BODY COUNT FROM A SOUTHERN SLAY SPREE by Sam Roen

What began in Melbourne Florida with a mystery corpse, would end with prosecutors from various states competing for first crack at the traveling killer whose methods were as repulsive as his murderous compulsion.

Titusville, Florida-- April 27, 1981 The body of a white middle-aged female lay soaking in a marl pit on the outskirts of Melbourne, Florida. The rains that had saturated Brevard County on the Atlantic seaboard throughout most of the night of Monday, March 1, 1976, subsided by daybreak but the morning remained overhung with gray mist.

As Terry Parsons, Dennis McNarra and Bernie Lees rode along Sarno Drive headed for the asphalt plant where they were employed, Terry shouted to Dennis, who was driving the work car pool that he had spotted something. The wasted woman, judged by the trio to be in her middle or late 40's, obviously dead from gunshot wounds to the head, lay face down in the limestone ooze.

Blood had seeped out of the shattered head and mixed into the soft lime blending to an oxidized color of burnt magenta. The three men gazed spellbound in silence.

It was straight up 8 o'clock, the precise time that they were all due at work but none of the men considered that. This strange death took precedence over everything.

The three men decided that Terry would remain with the body while the other two would rush on to the plant where they worked, since the nearest phone would be located there, and call the authorities.

In speedy response Captain W.J. "Buzzy" Patterson, Chief of Homicide, along with Agents Bob Schmader, Jerry Hudepohl and Billy Wilson arrived at the scene to investigate the reported death. Patterson immediately chose Schmader, one of his top investigating detectives, to organize and lead the investigation.

His experienced surveying eye on the deceased, Schmader realized that he was beginning deep in a mire of mystery. Turning to Patterson he commented, "There's not much to begin with here."

It was obvious even in their cursory examination of the crime that the victim had been massively shot in the head. There seemed to be no evidence of any struggle between the woman and her assailant. As Schmader studied the powder burns that surrounded the wounds on the deceased's head, he commented again, "It looks like sheer brutality."

To augment the activities of the homicide specialists on hand, Captain Patterson had summoned crime scene technicians who also arrived quickly. Medical Examiner Associate Dr. Nongnooch R. Dunn responded to Patterson's call.

Unofficially Dr. Dunn told the officers that it seemed practically certain that the woman's death was caused by the multiple gunshot wounds to her head. But she would not make a positive statement until she had been able to perform an autopsy on the victim.

In a curious development at the crime scene, the detectives discovered something peculiar about the deceased's right hand. It appeared to be holding something "in a death grip." After very carefully photographing the clenched hand and its surroundings, the hand was slowly opened allowing a crumpled piece of paper to be released. The paper clearly showed the name Bob Hesterly scribbled out in pencil.

While the investigation proceeded at the site, an effort was put into effect to locate the man whose name was now linked to the body which so far had been unidentified by the lawmen.

It soon developed that Hesterly, an elderly fellow, was a fisherman who lived on nearby Merritt Island along the river and was known for years in this Brevard County area.

Reached at his home, the craggy old fisherman readily and voluntarily went to the Brevard County Sheriff's Department to be interrogated. With his arrival at headquarters, Schmader studied the man and asked, "Don't I know you?" The fisherman, smiling, told the officer that he had been acquainted with him for several years.

When Hesterly learned that he was brought into headquarters as a possible suspect in the mysterious death of the woman in the marl pit, he offered, "Hell, I'll tell you exactly what happened. I had two other people with me. We were delivering some fish in St. Cloud and we saw this woman standing along the road in the rain looking for a ride. So we stopped and picked her up."

The fisherman continued, saying that he felt sorry for the woman who appeared to have very little. "She looked poor as hell." He explained that he had offered to take her to his home. "She looked like she could do with a good meal and I had some nice mango that we had caught that morning, but she said that she wanted to hitch a ride to Miami."

The yarn that Hesterly had spun for the detectives seemed too plausible for the old fisherman to have concocted it. But Schmader wasn't accepting any story without checking it out.

The two other persons Bob Hesterly claimed could support his story were contacted and their separate stories corroborated with Hesterly's down to the smallest detail.

"I had to exonerate him as a suspect," Schmader stated with a great deal of satisfaction. He felt relieved that the old fisherman, who was known as a totally harmless fellow, was "off the hook."

Hesterly filled in a lot of lesser details for the officers, recalling that the victim had revealed to him that she was a native of Washington state, that she had worked as a waitress in Miami sometime back and that she was confident she would be able to get a job in the resort city.

