COD: Gunshot from a Shotgun

SOLVED JAMES M WHITTLE CONVICTED

ADELEGYPSYCRABTREE.jpg


Adele Margaret Crabtree (Gypsy)

For a Detective, luck, lots of informers and a flair for spotting clues are all nice things to have. Also a sharp memory for trivia. You hear something unimportant and forget it, and then on day, just when you need it, suddenly pops up and its important.

This happened to tall, rugged-faced Paul Nix, a detective in the Homicide Division of the Houston, Tex Police. Go back to 1969. Nix was at his desk, doing some paperwork, when an attractive young woman marched into the office and talked to a detective two desks away. She talked loudly enough for Nix to hear.

She said she wanted to file a rape charge against a wrecker driver whom she described as big and mean. She named him. But before the detective could finish taking down her complaint, she suddenly announced she had changed her mind, there would be no complaint, and with that she walked out.

To the detective who interviewed her, it was a damned annoyance. To Nix it was a mild diversion, quickly forgotten.

A couple of years passed. On Nov 3, 1971, a pretty blonde was found dead in a lonely spot in Montgomery County, north of Houston. She had been killed with two loads of buckshot and one bird-shot and there were indications that before the shooting there had been an act of sex, probably forced on her.

On the possibility that she came from the Houston area, county officials asked Houston police and the Texas Rangers for a hand. Houston assigned Detectives Nix, John Donovan, and Ed Horelica to work on it and the Rangers sent Kelly Whitehead. Within a day the had an identification.

The slain girl was Adele (Gypsy) Crabtree, a 16-year-old runaway from Cincinnati. Since her arrival in Houston several months previously she had been living at various hippie communes.

She had worked as a go-go dancer, a cocktail waitress, and as a gas station attendant. As a gas jockey, she sported a cute, highly revealing uniform.

She was last seen alive by friends the night of Nov 2. A youth living near her pad said he saw her walk along a street when a late model two-tone Mercury without hubcaps pulled to the curb and someone in the car talked to her. She got into the car, which drove off. At this point the inquiry petered out.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19730204&id=FgYrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IJgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1661,2226148


Adele "Gypsy" Crabtree was a pretty 16 year-old runaway from Ohio. A free spirited flower child, she worked off and on as a gas jockey, cocktail waitress and go-go dancer in Houston. She was last seen alive on November 2, 1971 near her apartment when she got into a two-tone Mercury and drove away with the male driver. Her body was found on 11/03/1971 near some woods NW of Conroe n Montgomery County. Her body was riddled with two loads of buckshot and one load of birdshot from a 12 gauge shotgun. Knoppa first confessed to the murder. Lanham knew Gypsy, and they had picked her up the night before in the Mercury. Knoppa told LE she'd had consensual sex with both men. After driving around for awhile, Knoppa told her he wanted "more loving". Lanham parked the car, and the three got out. As Crabtree and Knoppa headed for the woods, Knoppa stepped aside, and Lanham shot her. Knoppa said he had seen women killed in Vietnam, but "never like that". Lanham allegedly told him to stick around and he see many more. Thirty hours later, they murdered Linda Sutherlin. The two also confessed to the murder of another woman, Pamela Huebner, but her body was never found.

Lanham and Knoppa were never charged with Crabtree's murder. Instead, James Whittley, another Houston wrecker driver was charged after he failed a polygraph examination. Police at the time did not consider him a suspect in any of the five or six other recent murders of young women.


Man Held In Slaying Not Thought Involved in Six Other Deaths


They charged James M. Whitttle, 28, a Houston wrecker driver with the murder of a 16-year-old girl but they said he is not a suspect in the death of six other young women.

Whittle was accused of murder with malice in the shooting Nov 2 of Adell Margaret Crabtree, 16. She was struck by two shotgun charges.

Miss Crabtree, from Cinncinati, Ohio was living in Houston at the time of her death. The body was found near Conroe Nov 3.

Reaves said he did not believe Whittle is connected with any of the other six deaths of young women whose bodies have been found around Houston and Galveston since summer.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CpkFAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QzMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4529,24440&
 
Makes you wonder who was the first girl? Why didn't she report the rape and who had she named? Did that have anything to do with the arrest of Whittle?

