KY KY/IN - Days Inn Murders, I-65, Mary Gill, Jean Gilbert, Vicki Heath, 1989

ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. (WDRB Fox 41 (modsnip)

Police say a serial killer travelled up and down I-65 killing women and police have not caught him yet.

(modsnip)

Vicki was found out back behind a dumpster. She had been sexually assaulted and shot to death. "But I'm sure she put up a good fight, my sister would've put up a good fight," said Johnson with confidence.

For 23 years police thought Vicki's case was an isolated incident.

Until last April when DNA evidence linked Vicki's death to 3 other attacks in Indiana.

In 1989, Mary Gill and Jeanne Gilbert were killed the same night, in the same way Vicki was murdered. Both were desk clerks at Days Inn Motels. Another hotel clerk was attacked a year later-- but escaped and gave police the description that formed this picture. Now their story is running on America's most Wanted. (modsnip)

Police fear there may be even more victims connected to this man. They think he may have been a truck driver or salesman traveling I-65 in the late 1980s and early 90s. He would now be between 55 and 65 years old. If you have any information call Elizabethtown police.

http://www.wdrb.com/story/14064476/i-65-serial-killer-still-on-the-run
 
Possible suspect is White male, 53-54 years of age, Quite possibly attended Avon High School with Jayne Friedt (Burger Chef victim 1978) Lived in the area of 38th & Georgetown area Indianapolis at or around the years 1988-1990, Had delivery job / late model van,that ran alternate days between Chicago and Louisville areas. Wire rim glasses. Tended to wear Bib overalls and Tshirts
 
I wonder if LE gathered a guest list going back several weeks before the murders in each of these cases?
 
Leads Sifted In Slayings At 2 Motels
May 31, 1989|By Ronald Koziol.
Chicago Tribune
``We`re hoping for a break somewhere,`` said Hicks, who noted that a there is an outstanding $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers of the clerks slain in the early morning of May 3. ``We`ll go anywhere the investigation takes us.``
Margaret Mary Gill, 24, a desk clerk at the Merrillville Days Inn, was slain between 12:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. Her body was found in a remote area behind the motel.
The second victim, Jeanne M. Gilbert, 34, of Rensselaer, was discovered in a roadside ditch about 15 miles south of the Days Inn Motel, where she worked, near Remington, Ind.
GILL, GILBERT: 'Days Inn murders' remain unsolved
by Susan Ehrler
November 30, 2009 12:05 am
NWI Times
Both women were sexually assaulted, and ballistic tests revealed the same gun was used in both murders.
A joint investigation by the Merrillville Police Department, the Jasper County Sheriff's Department and the Indiana State Police turned up potential suspects. But more than 20 years later, the killer or killers remain at large.
AMW: Unknown Interstate 65 Serial Killer

Murder E.P.D. Case Number 87-151
On February 21, 1987, Elizabethtown Police were called to investigate the disappearance of the night clerk employed at The Super 8 Motel, located at 2018 North Mulberry St.
Shortly after police arrived at the scene, they discovered a body behind the motel. The victim, Vicki Heath, was found dead from a gunshot wound.
This case remained a cold case until the recent technology of DNA evidence linked this crime with three other similar crimes. The case was aired on America’s Most Wanted.

murdercase87151.jpg

I-65 Serial killer still on the run
Posted: Feb 19, 2011 9:12 PM CDT By Rachel Collier41-year-old Vicki Heath worked as an overnight desk clerk at a Super 8 Motel in Elizabethtown, and on February 21st 1987 she was attacked inside. "Apparently the lobby was a wreck and the pay phone had been torn off the wall," said Johnson.
Vicki was found out back behind a dumpster. She had been sexually assaulted and shot to death. "But I'm sure she put up a good fight, my sister would've put up a good fight," said Johnson with confidence.
For 23 years police thought Vicki's case was an isolated incident.
 

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What is it about Days Inn? I just read about a case in Philly where a girl was murdered there.
 
What is it about Days Inn? I just read about a case in Philly where a girl was murdered there.

The specific "brand" (or whatever you'd call it) being hit twice (and the PA murder you mention) may just be bad luck.

But I think I know why this type of business was hit. They likely have to have some money on hand for change and from payments, etc. In the dead of night, fewer people are working so it would be easier to pull off a robbery/etc.

Another reason they were targeted could be the sheer ease of entry and escape. The two involved motels were both right off of I-65. The E-town one is less than a "city block" from the exit. You have to go on a couple streets to loop around to it, but it looks like views you'd get from the Merrillville Days Inn would be the I-65/US-30 intersection.

Elizabethtown Days Inn
Merrillville Days Inn (now a Quality Inn)


I also looked up Days Inn on it's website to see its local motels. This is likely the same with their competitors (Holiday Inn, Red Roof Inn, etc) but they're ALL smack dab at Interstate exits. You could get on there and be gone before anybody ever knew of the crime.
louisville days inn.JPG
 
http://wlfi.com/2017/03/03/daughter-speaks-out-on-28th-anniversary-of-remington-cold-case/
[h=1]Daughter speaks out on 28th anniversary of Remington cold case[/h] Brittany Tyner Published: March 3, 2017

RENSSELAER, Ind. (WLFI) — Today marks 28 years since a Rensselaer woman was abducted and murdered while working overnight at a Remington motel. It’s a case that’s never been solved. Now, her daughter is speaking out about the importance of not letting the same happen with the Delphi double homicide investigation.

