The children's
names are links that will
take you to websites with more
information...
I would like to give credit to the
Littlestangels and Stolen Innocence
webpages for most of the names
found here.
Fredericktown, MO -- Sept. 27, 1998 -- Gina Dawn Brooks was riding her bike to a friend's house about 10:30 p.m. the night she disappeared. Her bike was found five blocks from her home.
Two 12-year-old boys heard her screams for help, and saw a battered station wagon speed off.
Nine years have passed since Gina was snatched off her bike on the normally quiet streets of Fredericktown, Mo., disappearing into the dark without a trace.
The billboards and posters seeking information on Gina may be down, but that doesn't mean people -- or police -- forgot.
Investigators kept searching, and now have charged two men they believe abducted her that night of Aug. 5, 1989.
Nathan D. "Danny" Williams, 38, and Timothy R. Bellew, 28, were charged with her murder.
Williams is a convicted child rapist already serving a 30-year sentence without parole in the state penitentiary.
Bellew lives with his parents on a heavily wooded 96-acre plot about 10 miles south of Fredericktown.
Gina is feared dead, but her remains never have been found.
Investigators believe the petite eighth-grader may have been killed and her body placed in an abandoned freezer and buried somewhere on the Bellew property.
The first-degree murder warrant charged Williams with cutting the girl's throat. He could get the death penalty upon conviction.
Bellew was charged with second-degree murder, and was being held in the Madison County jail.
Williams long had been a suspect, but the case apparently came together two months ago when an informer gave investigators Bellew's name, and he made statements incriminating Williams and himself, sources said.
Sources said Bellew told investigators he met with Williams several hours after Williams had abducted Gina, and the girl was in his vehicle. Bellew said he saw Williams kill Gina, and the two men then placed her body in the freezer that had contained spoiled deer meat.
Investigators said Bellew provided details that only the girl's killers would have known, and they were corroborated by other sources.
Bellew was convicted in 1990 for sexually assaulting a 7-year-old girl. He got a five-year sentence.
After being paroled, he got into trouble for burglary, auto theft and setting a mattress on fire in the Madison County jail.
Through dozens of interviews over the last two years with friends, acquaintances and ex-girlfriends of Williams and several convicts who have served prison time with him, Pappas and others in law enforcement are convinced that Williams and various associates have committed many murders.
The killings, they believe, happened in the late 1970s and in a two-year period from July 1987 to October 1989.
"Without the footwork of Chris Pappas this case would not have come together," said Keith DeSpain, Fredericktown chief of police. "He did a tremendous amount of work."
A lawyer who knows Williams once told Pappas -- in a conversation that Pappas taped -- that Williams had told him he was responsible for 11 murders, including Gina's. The lawyer also said that Williams told him he could "mark the spot with an X" where she was buried.
Williams allegedly cut the girl's throat sometime after abducting her the night of Aug. 5, 1989, according to the warrant, filed in Fredericktown.
Williams could face the death penalty if convicted.
The FBI, using state-of-the-art underground probing tools, have been unable to find the freezer, which had been originally discarded by Bellew's father with spoiled deer meat inside.
Bellew's parents said in an interview that Pappas and other investigators mistreated their son, roughed him up and coerced a false confession, since he became a suspect about six weeks ago.
"The FBI promised me that nobody would put a hand on him, but Pappas choked him and slapped him, and another detective kicked him," said the defendant's father, Ralph Bellew, 64, a retired tool and die maker.
Pappas and other officers deny those accusations.
The suspect's mother, Teresa Bellow, 57, said that a psychiatrist has said her son has the mental capacity of a 12-year-old.
Bellew has a younger brother and a younger sister, plus four half brothers and half sisters.
The Bellew family lives in a plain, single-story, gray frame house on a 96-acre tract. The house is connected to the main road, about a mile and a half away, by a rough, rocky lane.
The house is surrounded by hundreds of empty soda cans, discarded tires, an abandoned kitchen stove, stacks of wood and rusted farm equipment.
The parents said that their son confessed to a portion of the crime so the investigators would leave him alone.