Lanham and Koppa confessed to Adele's murder, told how they did it, killed other young women. The picked her up that night and were the last ones to see her alive.

How did Whittle fit into this? Was Whittle Big and Mean? All three were tow truck drives. Did they know each other? Could all three have been involved in her rape and murder?

Did Lanham and Koppa take the polygraph?
 
SOLVED HARRY LANHAM AND ANTHONY MICHAEL KNOPPA

LINDAFAYESUTHERLIN.jpg


Linda Faye Sutherlin - 21 year old

Article has been snipped and some paraphrasing.

Then, four days after Gypsy was found dead, a woman riding horseback discovered a girl's partly nude body in deep swam grass under a secluded section of Brazoria County, a bridge spanning a gulch, 40 miles south of Houston.

The girl had been savagely beaten, her pantyhose were tied around her neck, and she had been blasted with shotgun pellets.
No spent shells could be found. Apparently the killer had gone to the trouble of picking them up.

On a shoulder of the road just south of the bridge, Officer Daniel found marks indicating that a heavy vehicle, a big car or maybe a pickup truck, had been parked there. A trail of bloodstains, flattened grass and broken weeds told Daniel that the girl was pushed down the embankment into the gulch and that she had crawled through the swamp grass under the bridge, from on side of the span to the other.

Then someone on the bridge did a little target practice on her with the shotgun.

The body was taken to a mortuary and an autopsy showed the shotgun killed the girl. The pathologist theorized that she was raped prior to death and had been dead three days.

The MO (modus operandi) was the same, Officer Nix said. Gypsy had been raped or at least had sexual intercourse before she was killed. And like Linda, she'd been shot into doll rags. Only difference was Gypsy was hit with one load of No 6 shot in addition to two loads of buckshot.

But I think the shots came from the same weapon and the bird shot was trick to make us think two shot gunners were involved. I don't buy that.

Because the investigation of Gypsy had reached an impasse, the detectives concentrated on Linda. They figured if they solved her murder the would solve Gypsy's.

Linda's 1965 Blue Plymouth was missing and an alarm was issued for it.
A friend of Linda said she had learned her most recent boy friend had a police record, had quit see him and he made a threat to kill her. Police learned who he was and found him in a pool hall, where he started throwing punches. He had an alibi and passed a polygraph.

Linda's car was found on a Houston street. An examination revealed bloodstains and sign o f a struggle. But the vehicle had been wiped free of fingerprints on the doors, the dashboard, and the steering wheel. There the inquiry stalled.

Later a Houston truck driver who had gone on a cross-country run and just returned reported that he left town the morning Linda vanished. He knew her by sight, had seen her now and then at the place where she bought two beers before she disappeared.

“When I left Houston about 12:30 on Nov 4,” he said, “I saw her car parked on the shoulder of the road near the lounge. She was standing beside the car, talking to a guy. He was a wrecker driver. A big guy, built like a tank, dark curly hair. I figured she'd call the wrecker because she'd had a breakdown, so I didn't stop. Hell, I didn't know she'd been murdered until I read this story.

Another man who read the story, a chemical worker in Brazoria County, phoned Brazoria Sheriff Robert Gladney. On the morning of Nov 4, he said, after knocking off work at 3 o'clock, he saw a light-hued wrecker parked on the shoulder of the road near the bridge below which Linda was found dead. He recalled the date because his vacation began that day.

“The wrecker started moving before I reached the bridge,” he said. “It made a U-turn and passed me, going back toward Houston. I didn't notice the driver or passengers or any name on the door.”

When the stories of the truck driver and chemical worker were relayed to Daniel and Nix, the latter frowned and Daniel asked: “This strike a chord?” Nix said, “Yeah. But I can’t think why at the moment.”

Hours later as the two officer were riding in a car, Nix snapped his finders. “That's it! The wrecker driver.”
“What about him?”
“Couple of years ago a girl came into our office to file a rape charge against a man. But she changed her mind about a complaint before the detective could finish his report. Anyway, the guy she wanted to charge was a wrecker driver.”