Kimberly Gilbert Wright said every year on March 3 she celebrates her mother’s life. However, this year is different.
She said learning about the deaths of 14-year-old Libby German and 13-year-old Abby Williams has brought back emotions she hasn’t felt in years.
“My mother had just attended my last sectional game as a cheerleader, and she actually traded someone shifts so that she could go to my game,” Gilbert Wright said.
But that night, Jeanne along with $247 from the Days Inn went missing. Her body was found more than 20 miles away, near Brookston. While investigators were able to link Jeanne’s case to other crimes and believe a serial killer is to blame, no arrests have been made.

“There’s so much more technology, social media, ways to get the word out now, than there were back in ’89,” said Gilbert Wright. “I would hope that would bring the case to a quicker resolution than my mother’s.”

Investigators are working hard to do just that, filtering through thousands of tips in the Delphi case
 
Kentucky News Story - Vicky Heath

[FONT=&quot]Police believe the suspect murdered the first known victim at a Motel 8. The victim, 38-year-old Vicki Heath, was found dead behind a trash bin at motel on Feb. 21, 1987. She worked the late shift as a desk clerk. Heath had been sodomized and shot twice in the head with a .38 caliber handgun, according EPD.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Thanks to help from the Kentucky State Police crime lab, Elizabethtown detective Clinton Turner was able to link her murder to two other murders in Indiana.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Original reports said Heath was found on her back in the mud created by a nearly melted sprinkling of snow, still wearing her sweater and plaid skirt. No murder weapon was found.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]One set of footprints led away from her body to the parking lot and abruptly ended, suggesting to Ruben Gardner, then a lieutenant with the Elizabethtown Police Department and now police chief, that the killer got into a car and drove off.[/FONT]
 
This is making me crazy- we moved to Lebanon IN in 1987. Within a couple of years of moving here, the female night clerk at the Lebanon Holiday Inn (I-65 and SR 39) was brutally beaten to death. Likely with a golf club she kept behind the desk for protection. No one has ever been arrested.

I cannot help but wonder if it is connected. I've never heard of these three cases before.

Just got this info from a local: Victoria Harshman, September 19-20 (overnight), 1991.
 
What do the cops thjink? Do they think it's connected?
 
This is making me crazy- we moved to Lebanon IN in 1987. Within a couple of years of moving here, the female night clerk at the Lebanon Holiday Inn (I-65 and SR 39) was brutally beaten to death. Likely with a golf club she kept behind the desk for protection. No one has ever been arrested.

I cannot help but wonder if it is connected. I've never heard of these three cases before.

Just got this info from a local: Victoria Harshman, September 19-20 (overnight), 1991.

The time frame is correct. But that's not his MO, he was a rapist and used a gun, later a knife. If there was DNA left at the scene, they should have been able to include/exclude him.
 
(modsnip)

Very interesting indeed! Especially the delivery driver part between Chicago and Louisville. This case always intrigued me. One thing I will say for those interested in this case.

There were two murders a couple months before the Gill and Gilbert murders.

December 31st, 1988 a man from Michigan entered the lobby of the Envoy Inn in Florence, Ky around 6:20am to get coffee. A man and a woman are at the desk with the night clerk, 34 year-old James Walton. It is said the woman kept looking away from the Michigan man. So he says to a man described as a "Grisly Adams" mountain man type, "Good day for the Bengals to play". The mountain man mumbles and the Michigan man leaves the lobby.

Police said the register's last transaction was at 6:24am followed by a gunshot. James Walton was robbed, removed from the lobby and shot with a .44 magnum in the parking lot.

February 11th, 1989 police release to the public that the .44 magnum used in the James Walton murder-
ballistics matched the murder of Evelyn Wright, a night clerk at the Colonial Inn in Rockford, Il. She was robbed, taken from the lobby and executed in the parking lot two weeks prior to the murder of James Walton.

About ten days after the murders of Gill and Gilbert on March 3, 1989 police mention that they think it way be related to the Wright and Walton murders, difference was/is Gilbert and Gill was killed with a .22. They sent a composite artist to Michigan, interview the Michigan man and get release a composite of the suspect in Wright and Walton's murders.

He is described-

"The suspect is white, about 6-foot-1 and 30 to 40 years old. He has a heavy build, collar-length, reddish brown hair and a scraggly beard. He wore jeans, a heavy plaid shirt and work or hunting boots, giving him a 'Grizzly Adams' mountain-man appearance".

Appears they didn't get a composite of the Gill, Gilbert and Heath murders until 2010 due to a DNA link of survivors of attempted robberies who gave description/composite.

Description, composite and robbery/homicides are nearly identical.
 
Agree, that's crazy. He had a lot of victims.
So they have his DNA?
 
I grew up in Elizabethtown. With them having his DNA, I would say it is on record somewhere, and since there are no more connecting murders, could that mean he has passed away? If he was arrested I am sure is DNA would have been checked, right?
 
I grew up in Elizabethtown. With them having his DNA, I would say it is on record somewhere, and since there are no more connecting murders, could that mean he has passed away? If he was arrested I am sure is DNA would have been checked, right?
Agree Sam. I just wish we could give closure.
 
Hey Tulessa, not sure when this happened, but since you and me seem to run in the same area, do you remember a man that jumped out in front of traffic right there on I 65 not far from Elizabethtown exit? I remember he had tattoo's but not sure of year this happened. I want to say this happened at the next underpass from the exit that goes to the hotels on the North side of town.
 
Amything coming along with DNA or sketch??
 
Amything coming along with DNA or sketch??

Currently looking into a link between the Days Inn series and the Wright/Walton series considering how the composites and witness descriptions are nearly identical. MO is very close and time frame is perfect.

Wright/Walton are connected through ballistics. The other series of three murders and two attacks with survivors are connected by DNA.

Been looking into this for sometime, there have been no hits on DNA, but now that familial DNA is slowly becoming the new norm, this guy may be found.
 

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