is abusing cocaine or heroin to die during an assault as the drugs prevent the heart from adjusting to the exertion.) 3 days later, Kathleen Meyer, another Brookmont Farms resident, was last seen alive hitchhiking along Route 40 around 9:30 p.m. An off-duty police officer spotted the 26-year-old accepting a ride from a stranger in a blue Ford van. Aware of its connections to the murders, he jotted down the plate number. It was registered to Steve Pennell. The task force began monitoring Pennell's every move. Undercover officer Renee Tashner even sat next to Pennell at a Moody Blues concert. She also recalls a heartbreaking encounter with his daughter, who approached her and asked for a donation to a school fundraiser. Renee obviously didn’t want his daughter to be involved. The lab test finally came back and indicated the fibers in the van matched fibers on the victims. Investigators were subsequently given a search warrant for the van. Steve Pennell was pulled over for a routine traffic violation and was immediately hauled into court to pay his ticket—an infrequent, but legal, method for the police to detain a suspect. Police searched the vehicle, and discovered carpet fibers matching those on the victims, along with hair, blood and the same brand of duct tape. There was the "torture kit"—pliers, a whip, handcuffs, needles, knives and restraints. But investigators had a new problem. Admissibility of Evidence: Were the fibers legally obtained? Can a police officer reach in to your vehicle and take something out without a search warrant? If the fiber evidence was ruled inadmissible, they would no longer be able to prosecute a serial killer they knew tortured and murdered young women. All the evidence they had was obtained from a search warrant that was only granted because of the fiber match. The court ruled, that Renee Tashner had the right to collect the fibers because he had invited her into the van. I don’t know that this would stand up in every state, but I am glad they allowed the evidence be used. A 1991, psychiatric evaluation submitted to the Delaware Supreme Court cleared Steve Pennell of any mental illness concerns. He was described as "a pleasant, attractive, friendly 33-year-old man who related well to the examiner." Investigators described Steve Pennell in the following manner: "He came across as a totally normal married father with no criminal record. No one would ever look at his background and see signs that this could happen. No one would ever suspect him of anything." But people who knew him when he was young suggested that he may have been subject to a great deal of bullying in school which may have fostered his resentment. Pennell had applied to be a police officer twice, but was turned away “for unknown reasons.” Obviously someone recognized things weren’t right. Steven Pennell’s attorney took a chance and had him testify. Steven presented with a callousness typical of someone who lacked empathy. He claimed he picked up DiMauro, paid her $25 for oral sex and then dropped her off, joking that she "gave me $10 back" afterward. The jury was horrified at his callous demeanor. The prosecutor stated, "Pennell talked about his victim like she was some piece of garbage he could just throw away." Still, the jury spent eight days reviewing the evidence, which is the longest deliberation in Delaware legal history. "I was going through anguish each day," his defense attorney stated. "I thought it was going to be a quick verdict and he'd be convicted in two days. As each day passed, I thought maybe we got something going." In the end, Pennell was convicted of murdering Ellis and DiMauro. But the jury deadlocked on the Gordon case. The jury also deadlocked on the death penalty. Pennell's next move shocked the world. He pled no contest to two murders under the condition he be sentenced to death. He did not, however, confess. On Halloween 1991, Pennell was sentenced to death. "The most amazing thing was that he spoke about the crimes in the third person," says former Supreme Court Justice Andrew Moore, who heard Pennell's argument. "He never once used the first person. It was a strange, strange thing." Pennell argued as if he were a prosecutor demanding death for a vicious criminal. "The perpetrator must have sensed a pleasure in the killings," he told the court. "Since he did not commit just one, but continued in the same depraved manner on the others, this pleasure is evident." Not a single justice asked a question. Moore can't recall any other oral argument in the Supreme Court without at least one question. The court unanimously agreed that execution was an appropriate punishment for Pennell's crimes. A date was set for March 14, 1992. The condemned murderer’s wife, Vera Katherine Pennell, argued against the death penalty, stating they were basically allowing him to commit suicide. On March 14, 1992, Steven Brian Pennell was the first man executed in Delaware in 46 years. He had no final words and left no answers for the chaos he induced. "I hoped and prayed that, before Pennell died, he'd tell us where we could find Kathleen Meyer, or at least give us a place to look," said investigator Hedrick. "That didn't happen." Thanks for listening, Frank Who wrote this song? Bob Dylan, but the Ojays nailed it! Pierz basketball teams are off to a great start!
0 Comments
|
AuthorFrank F. Weber is a forensic psychologist specializing in homicide and sexual and physical assault cases. He uses his unique understanding of how predator’s think, knowledge of victim trauma, actual court cases, and passion for writing true crime thrillers. His Award Winning books include "Murder Book" (2017) "The I-94 Murders" (2018) "Last Call" (2019) and "Lying Close" (September 2020). Archives
April 2024
Categories |