Dateline — Salt Lake City, Utah, June 16, 1975:
The body of a deaf and dumb Salt Lake City youth was discovered on the salt flats surrounding the Great Salt Lake early this morning. The victim, Robert Masskie, 18, worked as a dishwasher at Colonial Joe’s Restaurant, Salt Lake City, and had just cashed his two-week paycheck. No money was found on his person, and at this early hour of the investigation police are assuming robbery as the motive. Coworkers of the friendly handicapped lad expressed shock at his death, and fry cook Martin Plunkett, 27, said, “Bobby was an inveterate hitchhiker, and that’s dangerous. Please tell your readers to be careful and not hitchhike.”
Sound advice. There are no clues as yet, but we will update the investigation’s progress in next month’s issue of True Crime Detective.
From Boss Detective magazine’s “Missing!” feature, December 1975 issue:
Last seen 10/30/75 on I-95 on the outskirts of Ogden, Utah, “talking to a tall young white male” who may be the owner of a late-model grayish van.
Kenneth Neufeld, 41, white male, 6'0", 175, brown hair and eyes, Marine Corps tattoo on right forearm.
Cynthia Neufeld, 39, white female, 5'4", 130, blond hair, brown eyes, no identifying marks.
Reported missing on 12/1/75 by their teenaged children. Their abandoned vehicle was discovered in woods outside Ogden, 12/4/ 75. Extensive search of area yielded no clues. Photographs of Mr. & Mrs. Neufeld available from Missing Persons Bureau, Ogden Police Department, and from Utah State Police. Direct all queries and information regarding Mr. & Mrs. Neufeld to those agencies.
From Boss Detective, April, 1977 issue:
Aspen, Colorado, is a year-round mecca for young people seeking good times, and it is the undisputed winter “party capital” of the United States, renowned for its skiing and ski-lodge bonhomie. Young people come to Aspen to cut loose and get away from the grind of college and jobs. You can bargain on a good lime in Aspen, but since January 1976, eight college students have gotten more than they bargained for — they disappeared from the face of the earth. The eight are:
Cindy Keneally, 72, of Chicago, Illinois, last seen 1/18/76;
George Keneally, 20, of Chicago, her husband, last seen 1/18/76;
Gustavo Torres, 23, of Sao Paulo, Brazil, last seen 1/26/76;
Mills Jensen, 24, of Aspen, last seen 3/1/76;
Craig Richardson, 17, of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, last seen 4/1/76;
Maria Kaltenborn, 21, of Akron, Ohio, last seen 6/2/76;
John Kaltenborn, 22, Maria’s husband, last seen 6/2/76;
Timothy Bay, 16, of Glenwood Springs, last seen 8/18/76.
Police investigating the disappearances were (at first) quick to point out the transient nature of pleasure spas like Aspen, and last year, in the spring of ’76, when the number of vanished people stood at five, they pooh-poohed the idea of massive foul play. But then, during the spring of ’76 thaw, melted snowbanks yielded the mutilated bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Keneally and Mr. Torres, and they knew a fiend was on the prowl.
The subzero temperatures that had prevailed all winter preserved the bodies to gruesome effect. Mr. & Mrs. Keneally were nude and arranged in an explicitly sexual posture, and Mr. Torres (who disappeared eight days after the Keneallys) was positioned a few feet away. All three victims died from slashed throats and were marked about the torsos with “S.S.”
Authorities thought at first that the markings indicated a Nazi killer — “S.S.” being the initials of Hitler’s secret police. But then that theory was dropped in favor of attributing the murders to the “Zodiac” killer, a mass murderer active in Northern California in the late ’60’s-early ’70’s. The “S.S.” body markings were aslant, so that they resembled “Z’s”; and the Zodiac killer (who sent messages to San Francisco-area police stating that he was “claiming slaves for my afterlife”) sometimes marked his victims that way.
An entirely different theory was advanced by Glenwood Springs resident Martin Plunkett, the assistant librarian at the local library. Plunkett, 28, a crime buff and childhood comic-book collector, said that the markings could be a reference to the “Shroud Shifter,” a comic-book villain popular in the 1950’s and ’60’s. The Aspen police thanked Mr. Plunkett for his phoned-in theory, and local comic-book collectors were investigated and cleared, bringing the long, frustrating case of murder/disappearances back to its current state — no clues.
In a press conference held last month, Aspen Chief of Police Arthur Whittinghill stated, “The Keneally/Torres murders were certainly the work of one person or persons, and I suspect the sexual aspects of the crime were subterfuge — the work of a killer or killers bent on obscuring motive. The other five disappearances may or may not be related, and since no other bodies have turned up, I lean to the theory of separate killer-abductors. The Zodiac-Comic Book speculation I view as nonsense, and the important thing now is for all Colorado residents and visitors below the age of twenty-five to be wary of strangers.”
From Boss Detective, November 1978 issue, the “Missing!” feature:
The nine people listed below have vanished between April 1977 and our press time of October 15, 1978. All were last seen in various parts of Kansas and Missouri, all are Caucasians and college students. Photos are available from the Missing Persons Divisions of the Kansas and Missouri State Police. Direct all inquiries to those agencies. The missing are:
Janet Cahill, 21, 5'3", 116 lbs., brown, blue. Last seen in Holcomb, Kan., 4/16/77;
Walker Cahill, 17, (Miss Cahill’s brother), 5'8", 135 lbs., brown, blue. Last seen in Holcomb, 4/16/77;
James Brownmuller, 24, 6'3", 205 lbs., blond, blue. Last seen outside Wichita Falls, Kan., 6/9/77;
Mary Kilpatrick, 20, 5'1", 95 lbs., blond, blue, last seen in Wichita Falls, 6/11/77;
Thomas Briscoe, 22, 5'11", 175 lbs., brown, brown. Last seen in Wichita Falls, 7/7/77;
Karsten Hanala, 26, 6'1", 200 lbs., brown, hazel. Last seen outside Tompkinsville, Kan., “speaking to large white man driving van,” 8/6/77;
Christine Muldowney, 19, 5'9", 135 lbs., blond, blue. Last seen in Joplin, Mo., 3/13/78;
Lawrence Muldowney, 17, 6'2", 185, blond, hazel. Last seen in Joplin, Mo., 3/13/78;
Nancy De Fazio, 20, 5'4", 125, black, brown. Last seen near Blue Lake, Mo., 10/1/78.
Concluding note: Assumptions of death aside, credit cards belonging to several of the above-mentioned people have turned up in “hot” transactions all over America, and the two card-frauders thus far apprehended have airtight alibis for the times of the card-owners’ disappearances. Those two men have been cleared as suspects after rigorous polygraph examinations, and one man (during polygraphing) stated that, “I bought my card from a guy who got it from another guy — a guy with a weird name like Stick Shifter.”
15
I killed them all, and the murder/disappearances mentioned in the preceding articles comprised approximately two-thirds of my 1974-78 body count.
Some were crimes of opportunity and convenience; some were assaults against waking and sleeping nightmares and the occasionally recurring urge to live in childhood fantasies. All were perfectly carried out.