May 14: The mansion murders that shocked DC's elite
Plus: a serial killer with a strange passenger, a murder covered by arson, and more.
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Today in True Crime: Quick Hits
5 years ago: In the early hours of May 14, 2019, 8-year-old Mason Hanahan of Oak Grove, South Carolina, was shot and killed in a robbery staged by the boy's father's acquaintance, 25-year-old Linda Monette. She was later sentenced to 40 years in prison for her role in the scheme gone wrong.
10 years ago: On May 14, 2014, the remains of 23-year-old Fort Bragg soldier Kelli Bordeaux were found in North Carolina when Nicholas Michael Holbert, 28, led authorities to her body. He later pled guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping to avoid the death penalty.
20 years ago: On May 14, 2004, Dr. Eugene Mallove of Norwich, Connecticut, was confronted and beaten to death by two men and a woman when Mallove returned to a rental home to clean it out. The three suspects attempted to stage a robbery, but were later convicted of murder and related charges.
1973: Quiet country neighborhood shocked by sextuple murder
The rural county of Seminole, Georgia, was the type of place so peaceful that most people didn't even have locks on their doors. It was a land of farmers and churches and humble trailers; a land of people who never expected a mass killing to happen there.
But on May 14, three escaped prisoners—Carl Isaacs, Wayne Coleman, and George Dungee—were looking for supplies and trouble. They'd picked up Isaacs' 15-year-old brother Billy and drove around, looking for a home to rob. When they saw a quiet mobile home with a gas tank nearby, they thought it'd be perfect for filling their getaway car.
As they rifled through the belongings inside, the owner—Jerry Alday—and his father Ned came home. The prisoners shuffled them into different rooms and shot each in the head.
But the murders weren't over.
Four more members of the Alday family trickled home that day, and one by one, they were shot: Chester and Jimmy, Jerry's brothers, and his uncle Aubrey. The only one who wasn't killed right away was Jerry's wife, Mary.
Her fate was the worst. The men sexually assaulted her for two days, then drove her to a remote spot, assaulted her again, took photos of her, and then shot her.
All four of the criminals were captured within days. Billy Isaacs, the youngest, cooperated and got 20 years for armed robbery. The three older men were given death sentences, which were overturned, and then reinstated for Carl Isaacs and George Dungee. Wayne Coleman is still alive in prison today.
Explore More
Short read: The Alday Murders: Southwest Georgia’s darkest day marks 50 years, Early County News
Long read: Blood Echoes, Thomas H. Cook
Listen: The Alday Family Massacre, Southern Fried True Crime Podcast
Watch: The Alday Family Murders, Under The Ash Tree
1983: Serial killer Randy Kraft caught with dead body in passenger seat
Mustachioed creeper Randy Kraft was caught in a way that would be slapstick if it weren’t real life: he was driving “erratically” down a California highway when he got pulled over.
When the officer looked into his car, there was a body slumped over in the passenger seat.
The victim was a young Marine named Terry Lee Gambrel, and he’d been strangled to death. It didn’t take detectives long to suspect that Kraft was the killer behind many other similar murders of young men who’d also been strangled to death.
Though Gambrel wasn’t bleeding, Kraft’s car was stained with blood. He had photos tucked under his car carpet of other young men who were either asleep or dead, and detectives found plenty of further evidence at his home.
Today, Kraft is incarcerated at San Quentin, on death row. Authorities believe he may have killed 51 young men and boys, maybe more. He showed absolutely no remorse at his trial.
After he was given the death sentence, he declared coldly, “I have not murdered anyone. I believe any reasonable review of the record will show that.”
Explore More
Short read: Likely victim of notorious "Scorecard Killer" in California identified as Iowa teen 49 years after murder, CBS News
Long read: Angel of Darkness: The True Story of Randy Kraft and the Most Heinous Murder Spree of the Century, Dennis McDougal
Listen: Randy Kraft "The Scorecard Killer", True Crime All The Time
Watch: Serial Killer Documentary: Randy Kraft (The Scorecard Killer), Serial Killers Documentaries
2007: Someone attempts to cover up a Texas murder with arson
She was a strong-willed 55-year-old woman who attended her local Episcopalian church and sold hot meals from her home in Fredericksburg, Texas.
And it was that same home where Linda Muegge was found burned to death—at least that’s what authorities initially thought. But that was before the smoke cleared.