"Believe me, if my son knew where her body was, he would have told them," said Ralph Bellew. "He can't keep his mouth shut."
Pappas, 42, has been a St. Louis homicide detective for 12 years.
He had never heard of Williams until the summer of 1996, when Capt. Dave Heath, the homicide division commander, asked him to re-examine a 1975 case -- the unsolved murder of a volunteer social worker from Connecticut.
The victim, Laura Michele Dinwiddie, 23, had been stabbed to death in her apartment in the 3900 block of North 21st Street.
Heath had received a moving letter from the victim's mother, prompting him to have Pappas look at the case.
Pappas found out that Williams was an original informer in the case, telling police in 1978 that an acquaintance had murdered Dinwiddie. Pappas also found out that Williams had served a 7-year sentence for raping a 13-year-old girl in 1979 and was serving a 30-year sentence without parole for raping and sodomizing a 10-year-old girl in 1989.
That attack happened one month and one day after Gina's abduction.
Pappas eventually gathered enough circumstantial evidence for the circuit attorney's office to charge Williams with first-degree murder for killing Dinwiddie.
The case, however, was transferred to the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney's office because a lawyer who had at one time represented Williams in a rape case now worked in the St. Louis circuit attorney's office.
On April 3, 10 days before the trial was scheduled to start, County Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch dropped the charge, saying that the case had deteriorated due to changing stories by witnesses.
While investigating the Dinwiddie case, Pappas became convinced that Williams and another man, Bryant Squires, had abducted Gina.
Squires died of cancer in 1996, and in a deathbed confession he told two nurses that he and Williams had abducted Gina and that Williams had killed her.
Squires also said that he and Williams had participated in several other ghastly crimes as well.
The second-degree murder charge was dropped against Bellew. But it wasn't dropped because authorities believe he was not involved in Gina's killing.
According to a statement by Dwight Robbins, the Madison County, Mo., prosecuting attorney, the charge was dismissed so that federal authorities in Cape Girardeau, Mo., can more easily proceed with a newly filed charge against Bellew: making a false statement to the FBI during its investigation of Gina's disappearance.
Bellew was indicted on the lying charge by a federal grand jury and he appeared before a federal magistrate in Cape Girardeau. Authorities were hoping to have Bellew confined without bail.
Authorities said Bellew knowingly lied last year when he told investigators that Gina's body was buried under a hog pen and told them another time that she was buried in an abandoned freezer on his father's property near Fredericktown, Mo. Extensive searches came up empty.
Robbins, the prosecutor, said the murder charge against Bellew could be reinstituted at any time.
Williams took a lie detector test and "failed miserably" when asked questions about Gina, a source close to the investigation said.
Results of Polygraph tests are not admissible in court.
Williams' attorney, Joel Schwartz, would not comment on the test or the case. In the past, he has said his client was not involved in Gina's disappearance.
The circumstantial evidence pointing to Williams includes:
*Eyewitness testimony from a man, now living in Houston, who says that on the night Gina disappeared, he saw her looking worried and sitting with Williams in the back seat of a station wagon at a campground near Fredericktown. The campground is along the St. Francis River. The driver of the station wagon was Bryant Squires, a close friend of Williams.
*A death bed confession from Squires, who died of cancer in St. Louis on Sept. 18, 1996. Squires, 37, also was suffering from AIDS. Squires told two nurses that he and Williams had kidnapped Gina and that both men were responsible for other crimes, too.
*Evidence that Gina bit Williams while she was being sexually assaulted and evidence of Williams' subsequent treatment of the wound.
*Testimony from several of Williams' former friends, including cellmates, who said he told them details about kidnapping Gina. Some statements include information about items of Gina's clothing that only the killer would know.
*Testimony that Williams had taken notice of Gina on at least two prior occasions, when he was visiting friends in Fredericktown.
Williams has denied any knowledge about the abduction of Gina, however he failed a lie detector test.
"I've never even been to Fredericktown," Williams said. "Been past it on my way to Poplar Bluff, but have never really been there. I don't know anything about the case."
