CA CA - RODNEY HALBOWER, Gypsy Hill Murders, 1976

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  • The murders all occurred between Jan and April, 1976
  • Five occurred in San Mateo County, CA. Mitchell was killed in Reno, Nevada
  • All victims were young, attractive, with long brown or blonde hair parted down the middle.
  • Many had experienced car problems prior to their murders.
  • DNA, time frame and circumstances link the slayings, according to the FBI
  • Sexual assault was confirmed in the Baxter, Booth, and Lampe cases. In the other three cases, a determination could not be made due to advanced decomposition.
  • The task force will go door to door in Gypsy Hills to talk with residents and jog their memories.
  • The suspect is believed to be a dark haired, powerfully built Caucasian male, right-handed, who lived in the Bay Area, but travelled to Reno in late February, 1976.
  • A 1976 profile described the suspect as brutal and sadistic, with a possible interest in bestiality. Sexual contacts would have been few. A poor relationship with his mother, and an ineffectual father round out the profile.


MAP: Gypsy Hill Murder Victims

FBI to make announcement in 38-year-old ‘Gypsy Hill Killings’ cold case
KTVU-TV -- Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Six Murders, One Killer, a New Search Begins
Posted: Fri 10:50 PM, Mar 07, 2014 KOLO-TV 8

FBI launches task force for “Gypsy Hill Murders”
The Washington Times --Thursday, March 06, 2014

FBI links Peninsula cold case murders to Reno killing in 1976
 
bessie said:
  • The murders all occurred between Jan and April, 1976
  • Five occurred in San Mateo County, CA. Mitchell was killed in Reno, Nevada
  • All victims were young, attractive, with long brown or blonde hair parted down the middle.
  • Many had experienced car problems prior to their murders.
  • DNA, time frame and circumstances link the slayings, according to the FBI
  • Sexual assault was confirmed in the Baxter, Booth, and Lampe cases. In the other three cases, a determination could not be made due to advanced decomposition.
  • The task force will go door to door in Gypsy Hills to talk with residents and jog their memories.
  • The suspect is believed to be a dark haired, powerfully built Caucasian male, right-handed, who lived in the Bay Area, but travelled to Reno in late February, 1976.
  • A 1976 profile described the suspect as brutal and sadistic, with a possible interest in bestiality. Sexual contacts would have been few. A poor relationship with his mother, and an ineffectual father round out the profile.


MAP: Gypsy Hill Murder Victims

FBI to make announcement in 38-year-old ‘Gypsy Hill Killings’ cold case
KTVU-TV -- Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Six Murders, One Killer, a New Search Begins
Posted: Fri 10:50 PM, Mar 07, 2014 KOLO-TV 8

FBI launches task force for “Gypsy Hill Murders”
The Washington Times --Thursday, March 06, 2014

FBI links Peninsula cold case murders to Reno killing in 1976
Click to expand...

Here's a few more dark haired girls with car problems before they were killed. http://truthontatelabianca.com/threads/mona-jean-gallegos.3434/page-2 http://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1190 http://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1339 http://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=61 Here's another one with a medical connection Donna Lass. http://www.zodiackiller.com/Lass.html
 
SophieRose said:
http://www.leagle.com/decision/19851160696P2d464_11159

A footprint in the garage matched Lima's shoe size. Murnighan said that Lima lost something in the garage; a blue cigarette lighter was found on the scene.


According to this article Tony's full name is Tony James Lima and was 27 at the time of his arrest in 1977.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...e/1977-08-13/page-8+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

A Tony James Lima born in 1950 died in San Mateo County in 1991.
Click to expand...

I found a Tony J Lima that lived in Daly City, South San Francisco, and Burlingame (which is just south of those cities and located in San Mateo County.)
 
i.b.nora said:
This legal opinion from 1985 gives a little more info on Cathy Woods but also mentions a bunch of other people that supposedly were involved in the Mitchell murder as well:

http://www.leagle.com/decision/19851160696P2d464_11159

"696 P.2d 464 (1985)
Cathy WOODS, Appellant,
v.
The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.
Supreme Court of Nevada.
March 5, 1985.
Rehearing Denied May 8, 1985.

