True Crime On This Day April 1st

Last Updated on September 23, 2022 by Ben Oakley

April 1st

On April 1st in true crime, the boardwalk serial killer, kidnapping, criminal neglect, mystery disappearances, vanished without a trace.

1978

In Illinois, Hernando Williams raped and killed a white woman he had kidnapped two days earlier. He had kidnapped her from the Northwestern Medical Center car park in Chicago and forced her to strip before holding her captive for two whole days.

At the time of the kidnapping, Williams was on bail for the kidnapping and rape of another woman. After initially letting his victim go, he followed her only to then shoot her dead. He was arrested the same evening, sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in March 1995

1979

In Austria, 18-year-old bricklayer’s apprentice, Andreas Mihavecz, was mistakenly arrested for being a passenger in a car crash and put into a holding cell by police.

His cell was in the basement of the police building and after a day, no-one had checked on him. Of the three officers responsible for the basement cell, they each thought one of them had already released Mihavecz.

Despite screaming for help, it took 18 days until Mihavecz was found. Remarkably, he survived the ordeal but had lost 24kg (53 pounds) of bodyweight and it took many weeks to recover.

Each of the three policemen were fined, as no criminal neglect charges could be made. Mihavecz later received compensation from the Austrian Government. He still holds the record for surviving the longest without any food or water.

1980

In Florida, one of the United States’ most notorious serial killers was captured. Gerald Eugene Stano, AKA: The Boardwalk Serial Killer, was arrested after an intended victim managed to escape from him.

She had fallen into a police station with stab wounds, dripping in blood, but later survived the attack. Her evidence was vital in catching him, it is said that if she had not managed to escape then many more lives would have been lost.

Stano preyed on prostitutes and hitchhikers whose ages ranged from 13 to 35-years-old. They were killed either by shooting, stabbing, or strangulation.

Because none of his discovered victims were raped, it was concluded by psychiatrists that his motives arose from simply enjoying the act of killing. In his confession, Stano directed the investigation to the buried remains of 24 identifiable victims and two Jane Does.

By December 1983, he had provided details of 41 victims and had already been sentenced to eight life terms when he was sentenced to death for the 1973 killing of Cathy Lee Scharf.

It is suggested that he may have killed more than 41 people and even as many as 90. It is also suggested that he was coerced into confessing crimes he did not commit.

His murders and other crimes in the area are still being investigated to this day. Stano was executed in the electric chair in 1998.

1981

In Port Lavaca, Texas, 29-year-old Kathryn Elizabeth Collins vanished under suspicious circumstances. Before nine in the morning, she left her three-year-old son in the care of her boyfriend’s parents as she was going grocery shopping.

On the way, she got a flat tyre and pulled over in front of a highway diner. Witnesses claim they saw her with the male driver of a van who was supposedly about to help her with the car.

Despite witnesses, the car was later found abandoned in the same location with the tyre still flat and the car empty. Collins’s case was linked to that of Wanda Priddy who vanished in 1978 from the same area of Port Lavaca.

Police interviewed one suspect who knew both women but he died in 1991. The circumstances surrounding both women’s disappearances remain a mystery. No trace of them has ever been found.

1982

In San Francisco, California, 20-year-old Deretha Johnson, who was five months pregnant, vanished without a trace. She was last seen leaving her residence alone.

On April 25^th 1983, the skeletal remains of an unidentified female, matching some of Johnson’s descriptions, were found in El Toro, California.

The remains have never been identified but some investigators suspect the two cases to be linked. However, Johnson’s case remains unsolved.

1983

In Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, 22-year-old Carl J Schauber disappeared after leaving home unexpectedly. He was reported missing the next morning when he failed to return home.

His vehicle has never been recovered and he left some of his personal belongings behind. His disappearance has long remained suspicious but no trace of him has ever been found.

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