Redhead murders

Redhead murders
Redhead murders
Details
Victims	6–11
Span of crimes	1978–1992
State(s)	Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia
Date apprehended	Not apprehended

The Redhead murders refers to a series of unsolved homicides of redheaded females between October 1978 and 1992, believed to have been committed by an unidentified male serial killer. The murders believed to be related have occurred in states including Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.[1][2][3] The murders may have continued until 1992.[4][5][6] The victims, many of whom have never been identified, were usually women with reddish hair, whose bodies were abandoned along major highways in the United States. Officials believe that the women were likely hitchhiking or may have engaged in prostitution.[3][7]

Authorities are unsure how many people were responsible for these murders, if they were all performed by the same perpetrator(s), and how many victims there have been.[8] It is believed that there may have been a total of six to eleven victims.[3][9][10] Of the presumed victims, four were identified by November 2018.[11][8][12][13] The suspect was informally called the Bible Belt Strangler in 2018, because of the territory where the bodies were found.

Victims

Lisa Nichols

On September 16, 1984, the body of a woman later identified as 28-year-old Lisa Nichols, who also used the last name of Jarvis, was found along Interstate 40 near West Memphis, Arkansas. She was wearing only a sweater. She was found to have been a resident of West Virginia. Authorities were not able to identify and contact her family members for some time, indicating that Nichols was estranged from them. She was not identified until June 1985, nine months after she was strangled. She was identified through fingerprints.[14]

Nichols is believed to have been a victim in what are known as the Redhead Murders. Common characteristics are her hair color, reddish or strawberry-blond, and being found along a highway. She was identified by a couple from Florida, who had allowed her to stay with them for a period of time. Nichols may have been murdered after leaving a truck stop along the highway and may have attempted to hitchhike.[8]

Tina Farmer

On January 1, 1985, the bound body of a woman was found near Jellico, Tennessee, in Campbell County, down an embankment off the southbound side of Interstate 75. The remains were in an advanced state of decomposition, as she was killed approximately 72 hours before. The victim was killed by strangulation.[15] She was Caucasian, and had shoulder-length curly red hair. Her age was estimated to be between 17 and 25, but possibly as old as 30.[15] The victim was found clothed, in a tan pullover, a shirt, and jeans. Additionally, she had been wrapped in a blanket, which was later found to have seminal fluid on it.[16] Her eyes were green. The young woman had freckles over her body and various scars (including a burn mark on one arm); she was 10 to 12 weeks pregnant when she died. She had a partial upper denture holding two false teeth.[17] It is believed that she was between five feet one and five feet four inches (163 cm) when she died and was approximately 110 to 115 pounds (50 to 52 kg).[15][17][18]

On September 6, 2018, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office announced that the victim had been identified by fingerprint as Tina Marie McKenney Farmer of Indiana. She was 21 or 22 at the time of her death and was last seen in Indianapolis, Indiana, accompanied by a trucker said to be headed to Kentucky.[11][19] Farmer had one daughter prior to disappearing in 1984. She was reported missing by her family at the time, yet authorities in Indiana did not enter her into national databases. The state did not have a law, common to many other states, requiring law enforcement to enter unidentified victims into this database.[20]

In 2019, DNA evidence identified convicted kidnapper Jerry Leon Johns as the man that killed Tina Marie McKenney Farmer in December 1984. Johns died in prison in 2015. He was previously convicted in 1987 of aggravated kidnapping, assault, and other crimes in the attack on a woman, Linda Schacke, that he had picked up in Knox County, Tennessee, two months after Farmer's disappearance and death. Schacke survived the attack, after she was bound, strangled, and dumped along 1-40. Her testimony assisted in putting Johns behind bars. Like Farmer, Schacke had been choked with a piece of cloth ripped from her T-shirt, bound, and left for dead inside a storm drain under 1-40, near Watt Road. Like Farmer, and the other potential victims of the "Redhead Murders," Schacke also had red hair.[21]

On December 18, 2019, a grand jury in Campbell County, Tennessee, ruled that Johns would have been indicted for murder in Farmer's death if he were still alive.[22]

Campbell County, Tennessee victim

On April 3, 1985, the skeletonized partial remains of a young girl were discovered about 200 yards off Big Wheel Gap Road, four miles southwest of Jellico, Tennessee in Campbell County near a strip mine. She was believed to have been dead between one and four years. Her age was estimated between 9 and 15. She was found by a passerby.[23]