Snippet

"The record reflects the following facts. On the evening of February 24, 1976, Michelle Mitchell's car broke down near the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno, and she telephoned her mother to ask for a ride home. Mitchell's mother left immediately but could not find her daughter. Mitchell's dead body was discovered a few hours later in the garage of a nearby house. Her hands were bound with twine and her throat had been slashed.

For nearly three years no charges were brought in the Mitchell killing. In March of 1979, the Reno Police Department received the information that a mental patient at the Louisiana State University Medical Center at Shreveport, Louisiana, had told hospital staff that some years ago in Reno she had killed a girl named Michelle. The patient was appellant Cathy Woods, who had been committed to the hospital in February of 1979. Appellant told the hospital staff and subsequently Lieutenant Dennison of the Reno Police Department that she had offered to help the girl fix her car, had taken her to a garage on the pretext of getting some tools, had made a sexual proposal to her, and when rebuffed, had cut her throat. Appellant was subsequently brought to Reno and tried."

It goes on to talk about other people involved.
Click to expand...

More from above link:

Appellant entered a plea of not guilty. The defense theory was that appellant's confession was the product of her mental illness: Mitchell had actually been killed by Tony Lima, the boyfriend of Raye Wood, to cover up the contract murder of Peggy Davis by Raye Wood and Marjorie Carter. The two women had beaten Davis to death with a hammer only a few days before Mitchell was killed.1 Raye Wood's former jailmate, Kathy Murnighan, was ready to testify that Raye Wood had told her that she and Lima had discussed killing a woman to cover up the Davis killing by making it appear as though both murders were the work of a homicidal maniac. One night Lima told Raye Wood that he had found a girl whose car had broken down and had slashed her throat. Raye Wood and Lima together disposed of the murder weapon.
Click to expand...

Three San Mateo County women had already been murdered before the Reno murder.

Nevada inmate locator
http://www.doc.nv.gov/inmatesearch/form.php

Put in names

Raye Wood - Looks like on parole 1989
Tony Lima - not in system
Cathy Woods - FLORENCE MCCLURE WOMENS CORRECTIONAL CR, 4' 8", 145 lbs, picture of her
 
http://www.kolotv.com/news/headline...pening-38-Year-Old-Murder-Case-249990241.html

It may look chaotic, but it's all carefully cataloged and when a request came to reexamine evidence in the murder of Michelle Mitchell, Mario Lopez emerged with the evidence used in Cathy Woods' trials.

Photographs of the crime scene and all the principals, the victims clothing, cord used to bind her.

And, inside a tiny sealed evidence envelope, the piece that alone launched a reexamination of the entire case, a cigarette butt left at the victim's feet.

It contained D-N-A that didn't match Woods, but did match that of a killer responsible for five unsolved cases in the Bay Area from the same time period.
Click to expand...
 
Nothing new here. Just adding another link.

FBI looking into pasts of 1976 Gypsy Hill murder victims
Posted: 6:09 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, 2014

KTVU has learned that since news stories began re-appearing this month about the deaths of five bay area women in 1976, the FBI has received dozens of calls.

After meeting for more than an hour investigators plan to look into the pasts of the five Bay Area women killed between January and April of 1976, in what the FBI calls the Gypsy Hill murders.

"We're going to hit the neighborhoods where the young girls grew up. See if there are still some neighbors who were there at the time. Areas where the bodies were found," said South San Francisco Police Chief Mike Massoni.
Click to expand...
 
http://www.rgj.com/story/news/crime...turn-conviction-unr-students-murder/14383819/

DNA technology that wasn’t available four decades ago will be front and center in a Reno courtroom where a 64-year-old woman is trying to overturn her murder conviction after spending more than 30 years in prison...

