The Babysitter/Snow Killer

[RivkahChaya]

My gawd? why don't I even know about this? I guess I was only 10/11 when it was in the news, and I was in Russia part of the time. The rest of the time, it was probably overshadowed in the New York papers by the trial of Patty Hearst, and the Son of Sam murders, and after that, the Atlanta child murders. Still, I'm really surprised I never ran across it in any reading of unsolved murders. Wow. I've got a list of stuff to do until Shabbes, but I'll be looking this up on Saturday night. At least until I get too creeped out.

[sdreid]

I'm not sure what happened with the dog hair evidence.

I believe the dog breed was identified.

[sdreid]

Supposedly it was found on all the 4 core victims.

[sdreid]

I'm not sure what happened with the dog hair evidence.

[sdreid]

I'm not sure if conflicting suspects is much better than no suspect.

[sdreid]

A fork in the dead end I suppose.

[sdreid]

And different police jurisdictions fighting with each other.

[sdreid]

Now we have another DNA "match" but it's against a totally different man who has no known connection to the first.

[sdreid]

There has reportedly been a 99% DNA "match" of some hairs found on one of the victims to a property criminal who has no record of sex or violent crimes. The man's name is James Vincent Gunnels.

[sdreid]

Media coverage of this case seems a little light. There was a WXYZ radio program about the events entitled Winter's Fear: The Children, the Killer, the Search. It won a 1977 Peabody Award.

WXYZ was one of the anchor stations for the old Mutual Broadcasting System; one of the four major radio networks from the 1930s to the 1990s.

[sdreid]

Age difference being the first thing that stands out.

[sdreid]

The Wiki article names Cynthia Cadieux, 16, as the most likely 5th victim. It looks like a very different murder to me but it would have been likely his first murder if he did it so perhaps he hadn't fully established his pattern yet.

[sdreid]

WXYZ has since changed its call letters to WXYT.

[sdreid]

Media coverage of this case seems a little light. There was a WXYZ radio program about the events entitled Winter's Fear: The Children, the Killer, the Search. It won a 1977 Peabody Award.

[sdreid]

I can't think of many other occupations that have the winter off - baseball - lawn care?

Or many other activities that would have a Wednesday/Sunday connection other than maybe a semiweekly publication like an advertiser.