“Once they cleaned the body up, I was like, ‘oh my God,’” said a policeman who was there at the crime scene. “That’s when you saw the injuries and so on.”
Muegge, who had recently come home from a yoga class, had been stabbed and bludgeoned. A knife was found in the debris.
Seventeen years later, authorities still haven’t found Muegge’s killer. The FBI lists two “incidents of possible interest” from Muegge’s past: she reported feeling uncomfortable with a 50-something man named Frank who was lurking around her property in 2003, and in 2006, two of her sheep were shot with a 22 caliber rifle.
Was someone stalking her, looking for revenge? Her mother, who is now 100, says she’s holding on until she finds out.
Explore More
Read: Case of Fredericksburg woman murdered, house set on fire still unsolved 17 years later, FOX 7 Austin
Listen: The Unsolved Murders of Mikiko Kashara & Linda Muegge, Box in the Basement
Watch: Missing in Texas: Linda Muegge case still unsolved 17 years later, FOX 7 Austin
2015: Mansion murders shock DC’s elite
Daron Wint had lost his job and been kicked out of his mom’s house when he left his girlfriend a furious voice message, saying he was going to kill his entire family. Instead, he killed a different family.
On May 13, Wint broke into a mansion in Northwest Washington, where he tied up the terrified family: dad Savvas Savopoulos, mom Amy Savopoulos, their 10-year-old son Philip, and their housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa. (The family had two daughters, Abigail and Katerina, who were away at boarding school at the time.)
Wint kept his captives overnight, tortured them, and got Savvas to arrange to have $40,000 delivered the next day. But he didn’t release them after getting that windfall; instead, he killed them and set the house on fire.
The crime left DC reeling. It had happened less than a mile away, locals noticed, from the mansion where vice president Joe Biden lived.
In court, Wint tried to pin the crime on his half-brother, saying the brother had lured him into the house and then declared that he was going to burglarize it—but no one believed him. He was sentenced to life in prison. “Words cannot describe the pain that is in my heart,” said Philip’s big sister Abigail at the sentencing.
Explore More
Read: ‘The most heinous crime’: Md. man sentenced to life in prison for 2015 murders of three members of a D.C. family and their housekeeper, The Washington Post
Listen: The Mansion Murders, Episode 1, FOX 5 DC
Watch: The Savopoulos Family Murders, That Chapter
Newspaper Throwback: 1901
On May 14, 1901, Kennebec Journal reported on the mysterious triple murder of J. Wesley Allen, his wife, and 14-year-old daughter, all of whom were found in the remains of their Shirley home in what the newspaper called "one of the most revolting crimes in the history of northern Maine."
A man named Johnson in the area said four highwaymen had held him up before the murders, and French-Canadian Henry J. Lambert was eventually tried and convicted of J. Wesley Allen's murder, though he was pardoned in 1923.
From the Headlines
Assistant school principal among 4 arrested in cold case triple murder mystery in Georgia, CBS News
Bryan Kohberger Wants New Evidence in Idaho Murder Case, Newsweek
Video showing admitted serial killer with two of four victims played at trial, Victoria Times Colonist
Teenager sentenced to 14 years for ‘atrocious’ murder of Emma Lovell during Queensland home invasion, The Guardian
Chad Daybell trial live: Satellite images and key testimony in doomsday cult murder case, The Independent
Karen Read murder trial Day 10 testimony featured tense cross-examination of Brian Albert, CBS News
UGA cold case: GBI talk about arrest in law student's death 23 years ago, FOX 5 Atlanta
Cold case murder of teenage babysitter in Colorado Springs solved after nearly 50 years, Longmont Times-Call
What to Read & Stream
Why ‘The Jinx’ Owes Its Existence to a Bizarre Movie About Robert Durst, The New York Times
Exclusive: Ally Carter Has a Gift for You and Yes, It’s Her New Book, ‘The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year’, Cosmopolitan
15 Best Cases American Crime Story Season 4 Could Cover, Screen Rant
Lawyer's true-crime book explores how he defended a neurodivergent client charged with murder, ABA Journal
The True Story Behind Paramount+'s Pillowcase Murders Docuseries, TV Fanatic
Amazon greenlights Chiefsaholic true-crime documentary, NBC Sports
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I was very young when the Aldays were murdered but I can't begin to convey the shock in this community, which lasted for years. It was like a sudden loss of innocence for this part of the state.