Woods was convicted twice of killing Michelle Mitchell, a 19-year-old nursing student at the University of Nevada, Reno.

The FBI says the DNA matches that found at a crime scene tied to the Bay Area’s “Gypsy Hill” murders during the 1970s.
Click to expand...
 
More DNA Prompts Delay in 1976 Reno Murder Appeal
Updated: Thu 2:47 PM, Aug 21, 2014

Public defender Maizie Pusich said Thursday modern DNA technology also has identified a cigarette lighter, a pair of shoes and a piece of twine she believes may match DNA on the cigarette.
Prosecutors Seek to Overturn 1976 Nevada Murder Conviction
Posted: Aug 21, 2014 1:50 PM CST Updated: Aug 21, 2014 3:55 PM CST
By Kellene Stockwell

The FBI says the DNA instead matches another crime scene linked to the Bay Area's ‘Gypsy Hill' murders during the 1970s.

[...]

Authorities are still looking for whose DNA was found at those crimes scenes. Blackwell and Cascio both died in Pacifica, Baxter in Millbrae, Booth in South San Francisco, and Lampe in Daly City.

DNA key in contested Nevada murder conviction
Posted August 21, 2014 - 11:37am
By SCOTT SONNER - ASSOCIATED PRESS

Public defender Maizie Pusich told the judge that new DNA technology enabled investigators to tie the cigarette butt to two other murder cases.

“The DNA evidence has been processed that was not available to any of the parties in 1976 or even at the time of the later trial in 1985,” Pusich said.

Bottom line, if LE can ID the source of the DNA found at the Mitchell murder scene in Reno, they also will hold the identity of the Gypsy Hill killer. :crossfingers:

Post #20 - Victim Summary
Post #21 - Case facts
 
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfranci...n-1976-gypsy-hill-murders/Content?oid=2894425

A person of interest in the murders of five women in San Mateo County nearly 40 years ago was identified Monday by the FBI.

Rodney Halbower, 66, who is serving time in Oregon on an attempted murder charge, was named by the FBI as a person of interest in the "Gypsy Hill" murders that took the lives of five women and teen girls between January and April in 1976. In March, investigators announced that they had connected the case to a sixth woman, whose body was found in Reno during the same time period...

Investigators did not reveal Monday what they think Halbower's connection to the murders might be.
Click to expand...

http://lompocrecord.com/news/state-...cle_b017ce8e-4f36-5379-ae5b-ceb4653bdadb.html

Pusich said in court papers filed Monday before the hearing that the DNA found on the cigarette butt matches that of Oregon inmate Rodney L. Halbower, 66...

Halbower is not eligible for parole until 2026...

Halbower was first sentenced to prison in Nevada for sexually assaulting a female blackjack dealer in downtown Reno in November 1975, an attack that occurred roughly two months before Mitchell was killed a few blocks away, Pusich said.
Click to expand...
 
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Suspect-named-but-Gypsy-Hill-probe-goes-on-5744821.php

The FBI may have named an Oregon prison inmate as a suspect in San Mateo County's unsolved Gypsy Hill killings, but the decades-old cold case is far from closed, authorities said Tuesday. Though investigators believe DNA evidence links 66-year-old Rodney Halbower to the 1976 Peninsula slayings and a sixth murder in Reno, FBI agents are still looking for witnesses with long memories...

San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said he expects to receive the case against Halbower for review in a few weeks. Halbower has not yet been charged with any of the killings.

"One of the standard rules when you have homicides in multiple counties is that you go to the county that has the strongest case," he said. "In our county, we will have some DNA cases that we will be able to prosecute."
Click to expand...
 