The cause of death is undetermined, which does not rule out homicide. Thirty-two bones, including her skull, were recovered from the scene. Her skull was complete enough to permit a facial reconstruction attempt. A necklace and bracelet made of plastic buttons were found nearby, as well as a pair of size 5 boots and a few scraps of clothing. These items may or may not belong to her.[24] Her hair and eye color are unknown. Her age range is below the median for the other victims, but the circumstances of her death may connect her to them.[25]

Other similarities exist between this case and that of Tina Farmer's and survivor, Linda Schacke's. The knot in the cloth found in a piece of material found tied around the neck of the Campbell County victim was very similar to the knot in a piece of material found tied around Linda Schacke's neck two months following the Campbell County victim.[21]

Recent forensic analysis of the victim's remains indicated she was not native to the area where she was discovered. The tests showed she was likely born in Florida or central Texas, and had later lived in the Midwest, Rocky Mountain states, the Southwest or the Pacific Coast.[23]

Cheatham County, Tennessee victim

On March 31, 1985, the skeletonized body of a red-haired female was found in Pleasant View, Cheatham County, Tennessee. She was believed to have died between three and five months previously, due to an unknown cause. However, her case is possibly linked to the redhead murders because her remains were found at the side of Interstate 24 between mile markers 29 and 30.[26][3][27]

Unlike some of the other victims, she was wearing clothing: a shirt, sweater, pants and underwear. She was white, between five feet and five feet two inches (157 cm) tall. Her weight could not be determined. An examination of her teeth showed that the victim had some evidence of crowding and overlapping in her mouth.[27] This woman was believed to be between the ages of thirty-one and forty at the time of her death.[28]

Espy Pilgrim

A reconstruction of Espy Pilgrim prior to identification

On April 1, 1985, the body of a woman was found in a large white Admiral refrigerator in Gray, Knox County, Kentucky, alongside Route 25. Her death was by suffocation.[3][5] The victim had been dead for a few days, and was nude except for two distinctive necklace pendants, one of a heart and the other of a gold-colored eagle, and two pairs of socks; one white, and the other white with green and yellow stripes.[5][29] There were reports that the victim may have been soliciting a ride to North Carolina over CB radio.[30] Five hundred people attended the Jane Doe victim's funeral, which was televised. The case was a local sensation in Gray, as the town was a "quiet" and "sleepy" place where little out of the ordinary usually happened.[5]

The refrigerator had a decal of the words "Super Woman" on the front.[30] Distinguishing features of the body included a number of moles (on the right side of her neck, near one ankle, and below each breast), a yellow-stained upper incisor, and a scar and other marks on her abdomen, indicating that she had borne a child. Her eyes were light brown and her hair was red and nearly a foot long, which fit the pattern of the Redhead murders. After the autopsy, this victim was determined to be between 24 and 35 years old, and approximately 4 feet 9 to 4 feet 11 inches tall.[30] It is also possible that she owned the pair of boots found near the refrigerator. Several missing persons have been eliminated as possible matches for the victim.[29]

After the case was publicized in January 2013, the police received some tips, but it is unknown if they became solid leads.[5][31]

On October 1, 2018, the Knox County Sheriff's Office announced this woman had been positively identified as Espy Regina (Black) Pilgrim, of western North Carolina.[12] A DNA match was made between her and her grown daughter, who said her mother disappeared when the girl was six weeks old. Pilgrim also had four older children.[32]

Suspected victims

Wetzel County, West Virginia victim

On February 13, 1983 the naked body of a white female was found alongside Route 250 near Littleton, in Wetzel County, West Virginia. A pair of senior citizens reported the body, which they originally had thought was a display mannequin. The body had been placed at the area recently, as snow was on the ground but not on the body. Police said that tire tracks and footprints nearby indicated that she was likely transported to this site after death from another location. Their examination concluded she had died about two days previously, and was not a victim of sexual assault. Her cause of death was undetermined. Her hair was auburn; by 1985, she was linked possibly to other redheaded women found as homicide victims whose deaths seemed to be related.[33]

