Frank’s presentations at the Albany and St. Michael libraries have been postponed 1 week so Tuesday, February 5 he will be speaking at the Albany library at 6:00 p.m. and Wednesday, February 6, he will be speaking at the St. Michael library at 6:30 p.m. Each presentation of forensic work and True Crime thrillers lasts a little over an hour. He will be selling and signing books after for those interested. The city of North Pole, Alaska is 1700 miles south of the geological North Pole. The streets have holiday names, and stores sell Christmas-themed items year-round. The town’s biggest attraction is a large gift shop named Santa Claus House, which boasts the world’s largest fiberglass statue of Santa. North Pole sits south of Fairbanks and stretches between Fort Wainwright and Eielson Air Force Base. From 1979 to 1981, 5 females were murdered in the small community. Glinda Sodemann, 19 Glinda Sodemann, 19, vanished from her home in North Pole on August 29, 1979. Glinda was a newlywed and the daughter of an Alaska State Trooper. Glinda and her husband had a small baby, and when her husband arrived home on August 29, the baby was in the crib, but Glinda was gone. By all accounts, Glinda was happy and had no reason to run away from her home. The following October, Glinda’s decomposed body was found in a gravel pit near Moose Creek on the Richardson Highway, not far from Eielson Air Force Base. Glinda had been shot in the face, and troopers found a .38 caliber pistol cartridge near her body. The medical examiner discovered no evidence suggesting Glinda had been sexually assaulted. Suspicion fell on Glinda’s new husband who failed a lie detector test. Even Glinda’s father suspected his son-in-law of the crime, but troopers found no evidence to arrest the husband. Doris Oehring, 11 On June 11, 1980, eleven-year-old Doris Oehring and her older brother were riding bikes together on the roads in North Pole. Doris cycled ahead of her brother, and when her brother caught up with her, he saw his sister talking to a strange man in a blue car. The man had propped open the hood of the car, as if he was having engine problems. When Doris’s brother pulled up, the man quickly shut the hood, jumped in the car, and sped away. The brother was later able to describe the man to a police sketch artist. He told police he thought the man’s blue shirt looked like an Air Force uniform, and the man had a military style haircut. Two days later, Doris disappeared, and her bicycle was found hidden in the bushes along Badger Road near her home in North Pole. A witness reported seeing a small, blue car tear around the corner at an intersection near Badger Road. The driver seemed pre-occupied and was wrestling with something or someone in the seat next to him. Police believe the attacker hid in the bushes on the side of the road and waited for Doris to ride her bike past his hiding spot. Once she got close, he jumped out of the brush, grabbed her off her bike, and tossed the bike into the ditch. State troopers asked security at Eielson Air Force Base for a list of blue cars registered to drive on the base. The Air Force handed the troopers a list of 550 names of people who owned vehicles possibly matching the description of the car. Investigators were desperate to find Doris, but with no fingerprints or other forensic evidence, they didn’t know where to begin. Since troopers had not cleared Glinda Sodemann’s husband for Glinda’s murder, they decided to question him about the abduction of Doris Oehring. They gave him another polygraph test, and this time, the polygrapher found the test results inconclusive. They had no physical evidence pointing to Sodemann, but he could not pass a lie detector test when questioned about the murder of his wife or the abduction of the young girl. Troopers decided to bring in a polygraph expert to question Sodemann. After ten minutes, the expert left the examining room and told troopers that Sodemann had an irregular heartbeat. He could never pass a polygraph test. The test results from an individual with a heartbeat like Sodemann’s would always be classified as inconclusive or failing. Since the troopers had no reason other than his lie-detector test results to suspect Sodemann, they dismissed him as a suspect in the disappearance of Doris. Marlene Peters, 20 On January 31, a little over seven months after someone snatched Doris Oehring, twenty-year-old Marlene Peters disappeared. Marlene was last seen trying to hitch a ride from Fairbanks to Anchorage to visit her father who was sick with cancer. Police considered Marlene’s disappearance suspicious, but they had no way to know if someone had abducted Marlene near Fairbanks or if she had disappeared somewhere else between Fairbanks and Anchorage. Troopers