A Serial Killer, Faded From Memory, Is Brought Back

He was referred to as the "package killer" for the way the remains of his three known victims were found: The first in between two mattresses whose corners were tied; the second in trash bags bound with wire; the third in a homemade box. The women, found between March 1990 and February 1991, were discarded along highways in jurisdictions outside St. Louis, Missouri—"he knew to spread them out across jurisdictions to make things harder for us," says a cold-case detective with the St. Louis Police Department. In a lengthy piece for the Riverfront Times, Ryan Krull and Stephanie Daniels explain that the killer was never caught and "the story quickly and completely faded, both from the newspapers as well as the city's collective memory." They're bringing it back.

Krull and Daniels detail the standout evidence in the case: the mattress corners were bound with Conex cable, a material used by electricians; dog hairs were found on the remains; a Biener Hardware sticker was on the trash can the bound bags were put in. They share what's known about the victims—Robyn Mihan, Sandy Little, and Brenda Jean Pruitt—and detail the lengths investigators have gone to (down to crawling into an HVAC system searching for dog hairs). They introduce the two suspects in the case, and point out the fact that whoever the killer is, he's "bizarre." They write, "If a body is decomposed beyond recognition, why not leave it in the woods or in one of the city's thousands of vacant homes? To put the remains in a receptacle along the highway ensures they are found in short order and leaves no doubt of foul play." DNA from the Little case is currently being tested. (Read the full story here.)