Investigators say Nathan D. "Danny" Williams targeted Gina shortly before she was abducted.
"Williams' brother had a close friend who lived very near to Gina Dawn," one of the law enforcement investigators in the case told the newspaper.
"Williams made frequent visits to Fredericktown, and we now have information that Williams had taken notice of Gina on at least two different occasions."
The investigators, who spoke to a reporter on the condition that their names be withheld, said they were determined to build a death penalty case against Williams, even though Gina's remains have never been found.
"We're conducting an aggressive investigation and are extremely close to being able to present this for prosecution," one of the investigators said.
Investigators have not given up hope of finding Gina's remains.
"We would like her mother to have closure, the ability to put her daughter to rest," said one of the investigators who has remained close to Gina's mother.
"There's a psychological comfort that comes from knowing where your children are, even if it's not in a cemetery.
Right now, Gina's mother's relationship with her child is on hold. Finding the body doesn't ease the pain, but it can close the book on a chapter, and Gina's family members can move on."
Meanwhile, several law enforcement agencies - including some in Utah and Arizona - have taken an interest in Williams' past as a result of information gathered during the Gina Dawn Brooks investigation.
July 27, 2001 -- It has been 12 years since Gina Dawn Brooks of Fredericktown disappeared and yet the search continues to this day for her body. The spotlight has been put on this case once again after a tip was given to the FBI and a search on a piece of property began near Fredericktown for her body.
No new evidence was believed to be found. Fredericktown Chief of Police Keith Despain said they follow every lead seriously.
St. Louis, MO -- March 22, 1997 -- Crystal Brook's body was found in a littered alley behind her home. Her throat had been slashed and police were investigating whether she had been sexually assaulted because she was partially nude and her clothing was strewn about the area. Her T-shirt and bra were found in a nearby parked car and a coat was found down the alley. No weapon was found.
Police suspect that her killer or killers may have known her or were from the neighborhood because her body was found behind her house and she was last seen in her neighborhood with friends.
The homicide detectives said they had no strong leads.
UPDATE
June 21, 1999 -- A jury will begin considering whether a man should be executed for stabbing Crystal to death with a fork.
The jury convicted Martiez Davis, 21, of first-degree murder, attempted forcible rape and one count of armed criminal action. He was acquitted of a second count of armed criminal action.
"This has been a good Father's Day for me,'' said Bolivar Brooks, the father of Crystal, whose body was found March 20, 1997, between two trash bins. "I feel my daughter can rest in peace now.''
Moments before the verdict was read, Davis stood and tapped one knuckle of his right hand softly against the defense table. As the court clerk read the verdict, Davis wavered a bit and was helped to his seat by several city sheriff's deputies.
Immediately after the jurors were polled individually, deputies led Davis from the courtroom but barred others from leaving until he had been taken down on the courthouse elevator.
Outside the building, as he was led away in handcuffs, he spit on television cameramen.
In a videotaped confession played to jurors, Davis said he and a friend named Jeffrey murdered Crystal.
Davis said it was Jeffrey who slashed the girl's throat with a knife, but police do not believe Jeffrey even exists. And a medical examiner who performed the autopsy testified the girl's throat was slashed with a fork, not a knife.
Davis testified detectives had coerced and "tortured'' him into saying he was involved in Crystal's murder. He admitted he was high on embalming fluid the night the girl was killed.
Davis had lived with his father three doors from the girl's home.
The prosecutor told jurors in his closing argument that there was overwhelming evidence of Davis' guilt.
Specifically, he said, authorities recovered Davis' Cardinals jacket with Crystal's blood on it, and a bent and twisted fork in the pocket of it.
He said witnesses had seen Davis trying to get rid of the jacket in a trash bin.
Brooks remembered his daughter as a "very smart'' girl with a bright future. "We had a lot of plans,'"he said.
``More than anything else, I'll remember her smile.''
SENTENCE
July 30, 1999 -- To the respective guilty verdicts, the trial court sentenced Martiez Davis to life without the possibility of probation or parole, to another life sentence, and to thirty years, to be served concurrently.