did not immediately link her case to Doris Oehring’s or Glinda Sodemann’s. Wendy Wilson, 16 Five months after Marlene disappeared, sixteen-year-old Wendy Wilson vanished. Wendy was last seen hitchhiking, and a witness saw her climb into a white pickup truck in Moose Creek near Fairbanks. Three days after she disappeared, Wendy Wilson’s body was found near Johnson Road, thirty-two miles south of Fairbanks near the trans-Alaska pipeline. Wendy’s killer had strangled her and then fired a shotgun into her face. Nine weeks after the discovery of Wendy Wilson’s body, Marlene Peters’ remains were found. Marlene also had been dumped near Johnson Road, and she was found only two miles from where Wendy had been dumped. Marlene also had been strangled and then shot in the face with a shotgun. Lori King, 19 Two days after police recovered Marlene Peters’s body, they were notified of the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Lori King. Lori had last been seen walking in Fairbanks. The Fairbanks police and the Alaska State Troopers now knew they had a serial killer operating in and near North Pole, outside of Fairbanks. Soon, the news media labeled the string of murders, “The Fairbanks Serial Murders.” Police, as well as civilian and military volunteers, searched for Doris Oehring’s and Lori King’s bodies near the Johnson Road area where the remains of Wendy Wilson and Marlene Peters had been discovered, but they found no sign of either victim. On September 2, 1981, four airmen on a hunting trip came across the remains of Lori King in a wooded area near a missile site off Johnson Road. Earlier searches had somehow missed this area. The killer had done nothing to hide Lori’s body. Like Wendy and Marlene, Lori had been strangled and then shot in the face with a shotgun. Because Lori’s body was found on a federal reservation, the FBI joined the case, and a task force was formed. Investigators now knew they were hunting a dangerous predator. Some, but not all, of the women showed signs of being raped before they were murdered. An investigator from the Eielson AFB Office of Special Investigations reported he had identified three individuals on the base who acted inappropriately toward women. One of the three men he identified was Technical Sergeant Thomas “Richard” Bunday, a 33-year-old electrical expert. Co-workers said Bunday repeatedly showed disrespect toward women, and one woman who worked with Bunday said he was verbally abusive, and she was afraid of him. It is important to note that “profiles” are theories and not solid evidence. Profiles are often useful, but not always. The FBI profilers believed the murderer was a civilian who was single, lived alone, and could not hold a job. Bunday was married, had children, and was enlisted in the military. The task force had identified several suspects who fit the profile better than Bunday. After Lori King was murdered on May 16, 1981, the murders ended. In September of 1981, hunters discovered the body of Lori King. It was another body near Johnson Road. By November 1982, the task force concluded the murderer was either dead, in prison, or had moved somewhere else. The task force decided they needed to look at military personnel who had transferred outside the state in the past 18 months. Who was on the list? Thomas “Richard” Bunday. Bunday had transferred to Sheppard Air Force Base near Wichita Falls, Texas, on September 9, 1981. They contacted police agencies near other U.S. Air Force bases around the world and asked them to be on the lookout for any murders similar to the ones perpetrated near Fairbanks. Wichita Falls police reported investigating a murder similar to the ones that had occurred near Fairbanks. But when Alaska investigators arrived in in Texas to discuss the murder, they found a sheriff sitting at his desk watching television and reading a newspaper who told them, “They are no unsolved crimes in my county.” The sheriff said Lori had been killed by a drug dealer, who was now dead. Doris Oehring’s younger brother’s identified a photo of Bunday in a line-up, and he had no trouble picking out a photo of Bunday’s car as the vehicle he had seen by his sister two days before her abduction. Troopers interviewed Bunday’s Alaska neighbors and co-workers, and most painted an unflattering picture of Bunday. They described him as an unlikeable loner. Bunday had a variety of shotguns and pistols registered to his name. In January 1983, Trooper Sam Barnard flew to Sheppard Air Force Base and interviewed Richard Bunday. Bunday agreed to answer Barnard’s questions, but refused to take a lie detector test, allow a search of his home, or give samples of his hair. When Barnard told Bunday that Doris Oehring’s brother had identified a photo