With an estimated age between 35 and 45, this victim appeared to have been older than the median for the other women grouped as victims of the serial killer. Her height was estimated at five feet six inches (168 cm) and weight as 135 pounds (61 kg). Her eyes were presumed to be brown, although postmortem changes may have affected eye color. She had two scars, one typical of a Caesarean section, and another on one index finger. The woman's legs and underarms were shaven, indicating an attention to grooming not characteristic of a transient or hitchhiker. Witnesses described seeing a middle-aged white male about five feet ten inches (178 cm) and weighing 185 to 200 pounds (84 to 91 kg) near the area where the body was found. The victim may have been seen alive in Wheeling, West Virginia as an employee or customer at a bar. West Virginia authorities are skeptical of whether this victim is related to other victims in the Redhead Murders.[34]

Elizabeth Lamotte

On April 14, 1985, the body of a young white female was found in Greeneville, Greene County, Tennessee.[35][36] She was determined to have been killed, between three and six weeks previously, by severe blunt-force trauma and possibly a stab wound; her body was in an advanced state of decomposition.[37] Police were able to obtain her fingerprints, as well as DNA and dental information. She had been approximately six to eight weeks pregnant shortly before she died, but had miscarried before death.[36]

She was estimated to be 14 to 20 years old (possibly as old as 25). She was approximately five feet four inches to five feet six inches (168 cm) tall, with a weight of 130 to 140 pounds (59 to 64 kg).[38] She had a slight overbite and had some fillings in her teeth, showing that she had dental care in life. Her fingernails had pink polish. Because she had light brown to blond hair with red highlights, her case was thought to be possibly related to the Redhead murders.

Authorities hoped in late April 1985 that they would identify her body through fingerprints but were unsuccessful.[3][39] Six missing women were ruled out as possible identities of the victim.[39][40][41]

She was not identified until November 2018, when officials announced that the victim was New Hampshire native Elizabeth Lamotte. She was 17 at the time of her death.[13] Lamotte had disappeared on April 6, 1984.[42][43] She was identified through a DNA match after a DNA profile was obtained from Lamotte's family by New Hampshire police in 2017.[44] She had been staying at a group home in Manchester, New Hampshire and never returned to her family after gaining furlough.[45] Lamotte's family was initially asked for a DNA profile to compare to the adult woman victim of the Bear Brook murders. An unidentified girlfriend of the suspect — who went by the alias of Robert Evans — was known by the same first name of Elizabeth. Robert Evans was later revealed to be serial killer Terry Peder Rasmussen.[46]

Investigation

It is believed that most of the victims remain unidentified due to being estranged or not close with existing family members. They also may not have been native to the states in which they were found. In 1985, not long after the Greene County victim was found, the states of Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi requested the Federal Bureau of Investigation for assistance with the cases. There were inconsistencies among some of the victims and characteristics of the crime scenes, as some were found with or without clothing, and some had a sexual encounter before their murders.[35] During the conference, it was stated that four victims found in Texas and a victim found in 1981 in Ohio, nicknamed "Buckskin Girl” (later identified as Marcia King), were ruled out in 1985 as possible victims in the Redhead murders.[35]

A possible suspect emerged circa 1985, when a 37-year-old trucker, Jerry Leon Johns, attacked and attempted to strangle a woman with reddish hair. He left the victim lying near a highway, presuming she was dead. He was later dismissed in the Redhead murders case but was convicted of the woman's kidnapping in 1987.[3] Despite his exclusion from the case, it was announced that DNA from Johns was matched to Tina Farmer via CODIS in 2016. He died in prison in 2015 at the age of 67. A grand jury decided he would have been indicted for the slaying, had he been alive.[47] Johns was a trucker who resided in Cleveland, Tennessee before his arrest.[16] It has not been specified whether he is considered a suspect in other victims of the Redhead murders.

Another suspect was a 32-year-old trucker in Pennsylvania, who was questioned after kidnapping and raping a young woman in the state of Indiana. She managed to escape before more injury. This suspect was also dismissed from this investigation, after being questioned by Tennessee police.[4]

In 2018, students enrolled in a sociology class at Elizabethton High School studied the case with the aid of their instructor. The class coined the name "Bible Belt Strangler."[14] The class developed the information from an FBI profiler. They described the subject as a white male born between 1936 and 1962 (aged between 23 and 49 in 1985) who was likely a commercial trucker frequenting Interstate 40. They estimated his height and weight to be 5'9"-6'2" and 180-270 pounds. His work was likely based in or near the city of Knoxville, Tennessee.[20][14]

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