The fisherman also told the investigators that the woman, after declining his invitation to go to his home, said she would appreciate a ride to the city limits. "She said it was better to hitchhike there," Hesterly said. And he told the investigators where he dropped the woman at the town's edge: "It was near the gun shop."

Following through on this information Schmader learned from the operators of the gun shop that the woman had lingered in front of the place for several hours before she was able to get a ride. The owners of the gun shop told the investigators that she had come into their shop "a couple of times to use the rest room."

Pressing the interrogation of the shop owners, Schmader learned that the victim was finally picked up by the driver of a white automobile that had a peculiarly large luggage rack on the top of it. "I think," one of the shop owners offered, "that it was a Ford Thunderbird." He was not positive but he was fairly certain that it was "an older Thunderbird."

While the investigation moved ahead with meager progress, Dr. Dunn proceeded with her autopsy. The medical examiner found that the victim had indeed died from gunshot wounds to the head. Bullets and fragments taken from the deceased were marked and turned over to the Brevard Sheriff's Department. There had been five bullets fired into the woman who had been found lying dead in the marl pit. These bullets destroyed the brain tissue of the victim causing her traumatic death. The bullets and fragments taken from the victim were determined to be .22 caliber.

Dr. Dunn described the deceased as a Caucasian female, 5'8" tall, weighing 131 pounds. Her hair was a bleached blondish red that revealed dark roots at the scalp line. The victim was a blue eyed woman with natural teeth in poor repair.

Dr. Claude Godwin--a Titusville, Florida dentist--examined the body and made a complete dental chart and description for the sheriff's department's use in identifying the victim. In addition, postmortem fingerprints were taken of the victim.

From these basic procedures the Brevard Sheriff's Department soon established the identity of the victim as Lavonne Patricia Sailer, a native of Tacoma, Washington. Her age was figured to be 49, she had no criminal record of any major or felonious crimes. She had been picked up for loitering, vagrancy, hitchhiking or some such minimal offenses.

As the days fell from the calendar, the Sailer investigation moved ahead like an overloaded, overaged freight train. Despite the scant progress, however, Bob Schmader dug away at the case he was determined to solve. Buzzy Patterson stayed in contact with Schmader offering strategy plans to break through the curtain of mystery that kept the investigation from progressing.

Detective Wayne Porter, Schmader's partner, had been on vacation when the Sailer body was discovered and did not participate in the earliest days of the investigation. When he returned to the department Schmader greeted him with more than friendly solicitations.

"I'm damn glad you decided to come back to work," he told his buddy. "We have a hell of a case with Lavonne Sailer." Schmader reviewed all that had transpired and everything that the department had done to find the answers to this crime.

As the two investigators and Captain Buzzy Patterson went over everything they had, it was agreed that the best lead they had centered on the white car with the big roof rack. They also believed that the driver of this vehicle, who apparently had given Lavonne her last ride, was accompanied by another woman.

"We've got to 'make' that damn car." Buzzy told his men who exchanged determined looks of agreement. "Damn it, let's do it." Buzzy added.

For the next several days the investigators talked to several persons who had been at the gun shop sometime during the many hours that Lavonne had waited for a ride. And as the detectives interrogated and re-interrogated those persons they discovered that the concensus of opinion was that the automobile was indeed a Ford Thunderbird. It was generally agreed too, that the car was a model of the late or middle '60's.

At this point the identity of the type of car actually yielded little. "But it's the only damn thing we got," Wayne Porter said to his partner Schmader.

As the investigation floundered along, Porter began an intensive study of the national computer BOLOs. One report struck him with sledgehammer impact. "Take a look at this," Wayne suggested to Schmader.

The report read that a couple was wanted in Alma, Michigan. They had been charged with armed robbery of a grocery store, committed on January 23, 1976. It was believed the couple, driving a 1964 white Thunderbird, Michigan license SCY535, was headed for Florida.

The Pennsylvania State Police, in their pursuit of a robbery committed in Altoona, amassed a great deal of information surrounding that robbery, the white Thunderbird and the driver of that car, and his female traveling companion.

Important to their own pursuit of the perpetrators of the robbery in Altoona and to the other crimes in a variety of locations, the Pennsylvania State Police dispatched highly substantive information on these people. They identified the driver as Jeffery Joseph Daugherty, a white male, 20 years old, born on the 26th of September, 1955, 185 pounds, brown hair, hazel eyes, medium complexion, scar on left wrist and a resident of Taylor, Michigan; they also indicated that "subject is armed with a ..22 caliber revolver."

Bonnie Jean Heath was Daugherty's 41 year old female traveling companion, also from Michigan.

The Pennsylvania State Police reported also that this couple carried intermittently a third person with them, a male relative of Jeffery Daugherty's, Raymond Daugherty, Sr.

