I’m hoping someone can help me get a timeline of Halbower’s whereabouts in 1975-1976. It seems he was arrested for rape in December of 1975 and then released back into the community on bail (?!?!) until he was sentenced and jailed in May of 1976. That is when the Gypsy Hill murders occurred. The news articles I located did not provide a precise timeline and had some conflicting info. It was also stated in at least one article that Halbower was incarcerated during Denise Lampe’s rape/murder in early April of 1976, and therefore couldn’t be her attacker. Interestingly, the 2 Gypsy Hill victims whose murderer has not been determined yet occurred AFTER the 3 murders Halbower has been linked to by DNA, and closest in time to Leon Seymour’s killing. How can I go about determining Halbower’s precise whereabouts in February and March of 1976, including when he was jailed, released, appeared in court, etc.?
I couldn't leave it alone, because I was very curious myself. If somebody sees something that is incorrect please let me know. Text in blue is about Mrs. Wood a then mental patient who confessed to have killed "a girl called Michelle in Reno"
10 Disturbing Facts Of The Gypsy Hill Murders - Listverse
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10 Disturbing Facts Of The Gypsy Hill Murders - Listverse
From various sources: A timeline about the whereabouts of Rodney Halbower and other people included in the investigations.
1975 - Halbower was paroled and left Michigan and moved to Nevada, settling in Reno.
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Nov. 27, 1975 - A 33-year-old blackjack dealer at a Reno casino is raped while walking home on the edge of downtown and days later Rodney Halbower, a 27-year-old native of Muskegon Heights, Michigan, is arrested and charged with the crime.
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December 1975 - Halbower is released on bail and remained at large during the preliminary investigation, which ended in the spring of 1976.
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Jan. 8, 1976 - Body of Veronica “Ronnie” Cascio, 18, is discovered in a creek on the grounds of the Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica, San Mateo County, California. Partially nude, stabbed over 30 times, sexually assaulted. Cascio was last seen on her way home from a bus stop in Pacifica, California, the day before.
Proven killed by Halbower
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Jan. 24, 1976 – Tatiana (Tanya) Blackwell, 14, is reported missing after she last was seen leaving her Pacifica home running an errand. Her body was found in June 1976 off Gypsy Hill Road in Pacifica, San Mateo County, California less than 1.6 kilometers (1 mi) away from her home on Heathcliff Drive in Pacifica. She was found partially nude, sexual assaulted and stabbed.
Cold Case, Halbower suspected
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Feb. 2, 1976 - Paula Baxter (17) missing. Baxter was last seen leaving a high school parking lot in Millbrae, California.
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Feb. 6, 1976 - Body of Paula Baxter, 17, is found in a secluded grove of eucalyptus trees behind a church in Millbrae, San Mateo County, California. The following day her car was found in a street near to the parking lot she disappeared from. Stripped nude, sexually assaulted, stabbed 4 times and beaten with a piece of concrete.
Proven killed by Halbower.
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Feb. 24, 1976 - Body of Michelle Mitchell, a 19-year-old nursing student, is found in a garage on the edge of the University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada. Her hands tied, her throat slit, and left to die in a residential garage just outside the UNR campus.
Proven killed by Halbower, but not prosecuted for it yet?
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March 15, 1976 - Carol Booth, 26, is reported missing after she was last seen walking toward her home in South San Francisco.
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April 1, 1976 - Body of Denise Lampe, 19, is found in her 1964 Mustang in the parking lot of Serramonte Mall in Daly City, San Mateo County, California. Had been stabbed 12-20 times in the chest and arms.
Proven killed by Leon Melvin Seymour
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May 6, 1976 - The skeletonized remains of a woman were found in a shallow grave near the Colma Creek in South San Francisco near a former golf driving range between Kaiser Hospital and Mission Road in San Francisco, a short-cut she usually took. She was later identified as 26-year-old Carol Booth (Beedy for friends) Sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple times. The killer did something a little bit different this time - he attempted to bury her.
Cold case, Halbower suspected.
May 1976 - Halbower’s trial begins in Nevada, during which he was found guilty of assaulting the girl (the 33-years old black jack dealer in Reno) and receives a sentence of life imprisonment.
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April 7, 1977 - Nevada Supreme Court rejects Halbower’s appeal of his conviction and life sentence on the Reno rape charge.
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June 1977 - During a softball match in the territory near the Carson City <in Michigan?> prison, Halbower escaped. He was put on a wanted list.
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At loose somewhere in Michigan?, between June and July 1977
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July 1977 - He was recaptured and was extradited <Escape must have been Carson City, MI, otherwise no extradition needed> to Nevada to serve his sentence for the rape charges. He was convicted of fleeing from prison, for which he was later given a 6-year sentence.
