FL FL - Anna Marie Mullin, 22, Murdered, Wilton Manors, 6 Nov 1982

Richard

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Anna Marie Mullin, 22
Murdered 6 November 1982

Strawberry blonde hair, a beautiful smile and an infectiously friendly personality — those are just some of the ways friends and family describe Anna Marie Mullin.

Sure, she’d had a hard life – a childhood filled with trauma and an adulthood filled with alcohol — but her generosity was never questioned...

But that generosity was forever ended 36 years ago when Mullin’s body was found on the front steps of St. Clement’s Catholic Church in Wilton Manors. The 22-year-old had been beaten, raped and murdered.

Mullin was seen leaving a bar called The Caboose with a man less than a mile from the Wilton Manors Police Department on Nov. 6, 1982. That was the last known time she was seen alive.

According to a story in The Florida Sun Sentinel, a suspect was quickly identified after two employees at the bar agreed to undergo hypnosis to provide police with details of the night.

The man the employees described was in his early 30s, roughly 5-feet-11-inches tall, weighing approximately 200 pounds with dark brown hair and brown eyes – similar to the man seen leaving The Caboose with Mullin that night.

One of the employees reportedly said the man’s name was Toni – spelled with an “i” — but was unable to remember a last name.

They recalled playing pool with the man and that he used a unique assembly style he referred to as “the New Jersey rack.” An envelope that the suspect had laid on the bar had a return address in northwest Pompano Beach and a name starting with a “t.”

No arrests were made, and the case remains unsolved...

LINKS:

https://twitter.com/annamairemulli1

Anna Marie Mullin - Project: Cold Case
 
Thank you for posting this thread @Richard.

I'm just going to post the link for the other article here to broaden the range of information:
The Brutal Murder of Annamarie Mullin

From what I've read, there seems to be only the one key suspect: the pool-playing man, possibly called Toni, possibly from Pompano Beach FL.

Anna Marie's murder was nearly 40 years ago now and if the suspect was in his early 30s then he would be an old man now. He may not still be alive. He may not still be in Florida, and there's no telling if he was a native Floridian in the first place.

But since this is the only starting point, I would be looking at:
  • white pages for Pompano Beach for someone of that name or similar
  • birth records for the area for the range 1945-55
  • death records for the area from the 1980s onwards for the right kind of age
Once I had a shortlist of possibilities, I might try to cross-reference with entries in Ancestry family trees to see if there was a photo I could compare with the artist's inpression of the suspect. If someone local comes on the thread, would the 1982 white pages still be accessible at a library? I assume old editions aren't digitised for searching.

But this is a bit of a needle in a haystack search, using information that may not have been true/correct, plus there seems to be no physical evidence still remaining from this case to compare against a suspect even if we could find him. So I wonder if a better approach is to use the details of Anna Marie's murder to try to identify similar murders in the same kind of timeframe and geographical area, in the hope that what we know about the suspect could be provisionally added to, to build up a fuller profile.

JMO
 
Info is confusing, she went to a bar she usually hung out at with only $1.00 in her pocket ?

Meets unknown male unfamiliar to regulars and employees, who plies her with alcohol till approx 2:30 am then she leaves, with said individual

Body is found the next day on church steps she was sexually assaulted , beaten and strangled , yet one report says possible deadly combo of alcohol and drugs ?
 
Info is confusing, she went to a bar she usually hung out at with only $1.00 in her pocket ?

Meets unknown male unfamiliar to regulars and employees, who plies her with alcohol till approx 2:30 am then she leaves, with said individual

Body is found the next day on church steps she was sexually assaulted , beaten and strangled , yet one report says possible deadly combo of alcohol and drugs ?

I think if she was a regular and knew all the other regulars, turning up with only $1 isn't all that implausible. Maybe she assumed someone she knew would stand her a drink, maybe she regularly did the same for other people when they were waiting for payday, maybe she knew the bar would let her run up a tab, or maybe she came with the specific goal of picking up a man who would pay for her all evening.

And likewise, if the unknown man had done precisely that, perhaps they were both operating on the assumption that she would leave with him for sex afterwards. It's what happened afterwards that's unclear.

The lack of surviving police files is a real problem, especially as there seem to be different narratives floating around, e.g. beaten to death, strangled, possibly a firearm used, or actually just misadventure or accidental death. In absence of a definitive set of publicly available facts, I wonder if we need someone connected with the family or the investigation to join the thread before we can really know what we're talking about.
 
This is heartbreaking.