Davis filed an appeal and the appeals court affirmed the trial court's verdict and sentence.
The appeal
can be read
here:
Jessica Buckler
Highland Heights, KY -- Jan. 8, 1994 -- Jessica Buckler disappeared from her apartment complex Jan. 7, 1993, and was found a short time later. She had been stabbed to death.
Garry Gampfer Jr., 17, a mentally challenged neighbor was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison. This was Gampfer's second trial. His first ended with a hung jury.
Houston, TX -- March 17, 2000 -- Area homicide investigators have stopped some infamous serial killers -- Elmer Wayne Henley, Coral Watts, Kenneth McDuff. But there is ample evidence that a dozen or more serial killers live in or around the city, or pass through the city on a somewhat regular basis.
Interest in the problem has been renewed by some high-profile cases within the past few years, but concrete leads remain as elusive as ever.
On April 3, 1997, 12-year-old Laura Smither went for a jog near her home in Friendswood, south of Houston. She never returned. Frantic searches mounted by thousands of volunteers, as well as state and federal officials, including U.S. Marine reservists, turned up nothing for 17 days.
When Smither's body was found in a Pasadena retention pond, investigators noted some obvious similarities between her abduction and death and that of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman in Arlington three months earlier. Both girls' bodies were dumped in waterways, nude except for their socks.
On Saturday Jan. 13, 1996, at approximately 3:18 p.m. Amber was riding her bicycle in the parking lot located between the abandoned Winn-Dixie building and the laundry building at the southwest corner of E. Abram St. and Browning Dr., Arlington, Texas.
The unknown suspect was driving a black pickup. The suspect got out of the truck and lifted Amber off of her bicycle and carried Amber to the truck while Amber was kicking her feet, waving her arms and screaming. The suspect placed Amber in the pickup and fled west bound on Abram Street.
Amber's nude body was found on Wednesday 1-17-96 in a drainage ditch located in the Forest Ridge Apartments which are located on Green Oaks Blvd., a short distance west of Highway 360 in Arlington, Texas.
Amber had been sexually assaulted and her throat had been cut multiple times with a knife.
Suspect Vehicle
Description: Full size American made black pickup truck, standard cab, clean condition, late 1980's to early 1990's year model, standard equipment, no known options or after market accessories.
Suspect Characteristics:
Suspect is a white or Hispanic male, age 25-40, less than 6' tall; suspect may currently own or may have previously owned a full size black pickup truck; suspect may have trouble holding a job; suspect probably works in a job that does not require much contact with people; suspect may have anger control problems and tends to be violent at times; suspect may have suffered some type of stressful event prior to 1-13-96; suspect may live alone or with an elderly person; suspect may frequently carry a knife; suspect may have poor relations with women; suspect may have few friends or is a loner.
The similarities prompted a meeting between Arlington and Friendswood investigators, but after a few days, Arlington homicide Sgt. Mark Simpson returned home saying while the officers had found similarities in the cases, "short of having someone in custody and asking questions about him, knowing if the two cases are related cannot be conclusively determined."
In October 1997, Friendswood Police Chief Jared Stout stunned the media and other area police by naming paroled sex offender William Lewis Reece as the prime suspect in Smither's death.
The 38-year-old construction worker already was jailed at the time in a May 1997 aggravated kidnapping, in which he has since been convicted. However, he has never been charged in Smither's death, and hundreds of pieces of evidence collected in Smither's case have failed to link Reece.
Publicity surrounding Smither's abduction and killing was in full swing in August 1997 when another Galveston County girl disappeared.
Seventeen-year-old Jessica Cain vanished on her way home to Tiki Island from a party for the cast of a musical in which she had performed.
When the teen didn't make it home, her father went out to look for her and found the family's 1992 pickup abandoned on the side of the Gulf Freeway. Inside the truck was the girl's wallet, but the keys were missing.
Although the chronological and geographical proximity of the Cain and Smither cases fueled media reports linking the two, most investigators thought it would be rare for a killer attracted to a girl as young as Smither to also be enticed by a young adult who was driving.
