Suspect: John Robert King and Gerald Pieter Zwarst

JeannieC

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In 1987 John Robert King, then 20-years
old was convicted of Aggravated
Kidnapping in a trial that was held in
Jefferson County, Beaumont, Texas on a
change of venue. He was handed a life
sentence and is today serving that sentence
at the state prison facility in
Palestine, Texas.

King’s first parole hearing comes in June
of this year. After being offered immunity
from further prosecution by then District
Attorney Mike Guarino in an agreement
signed by State District Judge Henry
Dalhite, King continues to refuse to tell
authorities where to find the remains of
Shelley Sikes.

Gerald Pieter Zwarst was tried in Brazos
County, Bryan, Texas also on a change of
venue from Galveston County. He was
also sentenced to life imprisonment on a
charge of Aggravated Kidnapping and is
serving his sentence in a facility at
Huntsville, Texas. He becomes eligible for
parole in August, one month after King.
He also refuses to divulge the whereabouts
of the remains of Shelley Kathleen
Sikes
.

http://thepolicenews.net/html/gcpnmar07.pdf
 
Chronicle reporter Rad Sallee contributed to this story.

GALVESTON - Guilt over the abduction and possible murder of teen-age Shelley Sikes, police say, drove John Robert King to slash his wrists in a shabby El Paso motel room.
But although the 29-year-old unemployed Bayview laborer's attempt on his life was merely "feeble," his anguished hospital bed statements to police were astounding.

King, investigators said, detailed how he and a companion, Gerald Peter Zwarst, 32, of El Lago, forced waitress Sikes off an Interstate-45 feeder road as she traveled to her Texas City home, then smashed her auto's window and pulled her from the vehicle.

Both men, authorities said, were high on marijuana laced with phencyclidine - Angel Dust - a powerful animal tranquilizer that can spark violent outbursts in human users.

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1987_472718/guilt-reportedly-fueled-surrender-in-sikes-case.html
 

Strange.
Even with documents stating that they would not be charged with any additional charges in this crime.
They still refuse to tell the whereabouts.

Either there concerned about there parole hearings in the future.

Or they really don't know where she is at?

Or perhaps others could be would be implicated after the fact?

Hard to see the motives displayed in ones mind.

Im going to look up information about Shelley Sikes
 
GERALD PIETER ZWARST v. STATE TEXAS (11/30/89)

COURT OF APPEALS OF TEXAS, FOURTEENTH DISTRICT, HOUSTON




Official citation and/or docket number and footnotes (if any) for this case available with purchase.


November 30, 1989

GERALD PIETER ZWARST, APPELLANT
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, APPELLEE

On Appeal from the 361st District Court, Brazos County, Texas, H. G. Dalehite, Judge, Trial Court Cause No. 18,049-361.

COUNSEL

J. B. Williamson of LaPorte, for appellant.

Roger L. Ezell of Galveston, Texas, for appellee.

Panel consists of Justices Paul Pressler, Cannon, and Ellis.

Author: Pressler

Appellant was indicted for the felony offense of aggravated kidnapping, TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. ? 20.04 (Vernon 1974). Due to pre-trial publicity, the presiding judge in the case ordered a change of venue from Galveston County to Brazos County. After a plea of not guilty, a jury convicted appellant of the offense charged and assessed punishment at life imprisonment. We affirm.

On Memorial day, 1986, a nineteen-year-old woman left her job as a waitress on Galveston Island at about midnight and began driving along Interstate 45 towards her boyfriend's home in Texas City. Shortly before she entered the causeway to the mainland, two men in a Ford pickup truck began to annoy and follow her. Once across the causeway, they ran her car off the road. The two men then left their truck and approached the young woman's car. John Robert King, the co-defendant who is not a party to this appeal, walked up to the vehicle and broke out the driver's side window with his hand. He then reached into the car, opened the door and forced the young woman from the vehicle. Several eyewitnesses observed the woman's being dragged by her hair and forced into the truck. One passerby stopped to see if King needed any assistance but was told that it was a family problem and to stay out of it. This witness noticed a second man at the scene but was unable to identify him because of the distance and lighting. Additional witnesses saw the young woman fighting to get away and heard her cries for help, but none of the observers immediately reported the incident to the police. The appellant was not specifically identified by any witness as being at the scene. The abducted woman was later determined to be Shelley Sikes, and in spite of a massive investigation, the case remained unsolved for approximately thirteen months.

http://tx.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19891130_0041755.TX.htm/qx
 
Zwarst gets life sentence

ByARLENEBATTISTA
The Daily News

BRYAN — Gerald Pieter Zwarst
was sentenced to life in prison
Wednesday by a jury convinced he
is concealing facts about the abduction
and probable murder of
Shelley Sikes.
The 10-man, two-woman jury deliberated
for three hours, 25 minutes
before returning the sentence
on Zwarst, 33, of El Lago. On
Tuesday, jurors deliberated three
hours, 15 minutes before finding
Zwarst guilty of Miss



http://www.newspaperarchive.com/SiteMap/FreePdfPreview.aspx?img=110186038
 
BACLIFF - Hundreds of volunteers Saturday gathered to search wooded, brushy areas around here, helping authorities in a grim search for the grave of a Texas City teen-ager who was abducted more than a year ago.
The volunteers met at the Kenneth E. Little Elementary School on Oklahoma Street in Bacliff early Saturday to begin a grim search for the grave of Shelley Sikes.