I'm sure there are many violent men preying on vulnerable women in bars, but for some reason, this makes me wonder if there was some connection to Carol Ryan's death. The cases are very different in some aspects, but both were red-haired women with drinking problems. It is truly gruesome what was done to Carol, but on the other hand, it's also gruesome to have left Anna Marie's assaulted body on church steps. To me, it seemed to be publicly shaming her, publicly showing hatred for her as a woman, which was certainly shown to Carol in the unthinkable way that she was assaulted and left on a cold road to die.

Anyway, I hope that whoever took these women's lives sees justice, in this world and the next.
 
If I lived in the area, I think I'd try to find who owned the place back then, or go in to the current one and try to find any of the oldtimers who were around then. I can remember my drinking buddies from 40 years ago, and could recall anything like a murder in our midst (fortunately there were none, but I'm sure I'd remember if there WERE!). With the conflicting reports of what happened, and apparently NO LE records, I'd really like to talk to anyone who was around....willing to invest a few weeks chasing them down.
 
I think if she was a regular and knew all the other regulars, turning up with only $1 isn't all that implausible. Maybe she assumed someone she knew would stand her a drink, maybe she regularly did the same for other people when they were waiting for payday, maybe she knew the bar would let her run up a tab, or maybe she came with the specific goal of picking up a man who would pay for her all evening.

And likewise, if the unknown man had done precisely that, perhaps they were both operating on the assumption that she would leave with him for sex afterwards. It's what happened afterwards that's unclear.

The lack of surviving police files is a real problem, especially as there seem to be different narratives floating around, e.g. beaten to death, strangled, possibly a firearm used, or actually just misadventure or accidental death. In absence of a definitive set of publicly available facts, I wonder if we need someone connected with the family or the investigation to join the thread before we can really know what we're talking about.

No Im not saying its not plausible , Im saying how do we know she only had a dollar in her pocket ? is that what she had when they found her?, or did she tell someone while she was there ?, was the meeting possibly pre-arranged ?

The rest leaves little to the imagination , rape murder etc...
 
No Im not saying its not plausible , Im saying how do we know she only had a dollar in her pocket ? is that what she had when they found her?, or did she tell someone while she was there ?, was the meeting possibly pre-arranged ?

The rest leaves little to the imagination , rape murder etc...

At this point there is no legitimately established cause of death (that WE know about). One report says "choked" and then "OD on drugs and alcohol" other report says rape/murder. If OD it's accidental. They could have had consensual sex, later she died from OD. And, who's the guy kissing her? A jealous lover who was waiting at home for her after she left Toni.. and HE choked her to death? Lots of room for imagination, IMO -- good luck to anyone trying to PROVE anything to a jury!
 
At this point there is no legitimately established cause of death (that WE know about). One report says "choked" and then "OD on drugs and alcohol" other report says rape/murder. If OD it's accidental. They could have had consensual sex, later she died from OD. And, who's the guy kissing her? A jealous lover who was waiting at home for her after she left Toni.. and HE choked her to death? Lots of room for imagination, IMO -- good luck to anyone trying to PROVE anything to a jury!


Time of death could narrow that down more , as could an autopsy report but well have to wait and see.
 
No Im not saying its not plausible , Im saying how do we know she only had a dollar in her pocket ? is that what she had when they found her?, or did she tell someone while she was there ?, was the meeting possibly pre-arranged ?

The rest leaves little to the imagination , rape murder etc...

OK, I see what you mean. :)

One of the (many) problems here is that there was no internet in 1982, so there's barely any contemporaneous news reportage available to us. Someone local would probably need to get scrolling through the news archives from the time to piece together the facts, and even then it sounds like there'll be a lack of reliable consensus.

All the material available to us is heavily editorialised ("Strawberry blonde hair, a beautiful smile and an infectiously friendly personality...") and the $1 may be painting a picture for us in the same way instead of being strictly factual.

Is it important? Maybe, maybe not. I guess what it tells us is two things. One is that she was broke, and the other is that even though she was broke, going to the bar was important to her. I think both speak to vulnerability. When you're broke, you walk or wait for the bus instead of jumping in a cab. When you take your last few dollars to a bar, you're lonely or unhappy or have an alcohol problem.

It may also be a very gentle, coded way of telling us that she supplemented her income by picking up men for money. It certainly looks as though the man she met that night thought he was buying not just drinks but rights to something.

JMO
 
At this point there is no legitimately established cause of death (that WE know about). One report says "choked" and then "OD on drugs and alcohol" other report says rape/murder. If OD it's accidental. They could have had consensual sex, later she died from OD. And, who's the guy kissing her? A jealous lover who was waiting at home for her after she left Toni.. and HE choked her to death? Lots of room for imagination, IMO -- good luck to anyone trying to PROVE anything to a jury!