Ray Daugherty proved valuable as a source of information regarding the exploits of the Daugherty-Heath team. He recited an itinerary for the Pennsylvania State Police that Daugherty and company traveled. And the Pennsylvania State Police developed a generalization of the M.O. of the criminals which read as follows:

"Their method of operation is to select a small business place (grocery store, gift shop, etc.) where a lone attendant or clerk is on duty. After perpetration of the robbery, victims are slain by use of a handgun or knife. This couple also has a propensity for seizing personal items from the victims e.g. handbags, wallets, jewelry and trinkets."

The information that the Pennsylvania State Police gathered was organized in a chronology which they also disseminated. It began with the January 23rd robbery in Alma, Michigan; the Daugherty-Heath couple then picked up Ray Daugherty, took Route 27 to Lansing, Route 23 to Toledo and I-75 south proceeding through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and into Florida, stopping at a Holiday Inn on I-95 possibly for two nights, January 24-25, 1976.

On January 26 the trio lodged at a Holiday Inn in Cocoa Beach, Florida. They traveled on to El Paso, Texas, arriving there on February 16, had their vehicle serviced for front wheel bearings and continued on to Odessa.

On February 17 they drove on through Abilene, Fort Worth, and Dallas to Shreveport, where they spent the night at Kelly's Mid-Continental Motel and Truck Stop.

On February 18-19 they traveled through Mississippi, via Jackson and Meridian and on to Alabama and Georgia where they spent the night in Cusseta.

On the 20th they drove on through Albany, Thomasville and into Monticello, Florida proceeding to Jacksonville and Daytona Beach where they stayed in an apartment that they rented in the Ritz Apartments and Motel, located on the magnificent Atlantic Ocean beachfront. Bonnie took a job at a nearby motel.

On the 23rd of February, 1976, in the small town of Flagler Beach in Flagler County, Florida, a robbery was pulled in a small convenience store. The owners, a couple were both shot. The man took four .22 caliber slugs in his head but survived. His wife, Mrs. Carmen Abrams, took one fatal shot.

On the 28th of February, Daugherty, Bonnie and Ray left Daytona Beach and drove down U.S. #1 to Pompano Beach where they checked into a motel along Route 1.

On Leap Year Day they lazed around Pompano Beach and that night they slept in the Thunderbird parked in the rear of a Hess service station.

On March 1, 1976, the threesome drove through to Brevard County where Lavonne Sailer was hitchhiking and reportedly was picked up by persons in a white Thunderbird and later discovered dead with five ..22 caliber bullets in her head.

That same date, March 1, Mrs. Betty Campbell, owner of Betty's Pizza Parlor, was found by her husband in the kitchen area of the restaurant beaten and stabbed to death. Mrs. Betty Campbell's purse was missing which contained a .25 caliber automatic, her credit cards and an unemployment check drawn in her favor. The purse was later recovered along Route 1 north of New Smyrna Beach, a few miles from the site of the robbery killing.

On the 4th of March, 1976, Ricche's Music Store in Altoona, Pennsylvania (the hometown of Daugherty's father), was robbed.

As the identities of common denominators of these crimes surfaced, the various law enforcement agencies gravitated together in a collective effort to solve the robberies and murders that had occurred and were continuing to occur.

Sheriff Ed Duff of Volusia County, Florida, huddling with his detective ace Art Dees, worked intensely on the investigation in their county on the murder of Mrs. Campbell. Dees' cooperation and exchange of information with Trooper Edward G. Pottmeyer of the Pennsylvania State Police proved of value to the Pennsylvania case problems.

Following the robbery in Altoona, the Pennsylvania State Police apprehended Ray Daugherty and held him as a material witness. Ray cooperated with the police and provided information of inestimable value. He revealed most of the facts that Trooper Pottmeyer used in his information flyer that was dispatched from Pennsylvania. Ray Daugherty explained that he meticulously avoided participation in the actual crimes that had been committed in the spree that Jeffery Daugherty and Bonnie Heath allegedly accomplished.

While the trail of Daugherty heated up to a sizzle, another robbery was committed at Carey's Cafe in Altoona between 8 and 8:30pm on March 9, 1976. About a half hour later, Jack's Quick Market, a small convenience store, was robbed and the murdered attendant, Elizabeth Shank, was shot six times with a .25 caliber gun.

Two days later George Karns was shot to death in a Union 76 service station. Karns was hit five times with .25 caliber bullets.

The following evening, Friday, March 12, scrupulously alert Trooper E.W. Lambert of the Virginia State Police, pondered an aged white Thunderbird with extremely large luggage racks topside. Lambert thought the racks didn't look right. They were obviously disproportionate to the car which was parked in front of a small grocery store, Whorley's Market, located near Route 60 in Buckingham County, Virginia.