Thank you so much for posting the new links, OkieGranny. News like this is so encouraging! With DNA technology, it really is never too late to solve a murder.
 
gypsy-hill-suspect-rodney-halbower.jpg

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/crime-law/person-interest-named-1976-gypsy-hill-murders/nhJPw/
I-Team: Major break in Bay Area's 1976 'Gypsy Hill Murders'
By Dan Noyes
Monday, September 08, 2014


SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) --There's a major break in a serial killing spree that terrorized the Bay Area nearly 40 years ago. The FBI believes 66-year-old Rodney Halbower may have killed five young women from the peninsula in just a few short months and then another in Reno. The I-Team has been looking into why Halbower is now in the spotlight.

[...]

This new information comes out of a Washoe County, Nevada courtroom. Cathy Woods was granted a new trial after serving more than 30 years in the death of a Reno college student.

Court documents released Monday show that DNA testing has revealed a new suspect. The documents read: "The DNA on the cigarette butt at the crime scene" and "...at two of the California rape-murder cases belongs to Rodney Halbower."





 
Muskegon investigators want to know more about suspected serial killer
Sarah Sell, WZZM 8:13 p.m. EDT September 11, 2014

"He's a horrific guy, a monster", says Muskegon County Sheriff Dean Roesler referring to 66-year old Rodney Halbower. He can't help but wonder what other crimes Halbower committed while he was living in Muskegon Heights. On Wednesday, Rodney's brother John, said Rodney was a bully. "Everybody in the neighborhood was terrorized by him. We all got together, tied him up, laid him in the road, and he got away, chased us with a butcher knife", says John Halbower.

[...]

One of the cold cases involves 18-year old Barbara Brott and 19-year old Mary Ann Hicks. In 1972, the women were last seen leaving the Canopy bar in Grand Rapids, which has since been torn down. Their bodies were found a month later, near Muskegon. "Some of the evidence that was recovered, we hope would render DNA, if and when it comes to that point, of making that comparison."
Mary Ann Hicks' skeleton ID'd
Argus Press, Sept 3, 1972

Barbara Brott's skeleton ID'd
Daytona Beach Morning Journal, Sept 3, 1972

Delayed Justice
 
Just a thought. I wonder if there were bus stops near where these girls were found or last seen. It occurred to me that perhaps the person who did it may have picked them that way. Theses girls loom like they have simular Tastes In hairstyle.
If the guy road the bus he may have kept a journal of the goings ons.got the girls routines.he could do this by riding the bus.
 
That's a good hunch. Veronica Cascio was abducted while waiting for a bus. Beedy Booth was last seen walking from a bus stop. See post #21.
 
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-convict-charges-gypsy-hill-murders-20150122-story.html

Halbower has been extradited to San Mateo County to face charges, authorities said Thursday. He was extradited from Oregon State Prison to the Bay Area after he was linked by DNA to the 1976 murders of Paula Baxter and Veronica Cascio, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office. He was serving time for attempted murder.

Halbower faces two counts of murder that occurred while the women were raped, authorities said.
Click to expand...
 
Just saw news of Halbower's arrest on local NBC news. The LA Times article pretty much sums it all up but will watch for further info. San Jose Mercury News, San Mateo Times, and San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate) all potential sources.
 
I wonder if he will be charged in the Mitchell murder. Cathy Woods' new trial is scheduled for July.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5807638

[...]
In 2010 a fellow inmate in the women's prison in North Las Vegas began the process of filing for an reexamination of evidence which had twice convicted former Reno bar manager Cathy Woods of the 1976 murder of Reno coed Michelle Mitchell.

Two years later, DNA tests were ordered. That led to the discovery of DNA on a cigarette butt found at the scene. That DNA didn't match Cathy Woods.
[...]

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headline...rial-Killings-289529711.html?device=phone&c=y

Article from May:

[...]
DNA was apparently found on a cigarette butt and it didn't match hers.

But as revealed Thursday at a press conference in the Bay Area, it did match the DNA in a series of unsolved murders there.

Those cases, called the Gypsy Hill Killings, also involved young women, some of whom had car trouble at the time of their murders..
[...]

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headline...-38-Years-Ago-248935251.html?device=phone&c=y
 
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