The wrecker driver was named Harry Lanham. He had a long rap sheet and was wanted on an assault charge lodged by an exotic dancer – the girl who had changed her mind about accusing Lanthanum of rape.

Lanham was 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed 245 pounds and had dark curly hair.
Lanham admitted he owned a shotgun and a pistol but claimed to have hocked them.
Lanham's Mercury was id'd. They found traces of human blood in the wrecker Lanham had driven before being fired. Similar traces were found on Lanham's shotgun when it was located at a pawn shop.

One prisoner said: “He bragged once he had his own private graveyard,” Lanham admitted he and Harry Knoppa killed both Linda and Gypsy.

Speaking of Linda, Koppa said,
“We both knew we were going to kill the girl when we took her there. She begged us no to. She said to do anything but not to shoot her.” Knoppa admitted he tried to kill Linda by beating her with a club and strangling her with her pantyhose but she was still alive and he shove her down into the gully. They could hear her whimpering as she crawled under the bridge.

They waited for her to reappear on the other side of the bridge and the Knoppa assertively turned a flashlight on her and, with his target clearly delineated, Lanham turned the shotgun on her.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19730204&id=FgYrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IJgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1661,2226148
 
Linda was beaten with a club, raped, and strangled with pantyhose but she still fought to stay alive, tried to escape. And in the end they shot and killed her!

She begged for her life and they didn't care........
 
SOLVED HARRY LANHAM CONFESSED


newspapers


Pamela Huebner 22 Year old
Her body was never recovered


Lanham confessed to killing Pamela Huebner, a 22-year-old housewife who he also assertedly raped. She was reported missing July, 1971. Lanham shed no light ton where she wound up. Twice he gave police a wrong steer as to where he left the body, forcing them to mow an comb acres of land in vain.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19730204&id=FgYrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IJgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1661,2226148


I wasn't able to get Pamela Huebner's picture to post from the article. Sorry.
 
picture.php


SOLVED HARRY LANHAM CONFESSED


newspapers


Pamela Huebner 22 Year old
Her body was never recovered


Lanham confessed to killing Pamela Huebner, a 22-year-old housewife who he also assertedly raped. She was reported missing July, 1971. Lanham shed no light ton where she wound up. Twice he gave police a wrong steer as to where he left the body, forcing them to mow an comb acres of land in vain.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19730204&id=FgYrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IJgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1661,2226148


I wasn't able to get Pamela Huebner's picture to post from the article. Sorry.

Added the picture for you.
 
Makes you wonder who was the first girl? Why didn't she report the rape and who had she named? Did that have anything to do with the arrest of Whittle?

Lanham and Koppa confessed to Adele's murder, told how they did it, killed other young women. The picked her up that night and were the last ones to see her alive.

How did Whittle fit into this? Was Whittle Big and Mean? All three were tow truck drives. Did they know each other? Could all three have been involved in her rape and murder?

Did Lanham and Koppa take the polygraph?

If she was an exotic dancer and he was a wrecker driver, the company for which he worked might have been contracted at her club, and she didn't want to end up dead? I was trying to figure out why she would walk away from pressing charges too.

Like apartments, if you park illegally, you can find a sign in the parking lot that says which towing company has taken your ear (found in grocery store, mall, strip center parking lots also) etc... This keeps the Houston businesses from having 40 different towing companies from taking cars from their property. Exotic clubs have the same kind of deal. Also, wrecker drivers sometimes will be around the club around 2am to see if they think any drunks will get arrested on their way home (and thus, will they get another tow job, once the police are on the scene). Whether they tail a dancer home might not be noticed, if they kept enough distance.

Just a theory.
 
If she was an exotic dancer and he was a wrecker driver, the company for which he worked might have been contracted at her club, and she didn't want to end up dead? I was trying to figure out why she would walk away from pressing charges too.