BBM

What does this refer to? I feel like I've missed something but I couldn't find a reference to someone kissing her in the sources linked so far. Would be grateful for a signpost. :)
 
9 Nov 1982, Page 13 - Fort Lauderdale News at Newspapers.com

Anna Marie Mullin - Project: Cold Case

I hope these links work.



Just additional info:
IMO I find it interesting that she looked to be placed on the church steps, ?? guilt from the killer? LE say they 'knew' it was a homicide. Other info in newspaper states she was choked, but project cold case list weapon used as firearm. As someone said the suspect would likely be in his older age, as this was 39 years ago. She was one of 8 or 9 children originally from Mass, placed in foster care.
 
BBM

What does this refer to? I feel like I've missed something but I couldn't find a reference to someone kissing her in the sources linked so far. Would be grateful for a signpost. :)

241629320_108169431608288_8133989553358048565_n.jpg


In a box next to it: DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?

Justice For Anna Marie Mullin - Photos | Facebook

It's 'hidden' in Facebook -- I've found that clicking in the yellow (referenced?) box for a FB link can work, whereas clicking in the white may get you blocked.
 
Twitter refers to Wilton Manors cops being in the bar that night, and implies they either botched or ditched any follow-up.
 
Twitter refers to Wilton Manors cops being in the bar that night, and implies they either botched or ditched any follow-up.
I read in the ft. lauderdale paper that in the 70's and 80's it was a super crazy place.
The trailer park there was the film set for the movie 'striptease'. More bizarre the deputy sheriff in 1973 was a convicted serial killer. It's quite sad that everyone knew one another at the bar, and she left with a stranger and no one stepped in. But I think back then no one really knew about the dangers in the world. Truth be told, now we would probably be much more cautious. JMO

Add murder, mayhem to trailer park's credits: Wilton Manors site filmed for 'Striptease' has colorful history
Love Birds Behind Bars | New York Post

."Florida Deputy Sheriff Gerard Shaefer would use his badge and gun to lure young female hitchhikers into his patrol car. But instead of taking them to the Wilton Manors police station,he would drive them to an isolated swamp, tie them to trees and over the course of a few days torture and eventually eviserate them, then have sex with their corpses. Shaefer, who once applied to the priesthood but was rejected, was suspected in the ritual killings of dozen of women in South Florida in the early 1970s.But he was convicted for only two of the slayings - those of Susan Place 17, and Georgia Jessup, 16, for which he sentenced to life in prison. "
 
I read in the ft. lauderdale paper that in the 70's and 80's it was a super crazy place.
The trailer park there was the film set for the movie 'striptease'. More bizarre the deputy sheriff in 1973 was a convicted serial killer. It's quite sad that everyone knew one another at the bar, and she left with a stranger and no one stepped in. But I think back then no one really knew about the dangers in the world. Truth be told, now we would probably be much more cautious. JMO

Add murder, mayhem to trailer park's credits: Wilton Manors site filmed for 'Striptease' has colorful history
Love Birds Behind Bars | New York Post

."Florida Deputy Sheriff Gerard Shaefer would use his badge and gun to lure young female hitchhikers into his patrol car. But instead of taking them to the Wilton Manors police station,he would drive them to an isolated swamp, tie them to trees and over the course of a few days torture and eventually eviserate them, then have sex with their corpses. Shaefer, who once applied to the priesthood but was rejected, was suspected in the ritual killings of dozen of women in South Florida in the early 1970s.But he was convicted for only two of the slayings - those of Susan Place 17, and Georgia Jessup, 16, for which he sentenced to life in prison. "

I find it hard to believe that one 'stranger' can spend an entire evening in a bar full of 'regulars' with noone having any idea of who the guy is, where he's from, etc., -- much more likely that everyone knows but nobody is talking.
 
I find it hard to believe that one 'stranger' can spend an entire evening in a bar full of 'regulars' with noone having any idea of who the guy is, where he's from, etc., -- much more likely that everyone knows but nobody is talking.
yup. sort of weird. like they knew his name was 'toni'. no other small talk?
 
This is one of those cases ,where the facts are all over the place and everything we know will come from media sources, some of which say there s chance of overdose, and that she was beaten and raped in the same article.
 
How about if there IS NO TONI? What if she left with one of the regulars? Wonder how many were IN that night?!?
right?? that could explain the 'no one's saying anything'. also, it bothers me that it is listed as her having a 'drinking problem' almost throwing shade on her. i wonder if her sister ever saw LE files. It seems that also i suspect many patrons are long gone by now.
 

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