Galveston County sheriff's investigators organized the search around the home of John Robert King after he told police he abducted Sikes and buried her near his Bayview home off Highway 146.

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1987_479975/volunteers-search-for-gravesite-of-sikes.html
 

I dont believe him and his statement.

I awoke to see her being hit with a shovel and buried alive.
What does that mean?

He walked outside and there was a hole pre-dug and after seeing her hit with a shovel just dropped her into the makeshift grave while still alive.

I don't believe it.

Hes putting the blame on the other one.
The most serious charges. Hes saying he didn't hit her or kill her.
He just seen someone else do it.

I believe they did take her back to that house.
And spent hours torturing her before physically killing her.
Because mentally and emotionally she was already dead.

They should never get out of prison.

Those are old articles so i wonder about them now.

Still checking on the girl.

Found her.
https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/8604/0/
13660


Disappointing.
Namus has no clothing description.
So any remains found with clothing would not be able to match.
Just the hair color at this stage perhaps just guessing.

Just have to watch for any remains found in the area of the home in either direction
to make a possible match. If that is a fact where she is at.
Hard to tell.

 
BRYAN - A single flashlight beam pierced the pitch-dark night on the marshes of Galveston County. Mark Spurgeon spied the car of his high school sweetheart, Shelley Sikes, who was two hours late returning home, in the mud along Interstate 45.
Spurgeon's father, Jim Spurgeon, testified here Tuesday that he was helping his son search for the missing 19-year-old when they saw her car's dome light from the roadway. The younger Spurgeon bolted from the truck before it came to a halt.

"Shelley! Shelley!" Spurgeon yelled, his hands clenched to his head in terror. "Shelley! Oh my God. Dad, she's gone." Searching the blood-smeared 1980 Pinto by themselves and later with a sheriff's deputy, they found her car keys in the ignition. They also found a gym bag, an apron she wore at her restaurant job, her purse and her left shoe. In the sand nearby was the print of a bare foot.

That was two years ago, and there's been no trace of Sikes - a well-liked, friendly, brunette woman nicknamed "Peanut" by co-workers because of her diminutive size - since that overcast night.

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1988_550751/discovery-of-sikes-car-detailed-at-trial.html
 
GALVESTON — Gerald Peter
Zwarst, accused in the 1986 aggravated
kidnapping of Shelley
Sikes, goes on trial Monday in the
Brazos County town of Bryan.
Attorneys for both (he defense
and prosecution say they are
ready to bring the case before a
jury, and each expects to build a
case around Zwarst's statements
that he was present when the 19-
year-old Texas City woman was
abducted.
Miss Sikes was last seen leaving
her island waitressing job May 25,
1986. Her blood-spattered car was
found early the next morning
along the northbound feeder road
of Interstate 45; she had vanished.
. Zwarst, 33, of El Lago, and John
Robert King, 30, of Baciiff, were
arrested in July 1987, after King
called E! Paso police and implicated
himself and Zwarst in the
crime. In statements given to officials,
each man has painted
himself as an uninvolved passenger
while accusing the other of
Miss Sikes'abduction.
In April, King was convicted

http://www.newspaperarchive.com/SiteMap/FreePdfPreview.aspx?img=112798549
 
BACLIFF - Despite the efforts of hundreds of volunteer searchers, Erin Sikes' hopes that the body of her abducted 19-year-old daughter finally would be located were dashed Saturday.
"It just seems like it's never going to end," Sikes said as a tired contingent of the Texas State Guard returned to Bacliff's Kenneth E. Little elementary school after an all-day search near the home of a man charged with kidnapping Shelley Sikes 14 months ago.

More than 600 volunteers recruited by the Galveston County Sheriff's Department spent Saturday morning combing hundreds of acres of wooded and brushy land near the home of John Robert King, 29, for Shelley Sikes' grave.

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1987_479600/mom-s-hopes-dashed-again-as-hunt-for-body-fails.html
 
I dont believe him and his statement.

I awoke to see her being hit with a shovel and buried alive.
What does that mean?

He walked outside and there was a hole predug and after eating her with a shovel just dropped her into the makeshift grave while still alive.

I don't believe it.