A while later, Lambert saw the same white Thunderbird heading west on Route 60 and as he watched the car drift into invisibility speeding away, his radio blared out from the Appomattox headquarters the report of an armed robbery at Whorley's Market.

Trooper L.K. Webber raced to the projected point of interception. The Thunderbird was permitted to get midway out onto the bridge spanning the James River before Eye pulled up behind it, while Webber tore across Route 26, approaching the intersection at Route 657 where he pulled up alongside the chased vehicle, flashing the car to a halt with his spinning red beacon. The officers ordered the driver and passenger out of the vehicle.

After careful stretching out of the driver and through examination of the passenger, both were read their constitutional rights by Webber.

With a riot gun trained on the suspect, Eye reached under the driver's seat and retrieved a hunting knife and a set of nun-chucks (a weapon used in martial arts). The trooper also opened the floor console and discovered a Colt automatic, serial number OD60612. The piece was cocked and had a live round in its chamber... the safety had been pushed to off.

The couple was transported to the Buckingham County Sheriff's Department where they were booked and processed: the man, Jeffery Joseph Daugherty; the woman, Bonnie Jean Heath, wanted in various places.

First to move in reaction to this arrest was the Pennsylvania State Police. Lieutenant Raymond J. Mitarnowski of that body asked for firing samples of the .25 caliber Colt found in the Thunderbird and taken as evidence.

On March 19, the Colt was fired and six rounds were retrieved for the Pennsylvania State Police. That same date Troopers E.G. Pottmeyer and B.S. Bidelspach helicoptered to Virginia to pick up the fired slugs and cartridges.

The Pennsylvania officers also went to the Farmville Jail where a series of photographs were taken of the accused for use in the Keystone State. The officers from Hollidaysburg also went through the massive collection in the Thunderbird and found several items that linked the couple with the murder robbery at Jack's Quick Market in Blair County, Pennsylvania and to the second murder committed at the Union 76 service station. A steel guitar found in the car was identified as having been taken from Ricche's Music Store in Altoona. Further, there was evidence tied to the robbery committed at Carey's Cafe also in Altoona.

As this unraveling of the long string of crimes was occurring in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Michigan, the Volusia County Sheriff's Department through Lieutenant Art Dees traced Betty Campbell's unemployment check as having been cashed in Florence, South Carolina, by a woman whose description matched that of Bonnie Jean Heath. Detective Dees also was able to establish the use of Betty Campbell's credit cards in South Carolina by this woman.

At the same time, ballistics was developing the relationship of the spent bullets from the .22 caliber gun and also with the slugs and cartridges of a .25 caliber taken from the Pennsylvania victims.

The Colt that had fired those bullets was traced from the manufacturer to its original sale in Metairie, Louisiana, to Michigan and finally to Florida and into the possession of Betty Campbell's husband who had given the weapon to his wife for her protection in the operation of her Pizza Parlor, located in a small building that stood alone on a highway. It ultimately fell into the hands of suspected killer Jeffery Daugherty.

These staggering, separate evolvements filtered across the different state lines and between the affected law enforcement agencies until the cooperating exchanges of facts and relative information yielded strong irrefutable cases against the young 20 year old Jeffery Joseph Daugherty and Bonnie Jean Heath.

In the subsequent game of legal musical chairs that followed the Virginia arrest, the score that was to play out a rhapsody of reckoning began in Virginia where Daugherty was to be tried first on the charge of armed robbery.

In the meantime, Detectives Bob Schmader and Wayne Porter of the Brevard Sheriff's Department journeyed to Pennsylvania as did Detective Art Dees of the Volusia County Sheriff's Department (but not together) where the substantive evidence that had been gathered was freely exchanged.

The total cooperation among all of the law agencies developed into one of the classic efforts of our nation in the execution of criminal justice.

Daugherty was tried in Virginia and convicted. On the 12th of July 1976, he was sentenced to 19 years in the Virginia State Penitentiary.

In Pennsylvania he stood trial and was convicted on two counts of first degree murder. He was sentenced first on September 28, 1978 to life imprisonment and again on January 4, 1980 to a second life sentence.

Lieutenant Art Dees brought him back to Volusia County, Florida, where he pleaded for the killing of Betty Campbell. On July 14, 1980, Daugherty was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Following that pleading and sentencing Daugherty was again scheduled for trial, this time in Flagler County, Florida, for the murder of Mrs. Carmen Abrams. But the accused Daugherty again pleaded guilty and on July 31, 1980, Judge Kim Hammond immediately sentenced him to life imprisonment "to run concurrently with the other life sentences he had received."