Like apartments, if you park illegally, you can find a sign in the parking lot that says which towing company has taken your car (found in grocery store, mall, strip center parking lots also) etc... This keeps the Houston businesses from having 40 different towing companies from taking cars from their property. Exotic clubs have the same kind of deal. Also, wrecker drivers sometimes will be around the club around 2am to see if they think any drunks will get arrested on their way home (and thus, will they get another tow job, once the police are on the scene). Whether they tail a dancer home might not be noticed, if they kept enough distance.

Just a theory.

That makes a lot of sense. I hadn't though about the tow trucks around the club. That is probably what he did when he raped her, followed her home (assuming he was the same man).

That could be how LE got on to him in the first place. I still think tow trucks have something to do with several of these murders. Easy to move a car and not even be noticed.
 
It is good to know that these crimes were solved and the families had their wife or daughter to bury. It won't make it right but it does offer at least a some justice.

REST IN PEACE ADELE, PAMELA, AND LINDA
 
They never did find Pamela's body and cannot find ANY living relative to get DNA from. The missing persons reports are supposedly gone. I did find another newspaper article where it stated the police found Pamela's coin purse about a mile from where Lanham said he put her body. All they know is she was a housewife, 22 years old, and POSSIBLY had a husband named Larry (although the cops won't give out the reason WHY they know his name was Larry). So the cops definitely know more but there is a large facebook presence of them trying to find her family.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/20869346/?terms=hugbner
 
Hi,everybody!
I have to bring up this old thread out of its grave,sorry.

Before i add my thoughts about these particular murders,i would like to know,if somebody in this forum was a member of the galveston surf scene back then,or at least know someone,who knows former surf members of galveston.
PM me!
<modsnip>
He could be one of the Killers of Adele and the young surf girls in Galveston area too.

Lanham and Knoppa confessed,that they were the (sole)murders of Adele Crabtree and Sutherlin,but i think in reality they consist out of two teams,two men in respectively one wrecker truck each.

Thank you very much in advance
Marc
 
Last edited by a moderator:
SOLVED JAMES M WHITTLE CONVICTED

ADELEGYPSYCRABTREE.jpg


Adele Margaret Crabtree (Gypsy)

For a Detective, luck, lots of informers and a flair for spotting clues are all nice things to have. Also a sharp memory for trivia. You hear something unimportant and forget it, and then on day, just when you need it, suddenly pops up and its important.

This happened to tall, rugged-faced Paul Nix, a detective in the Homicide Division of the Houston, Tex Police. Go back to 1969. Nix was at his desk, doing some paperwork, when an attractive young woman marched into the office and talked to a detective two desks away. She talked loudly enough for Nix to hear.

She said she wanted to file a rape charge against a wrecker driver whom she described as big and mean. She named him. But before the detective could finish taking down her complaint, she suddenly announced she had changed her mind, there would be no complaint, and with that she walked out.

To the detective who interviewed her, it was a damned annoyance. To Nix it was a mild diversion, quickly forgotten.

A couple of years passed. On Nov 3, 1971, a pretty blonde was found dead in a lonely spot in Montgomery County, north of Houston. She had been killed with two loads of buckshot and one bird-shot and there were indications that before the shooting there had been an act of sex, probably forced on her.

On the possibility that she came from the Houston area, county officials asked Houston police and the Texas Rangers for a hand. Houston assigned Detectives Nix, John Donovan, and Ed Horelica to work on it and the Rangers sent Kelly Whitehead. Within a day the had an identification.

The slain girl was Adele (Gypsy) Crabtree, a 16-year-old runaway from Cincinnati. Since her arrival in Houston several months previously she had been living at various hippie communes.

She had worked as a go-go dancer, a cocktail waitress, and as a gas station attendant. As a gas jockey, she sported a cute, highly revealing uniform.

She was last seen alive by friends the night of Nov 2. A youth living near her pad said he saw her walk along a street when a late model two-tone Mercury without hubcaps pulled to the curb and someone in the car talked to her. She got into the car, which drove off. At this point the inquiry petered out.

Reading Eagle - Google News Archive Search





Man Held In Slaying Not Thought Involved in Six Other Deaths




Rome News-Tribune - Google News Archive Search
Adell was my sister, I was 7 years old when she was murdered.
 

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