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December 15, 1977 - Another escape from Nevada prison
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At loose somewhere for almost 9 months
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September 1978 - Recaptured, put in the Nevada State Maximum Security Prison. Attempted to break out again, but didn’t succeed.
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March 1979 - Reno police learn Cathy Woods, a mental patient at a Louisiana hospital, has confessed to killing “a woman named Michelle” in Reno three years earlier.
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Dec. 13, 1979 - Woods is arraigned on a first-degree murder charge in Washoe District Court in Reno for the 1976 killing of Michelle Mitchell.
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Dec. 11, 1980 - A jury finds Woods guilty of first-degree murder.
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Jan. 7, 1981 - Woods is formally sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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May 8, 1985 - Nevada Supreme Court overturns Woods’ conviction and orders a new trial.
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Dec. 24, 1985 - A Washoe County district court jury finds Woods guilty a second time of first-degree murder and she is re-sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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December 1986 - Halbower and another inmate escape from the Nevada state prison in Carson City and steal a vehicle in Sacramento, California, ending up in Oregon. Halbower stabs a 23-year-old woman 19 times while trying to steal her purse in a Medford (Jackson County, Oregon) shopping center. The woman survives and identifies him.
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Sources about when Halbower first submitted DNA contradict. If it indeed was already in 2011, you could wonder why it took so many years for the results to come in 2014.
Because of Nevada's laws over DNA collection, Halbower didn't submit a DNA sample until 2011, when he was transferred to Oregon's prison system.
Oregon inmate, called 'sociopathic serial killer,' to face charges in 1976 California murders
Nov. 21, 2013 - Halbower submits a DNA sample as required by law when he finished his sentence in the Reno attack and is paroled from prison in Nevada. He is transferred to an Oregon prison to begin serving his sentence for attempted murder (Medford, Oregon, 1986)
I think this is the right date he started his sentence in Oregon. Oregon Offender Search
863716C1/01 JACK MURDER ATTEMPT Inmate Sentence 05/15/2011
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September, 2014 - DNA entered into a national database matched with semen found on the bodies of both Veronica “Ronnie” Cascio, 18, and Paula Baxter, 17. The study also showed that Halbower's DNA profile coincided with the one isolated from saliva on cigarette butts found near the body of Michelle Mitchell, who was killed in February 1976 in Reno, Nevada
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Feb. 10, 2014 - Washoe County public defender Maizie Pusich files a motion on Woods’ behalf seeking a new trial based on new DNA evidence.
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March 6, 2014 - The FBI in San Francisco announces the launch of a joint investigation with Bay Area law enforcement, Reno police and the Washoe County sheriff into new evidence that shows a link between Mitchell’s death and some of the crime scenes associated with the “Gypsy Hill” murders.
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Sept. 8, 2014 - The FBI confirms DNA evidence establishes Halbower as a person of interest in the killings of Mitchell and the five “Gypsy Hill” victims in 1976.
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At the time of his identification, Halbower himself was imprisoned for 38 years in Oregon for rape and attempted murder on a girl in Medford, Jackson County, Oregon in 1986
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Sept. 10, 2014 - Washoe District Judge Patrick Flanagan vacates Woods’ conviction and schedules a retrial for July 13, 2015.
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Jan. 22, 2015 - Halbower is formally charged in San Mateo County in California with two counts of first-degree murder in the killings of Cascio and Baxter.
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March 6, 2015 - Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks announces he’s filing a motion to dismiss the murder charge against Woods in the death of Mitchell. During 2015 Woods is released from prison after spending 35 years behind bars.
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In 2017, the police announced the arrest of Leon Melvin Seymour (71 at the time) for the murder of Denise Lampe on April 1, 1976 in Dale City, San Mateo, California. Leon Seymour was charged in November 2017. Prosecutors said a blood stain on Lampe’s jacket matched Seymour’s DNA. Seymour was already imprisoned and civilly committed to a state mental hospital after serving a 33-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting and kidnapping six women, dating back to the 1970’s.
Convicted sexual predator found guilty in 1976 Daly City cold case murder
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Sept. 18, 2018 - San Mateo County jurors started deliberating late Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018. Rodney Halbower (70 at the time) was charged with raping and killing two teenage women in 1976 in the quiet suburbs just south of San Francisco. Halbower was convicted an sentenced to two life sentences tor rape and murder of Veronica “Ronnie” Cascio, 18, and Paula Baxter, 17 in 1976.
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October, 2023 - San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe's office announced that a jury convicted 77-year-old Leon Melvin Seymour in the 1976 killing of 21-year-old Denise Lampe.
DNA links convict to cold case
