Murder in the Heartland: Book Two

Harry Spiller

Description

In a place where murder isn’t supposed to happen—rural Missouri and Southern Illinois—deputy sheriff and investigator Harry Spiller learned the hard reality: murder is all around us. It doesn’t matter whether you live in a big city or small county with farms and churches—murder is swift and can happen to anyone, anywhere, and anytime. All too often, victims fall prey in places we think are safe to raise our families, where we take walks on hot summer nights, where our children play in the park or yard without concern, and where we leave our doors unlocked at night. Murder in the Heartland, Book 2 tells the stories of innocent victims in these seemingly innocent places. From his research and investigations of ten murder cases, Spiller recounts the gruesome details of a fraternity hazing gone deadly, teen killings, and even murders by those living and working with the victims. As much as we like to think we’re safe, murder can happen even in rural America—and it does. Join Spiller in the second installment of his three-book series of these horrifying murders in the heartland.

Sujets

• Murder in the Heartland
• True Crime
• Southern Illinois
• Murder
• Serial Killers

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 07 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781596529632
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

H ARRY S PILLER MURDER IN THE H EARTLAN D
Book Two
This book is dedicated to all the victims of crime and their families.
Trade Paper Press
An imprint of Turner Publishing Company
4507 Charlotte Avenue, Suite 100
Nashville, TN 37209
Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone]
www .turnerbookstore .com
Murder in the Heartland, Book 2 Copyright © 2010 Harry Spiller
All Rights Reserved. This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced without the written consent of the author and the publisher.
Library of Congress Control No. 2010935705
ISBN: 978-1-59652-798-0
Printed in the United States of America
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17—0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Contents A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS P ROLOGUE C ASE 1 T HE A ZEVEDO M URDERS C ASE 2 M URDER ON C ENTRAL S CHOOL R OAD C ASE 3 M ISSING B ODY C ASE 4 C O -W ORKER B ETRAYED C ASE 5 T RIPLE -H OMICIDE C ASE 6 F RATERNITY I NITIATION R ITUAL K ILLING C ASE 7 M URDER I N A B LAZE OF G LORY C ASE 8 T HE G OOD S AMARITAN M URDER C ASE 9 T HE S ECRET S EX M URDER C ASE 10 T HE G RANDSON K ILLER
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my wife Kathy for giving me the encouragement to write this series; the city, county, and state police departments; and the County Prosecutor’s office in Illinois and Missouri for their cooperation in the research of these homicide cases. Without their support, this book would not have been possible.
Prologue
One morning I went to the office early to catch up on some paperwork. It was about 6:30 a.m. I was reading and, although I didn’t hear anyone, I had the feeling there was someone in the room. I looked up to find a woman standing in front of my desk. Her small frame of about ninety pounds was still as she looked at me with eyes that looked like glass marbles.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Sheriff, I think I killed my husband,” she said.
“You did what?”
“I think I killed my husband.”
“Why do you think you killed your husband?” I repeated.
“I shot him.”
“Where is he?”
“He is in bed at home. I used a shotgun.”
I sent a deputy to the home and he found the husband in bed where the woman said he would be. He had been shot with a shotgun and there was blood and brains all over the wall. The deputy roped off the crime scene and the detectives begin to process the scene.
Back at the office the woman was arrested, given her rights, and then we used an atom kit on her hands to determine if she had in fact fired the shotgun found at the scene of the crime. During the process I couldn’t help but notice the calmness of the woman. She just set with a blank look on her face.
During the course of the investigation we learned that her husband had battered her and her children for years. On several occasions she tried to leave him, but he would always find her and bring her and the children home. Then after a while the battering would start all over again.
We learned that he had mood swings, which she learned quite well over the years. He was entering another abusive stage. She couldn’t take any more so she got a shotgun and while he was asleep she killed him.
On March 25, 1981, the Carbondale Police Department was contacted that Marie Azevedo had not reported to work and was missing. The police immediately began a search that lasted for six days. On April 1, 1981, her body was found in a cornfield. Marie had been shot several times in what police described an execution murder.
Dentist Allen Azevedo, the husband of the victim, immediately became a suspect as police probed into the homicide case. Although, they learned that the dentist had an airtight alibi. Police investigated the case for three years without any success.
Then a break came in the case when Dr. Azevedo contacted the police and told them that someone was trying to rip him off. According to Azevedo, he received a call by a man identifying himself as “R.” “R” told Azevedo that he wanted payment for setting up Mrs. Azevedo’s murder. Azevedo told the police he had nothing to do with it. After intense investigation by police they learned that Dr. Azevedo contracted with the El Rukin gang out of Chicago to have his wife murdered. His motive was that his wife, who had recently divorced him, was going back to India with the children for a trip to see their family. Dr. Azevedo did not think they would return.