Hes putting the blame on the other one.
The most serious charges. Hes saying he didn't hit her or kill her.
He just seen someone else do it.

I believe they did take her back to that house.
And spent hours torturing her before physically killing her.
Because mentally and emotionally she was already dead.

They should never get out of prison.

Those are old articles so i wonder about them now.

Still checking on the girl.

Found her.
https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/8604/0/
13660


Disappointing.
Namus has no clothing description.
So any remains found with clothing would not be able to match.

Just the hair color at this stage perhaps just guessing.

Just have to watch for any remains found in the area of the home in either direction
to make a possible match. If that is a fact where she is at.
Hard to tell.


One of the articles stated that she was still moving when she was buried. She was buried alive.

One of the previous articles told that her white blouse was located and identified by the family as belonging to Shelley.
 


summer job as a waitress at Gaido's beach-front restaurant in Galveston.

If anyone has any knowledge about the appearance of her work outfit
please let me know. And i will watch for any remains found with this outfit
including Gaidos maybe printing on it.

I am currently looking for two
One for poppy's and golden corral.

Two that went missing working at those facilities.
Thank-you in advance.


I just notice your posting about the white dress so i deleted my statement on it.
I dont know what to believe about thatl.
 
summer job as a waitress at Gaido's beach-front restaurant in Galveston.

If anyone has any knowledge about the appearance of her work outfit
please let me know. And i will watch for any remains found with this outfit
including Gaidos maybe printing on it.

I am currently looking for two
One for poppy's and golden corral.

Two that went missing working at those facilities.
Thank-you in advance.


I just notice your posting about the white dress so i deleted my statement on it.
I dont know what to believe about thatl.

In 1986 they changed the name of this restaurant from The Chart Room to Gaidos. Depending on what month they changed it, her uniform may have changed.
 
Abduction witness meets police
WED 05/28/1986 HOUSTON CHRONICLE, Section 1, Page 19, NO STAR Edition

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1986_241767/abduction-witness-meets-police.html
"GALVESTON - A man has told authorities he witnessed the weekend abduction of a 19-year-old Texas City woman, but did not report the crime because he thought nothing of it at the time.
Houston and Galveston area law enforcement officers Tuesday were searching for a white male who was last seen early Sunday driving off with Shelley Kathleen Sikes.
Late in the afternoon, authorities interviewed employees of the beachfront restaurant at which the attractive brunette had worked the past month.
Sikes' blood-spattered Ford Pinto was found abandoned in a lonely marsh just north of the Galveston causeway.
Investigators said they think she was kidnapped after her auto was forced from the road and its passenger-side window smashed.
"He (the witness) said he saw a white male, he saw her and he saw an abduction," said Gean Leonard, chief deputy for the Galveston County Sheriff's Department. "They drove north on Interstate 45. That's about all the new information we have."
 
Abduction witness meets police
WED 05/28/1986 HOUSTON CHRONICLE, Section 1, Page 19, NO STAR Edition

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1986_241767/abduction-witness-meets-police.html
"GALVESTON - A man has told authorities he witnessed the weekend abduction of a 19-year-old Texas City woman, but did not report the crime because he thought nothing of it at the time.
Houston and Galveston area law enforcement officers Tuesday were searching for a white male who was last seen early Sunday driving off with Shelley Kathleen Sikes.
Late in the afternoon, authorities interviewed employees of the beachfront restaurant at which the attractive brunette had worked the past month.
Sikes' blood-spattered Ford Pinto was found abandoned in a lonely marsh just north of the Galveston causeway.
Investigators said they think she was kidnapped after her auto was forced from the road and its passenger-side window smashed.
"He (the witness) said he saw a white male, he saw her and he saw an abduction," said Gean Leonard, chief deputy for the Galveston County Sheriff's Department. "They drove north on Interstate 45. That's about all the new information we have."

How can anyone witness an abduction and think nothing of it at the time? If she was forced off the road she had to be upset unless she thought the person didn't do it intentionally. If he saw an abduction then he must have seen her being forced into another vehicle. jmo
 
How can anyone witness an abduction and think nothing of it at the time? If she was forced off the road she had to be upset unless she thought the person didn't do it intentionally. If he saw an abduction then he must have seen her being forced into another vehicle. jmo

Exactly, especially if it happened the way Zwarst describes the abduction - breaking her window. Only a licensed hand gun owner is the solution in cases like this. That poor girl, and all the ones before and after her, had no way to defend themselves.
 
Couldn't the man who saw the abduction but didn't report it be brought up on charges?
 
Couldn't the man who saw the abduction but didn't report it be brought up on charges?

I haven't researched this case at all....but maybe he just saw them go up to the car and thought they were helping her. I don't know if he saw them break the window. I do know nothing seems really clear in this case. I just pray they never get out of prison.
 

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