of Bunday as the man he had seen talking to his sister, Bunday didn’t respond. Still, they didn’t feel they had enough evidence to arrest him. Alaska investigators had no authority to arrest someone in Texas, and the Texas police needed a warrant to arrest someone for crimes committed in Alaska. Richard Bunday agreed to come in and talk to investigators, as requested, without an attorney. This is not surprising to me as psychopaths have extreme narcissism and feel they can outsmart investigators. After several days of speaking to him, for 3 hours at a time, Richard Bunday gave his only denial. “I really enjoy talking to you guys, but you say I did these things and I didn’t.” In a search of his home in Texas, they found an article on the murders from a newspaper in Fairbanks, Alaska. Later during a phone call, finally Richard admitted that the bodies found “weren’t all of them.” Bunday returned the next day to talk to the officers. They shared that the family of 11-year-old Doris Oehring was upset that they didn’t have her body. Richard started crying and stated he didn’t know why he did it. He admitted that he had strangled her and drove in his trunk on to the airforce base in which he worked. In 1986, three years after Bunday’s death and a few months after Doris Oehring should have graduated from high school, Doris’s skull was found in a remote section of Eielson Air Force Base. Richard Bunday’s job allowed him to set up high powered cameras so he could watch places from the military base where he committed the crimes, so he could observe investigators as they worked the crimes. Investigators believe Bunday committed the five murders in Alaska, and the one in Texas. They believe he denied the murder in Texas because Texas had the death penalty and Texas police couldn’t arrest him (until a significant amount of paperwork went through) if he was only charged with crimes in Alaska. The Alaska troopers had a problem. They had no power to arrest him outside of Alaska. All flights headed from Texas to Alaska have a layover in Seattle. If Bunday decided not to go to Alaska, he could freely walk. Hearing of the dilemma, the Texas governor gave them access to a private jet that would make a direct flight to Alaska on March 16. March 16, 1983 was dark and eerie. There were tornado watches throughout Texas. Bunday had slipped by their security guards and escaped surveillance. After first dropping off his taxes at H&R Block, Bunday took the Sons of Anarchy ending. He drove over 100 miles an hour on his motorcycle, straight into the front of an oncoming semi-truck. The truck driver stated he tried to avoid him, but Bunday kept coming at him, and that was the end of Richard Bunday. Lab reports finally started coming in indicating hairs found in Bunday’s truck genetically matched Wendy Williams. Shotgun shells found in the home matched the shells at two of the crime scenes. August 1986, Doris Oehring’s skull was found in a remote area of Eilson Airforce base. I watched interviews of Doris’ friends and they sadly still blame themselves for not being with Doris on that day. The root of Thomas “Richard” Bunday’s anger appears to be early childhood trauma. Richard was severely beaten by his father and they had a tumultuous relationship. A sibling commented that their father died before Richard was “able to prove himself to his father.” Even though it was his father who was abusive, Richard hated women (misogynist). This is not uncommon, as a child may view an abusive dad as a monster, but mom is someone who is loving—yet he feels betrayed when mom doesn’t protect him. He views her weakness and powerlessness as despicable. It is never in the best interests of a child for a couple to stay in an abusive relationship, and often the child will hate both parents for it. From my own history of assessing offenders, I’d also bet that Bunday had been confronted by his father over an offense he had against a young girl which created extreme shame for him. (Thus the blast in the face. He needed it to go away.) The good news…. It’s over. Alaska investigators focused on the evidence, and didn’t get sidetracked by the incorrect FBI profile. Thanks for listening, Frank John Prine writes some nice lyrics, like the beginning of Storm Windows I can hear the wheels of the automobiles So far away - just moving along through the drifting snow It's times like these when the temperatures freeze I sit alone just looking at the world through a storm window
3 Comments
Buffy Newsom
3/8/2023 03:06:23 pm
You have the wrong picture for Thomas Bunday.
Reply
Buffy Newsom
3/13/2023 07:58:06 am
The picture is still here. Leave a Reply. |
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
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