In 1985, Dr. Azevedo was arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. The case went to trial and after the state presented its case, the community was shocked to learn that the judge had given a directed-verdict, a legal decision that dismisses the case because the state had not presented enough evidence to convict the defendant. The judge ruled Dr. Allen Azevedo could never be tried for the murder again.
The tragedy of this case didn’t end here. During the trial one of the sons, who was now fifteen years old, listened to the evidence and realized that his father had killed his mother and got away with it. He obtained a gun and while his dad was taking a nap in his dentist office, he shot and killed him. The young man loaded the body into a car, but was caught when his car broke down before he could dispose of the body.
Now it was his turn to stand trial for murder. Only he wasn’t as lucky as his father had been. He was convicted of his father’s murder and was sent to a juvenile detention center. A senseless family tragedy that ended with both parents dead, four parentless children with one in prison.
Murder is considered a crime of passion. The altercations often trivial to anyone but those involved: quarrels over money or girlfriends. Murder is swift for the victim and can happen to anyone—rich, poor, old, young. It can happen anywhere, day or night and all to often it is one spouse killing another.
On another spring morning of 1986, I was in the office shuffling papers when I got a call from the St. Charles County, Missouri sheriff. The Sheriff needed my help. A woman named Sharon Williams had been buried in Williamson County after she died from injuries in a car accident on October 19, 1983. The sheriff believed she had been murdered. According to the Sheriff, Sharon Williams was found in her Cadillac coupe on Central School Road after the vehicle left the road, ran down a nine-foot slope, and dropped over a retaining wall into a creek. The windshield was broken and there was extensive damage to the front of the car. Sharon was found unconscious on her back in the passenger seat. She had massive wounds to the back of her head. She was transported to a local hospital where she died thirteen days later. There was no autopsy performed—a slip up by the attending physician who signed her death certificate with the cause of death as accidental. Her family quickly moved her to Marion and, after funeral services, she was buried in the cemetery in Williamson County.
“Damn!” I said, interrupting his story. “That’s Alice! That’s Alice Almaroad’s daughter.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” he agreed. “She’s Sharon’s mother.”
“Yeah, I know. Alice is a precinct judge in my precinct. She lives just north of me and the cemetery is just south of where we live. Right after her daughter was buried, she was in the office one day and told me that Sharon’s husband had murdered her daughter. I just thought she was upset at him.”
Continuing, the St. Charles County sheriff said that his department didn’t have enough evidence at the time, but they were suspicious of the accident. Sharon had injuries to her head, but they were all to the back of the head with all the damage to the vehicle being to the front of the car. The police learned that Sharon’s husband was seeing another woman. On December 28, 1983, that woman’s husband was mysteriously reported missing. He supposedly went for a jog in sub-zero weather and never returned. Shortly after the disappearance, Sharon’s husband received a one hundred thousand dollar life insurance payment from his wife’s accidental death policy and the couple moved in together—all within a couple of months of the death of one spouse and a disappearance of the other.
Through other information that the sheriff’s investigators had obtained, the sheriff had reason to believe that the missing husband had been dumped in a cesspool behind a home belonging to Jim Williams, Sr. The problem was he had no probable cause to get a search warrant.
A few weeks ago, the sheriff explained, he had just finished watching the Sunday night movie when the ten o’clock news came on. The sheriff listened to a report of the uncovering of a murder that had originally been thought to be a fatal car accident. The accident occurred in the St. Peters area of nearby St. Louis. The victim, a federal parole officer, had run off the road, hit a utility pole, and been pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. However, an autopsy performed at the St. Louis University Medical Center by Chief Medical Examiner Mary Case revealed that the victim had died of a gunshot wound, not from the car accident.
The St. Charles sheriff said that he contacted the medical examiner the next day and told her of the Williams case. He was sure the hospital would have X-rays and asked the medical examiner if she would take a look. She agreed and a couple of days later she examined the X-rays of Sharon Williams’ injuries. She called the sheriff and told him that the injuries did not appear to be from the car accident. If she could examine the body she could definitely determine the cause of death.
I went to the judge and we finally got permission to exhume the body. On April 1, 1986, almost three years after she had been buried, Sharon’s body was exhumed and taken to a local funeral home for verification that the body was that of Sharon Williams, and to insure that all legal procedures were followed. Her body was shipped to St. Charles County, Missouri, for an autopsy. After careful examination, Dr. Case determined that Sharon Williams had died as a result of blows from a blunt instrument to the skull—not from the vehicle acciden