In this case the indictment, arraignment, pleading and sentencing took less than three hours, probably a record in the administration of justice in a felony murder case.

Still pending in Florida, however, was the murder of Lavonne Sailer who was robbed of her single asset, a ten dollar bill that she carried hidden in her shoe. Staying on top of the incredible Daugherty crime spree was State Attorney Douglas Cheshire of Florida's 18th Judicial District which includes Brevard and Volusia counties. Cheshire had worked closely with Sheriff Ed Duff and his dedicated Detective Art Dees in the preparation of the case against Daugherty in the killing of Betty Campbell.

The state attorney had also diligently pursued the developments in the murder of Lavonne Sailer. The detective team of Schmader and Porter, along with Buzzy Patterson and Inspector Speedy DeWitt, all meeting with the state attorney, concluded that Patterson and DeWitt should go to Pennsylvania and meet with Lieutenant Raymond J. Mitarnowski, one of the prime movers of the cases there, and other Pennsylvania officers to crystallize evidence. This was done in July of 1976.

Thus by the time all of the wheels had turned through the legal processes and all of the court actions had been completed, State Attorney Douglas Cheshire was totally prepared to launch a prosecution that would not be denied nor circumvented by the accused, his attorneys or whatever legal delays could be conjured up. Cheshire let it be known to the press that this impending case would not be sidetracked no matter what the ploy.

On his return to Brevard County by Bob Schmader and Wayne Porter, the accused Daugherty readily admitted killing Lavonne Sailer. He admitted that he shot her numerous times and that he robbed her of her money: ten dollars.

After their arrival in Brevard County, the two detectives took a formal statement of confession from Daugherty on August 5,1980. He recited the minute details of picking up the hitchhiking woman, driving out to a side road and shooting her numerous times. He said that Bonnie Jean had urged him to shoot her again and again because Bonnie could still hear her breathing.

In his confession he stated that he had made one big mistake and that was not killing the woman in Virginia. It was his opinion that Kathy Rancor had suffered a heart attack and died when he robbed her. Had he shot and killed her she would not have been able to give the state trooper the assistance and information that led to his arrest. But the admitted murderer showed no remorse or regret for the killings he had done.

On Tuesday, November 18, 1980, Jeffery Joseph Daugherty pleaded guilty to the murder of Lavonne Sailer. It was obvious, especially to Douglas Cheshire who refused to be taken in by the mass murderer, that he was moving to escape the death penalty that is Florida law.

The following day Daugherty told the jury that was now assembled to hear arguments for and against the death penalty that "Jesus has forgiven me." He told the court and jury that he had turned to Christianity and to Catholicism. He went into a dissertation explaining that he had "seen the light" after an attempt at suicide that he had made in 1977 in the Huntington State Prison in Pennsylvania. He told the silent court in a dramatic solemn tone that, "I would never take another human life." Pausing for effect just as a great Shakespearean actor might, Daugherty waited and then added in a clear ringing resonant voice, "Only God has the right to decide who shall live and who shall die."

On Monday, April 27, 1981, Jeffery Daugherty was ushered into the Titusville, Florida Criminal Court and appeared before Circuit Judge William Woodson. Shaken, scared and timid, the convicted killer stood cowered in a body grown obese (probably 220 pounds plus) after years of confinement, and responded to the judge's invitation to make a statement. "Let God's will be done," were Daugherty's only words.

The judge reached for a document from which he read, "You, Jeffery Joseph Daugherty, are to be electrocuted until you are dead."

In yet another maneuver, the mass murderer made a boisterous plea to Judge Woodson to return him to Virginia where he would be incarcerated and safe from the Florida electric chair.

State Attorney Douglas Cheshire, who also has something to say about that intends to keep murderer Daugherty on Florida's death row until all the procedures of his appeals have run their course.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
The names Terry Parsons, Dennis McNarra, Bernie Lees, Bob Hesterly, Sara Louise Sunshine [aka Bonnie Jean Heath], Chick Russo [aka Raymond L. Daugherty, Sr.] and Kathy Rancor are fictitious and were used because there is no reason for public interest in their true identities.

BUZZ C's NOTE:
Exactly 15 years ago today at 5:00pm on November 7, 1988, Daugherty's stay of execution ran out and so he was escorted into the death chamber at 5:01pm... The killer was pronounced dead at 5:16pm.

In the 'Southern Slay Spree' article, Sara Louise Sunshine was Bonnie Jean Heath, and Chick Russo was Raymond L. Daugherty, Sr.

BuzzC