Cain's disappearance was not without highly-publicized precedent: In August 1992, 23-year-old Tara Breckenridge left her job as a waitress at the Men's Club in southwest Houston for her apartment in northwest Houston. The next day her car, locked and bearing no signs of foul play, was found along the route she normally took.
And in October 1988, 22-year-old college student Rene Richerson was working at her part-time job at a Galveston hotel when she simply vanished, leaving behind her purse, books and car.
None of the young women ever has been seen again, and although some of the cases sound similar, investigators point out that when a victim remains missing, so does any evidence of what happened to her, making it difficult to impossible to determine whether the case is linked to others.
Unlike those cases, three killings in Houston between April 1992 and July 1995 left little doubt homicide investigators were dealing with a serial killer -- one who likes young Hispanic females and becomes anxious if his victims are not discovered quickly.
Houston, a city where serial killers roam free?
In April 1992, 21-year-old Maria del Carmen Estrada left her southwest Houston home about 6:30 a.m. to walk to work. Her body, nude from the waist down, was found at 10:45 a.m. in the drive-through lane of a Dairy Queen.
In August 1994, 9-year-old Diana Rebollar left her home in north Houston about noon to go to the store for her mother. Her body was found about 12 hours later behind a vacant building about a mile away.
Both victims had been sexually assaulted and strangled, but because of the age discrepancy and the time between the deaths, investigators might not have made a connection between the two deaths had it not been for the fairly unique ligature used to strangle them both.
"It was like he signed them for us," one investigator said of the two scenes. Investigators realized that although Estrada was much older than Diana, her tiny stature had made her appear much younger.
In July 1995, 16-year-old Dana Sanchez called her boyfriend from near downtown Houston -- not far from where Diana was abducted -- and told him she was going to hitchhike to his north Houston house. She was reported missing when she never showed up.
Eight days after Sanchez disappeared, an anonymous caller told KPRC TV a serial killer was on the loose and gave them directions to her body, which was in an isolated spot in far north Houston.
The caller told KPRC the dead girl was "Ruby" and gave them Sanchez's correct date of birth. Ruby was Sanchez's best friend.
Geography provided a strong link among the deaths of four women whose bodies were found over a six-year period within a mile of one another in a field off Calder Road in Galveston County.
The first body, that of 23-year-old cocktail waitress Heidi Fye, was discovered in April 1984 when a dog carried the woman's skull to a nearby house.
Fye had vanished six months before, while walking from her parents' home to a pay phone at a League City convenience store. An autopsy showed broken ribs and teeth, indicating the woman could have been beaten to death.
Two years later, in February 1986, children riding dirt bikes smelled a foul odor and discovered the decomposed body of a woman who was never identified. She had been shot in the back.
While police were searching the field for clues in the death of the woman they called Jane Doe, they discovered another body -- that of 16-year-old Laura Miller.
Miller had been reported missing two years earlier. She had disappeared from the same pay phone at the same League City convenience store as Heidi Fye. Miller's cause of death could not be determined
The last of the four Calder Road women was discovered in September 1991 by a horseback rider. Dubbed Janet Doe, she appeared to have been beaten and possibly strangled. All four of the Calder Road victims were nude, leading police to suspect all had been sexually assaulted.
The location of the bodies focused suspicion on a retired aerospace engineer who had been leasing the property and eventually bought a portion for a horse stable and riding range.
Authorities searched the man's nearby home, as well as his family's large ranch in Austin County, near which the body of an unidentified female was found in March 1997. No evidence was found linking him to the dead women, however.
There are many others. In the mid- to late '80s, a task force studied the killings of six prostitutes who worked in Houston's Montrose area that authorities believed were linked; in the early '70s a series of young girls was abducted and murdered.
None of the suspected serial killers have been caught. As the investigators who worked them grow older and retire, the files are moved to warehouses and forgotten unless new information comes in.
A list of the unsolved murders of women and girls in Houston and the surrounding areas since 1971 contains well over 200 entries.
It is not a complete list.