True Crime On This Day April 24th

Last Updated on September 23, 2022 by Ben Oakley

April 24th

On April 24th in true crime, serial killing couple, buckskin girl, murder, cold case solved, and a gruesome discovery in Michigan.

1978

In Port Angeles, Washington, the body of 20-year-old Janet Bowcott was found in her house by police. She was lying face down with her hands and feet tied together.

A scarf was tightly wrapped around her neck, which secured a washing cloth that had been stuffed in her mouth as a gag.

The scarf was tied in such a manner that any struggle would only tighten it around her neck.

As of 2022, the murder remains unsolved, although a suspect is currently in custody accused of Bowcott’s murder and other crimes.

1979

In Luther, Oklahoma, a police officer pulled over a car for speeding and ran a driver’s license check. The driver of the car, Charles Troy Coleman, overpowered the officer and cut his throat before taking the officer’s gun.

Coleman left the officer handcuffed in the backseat of his patrol car. Amazingly, the officer survived and was able to get help.

Two days later, Coleman killed Russell Lewis with the officer’s gun and dumped his body on an embankment in a park. Coleman was arrested shortly after and subsequently convicted of murder, attempted murder and shooting offences.

He was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on September 10^th 1990.

1980

In Sacramento, California, 17-year-old Stacy Ann Redican and her friend, 17-year-old Karen Chipman-Twiggs were abducted from a shopping mall.

Their bodies were found in July of 1980. They had been brutally sexually abused and tortured before being beaten to death. They had been used as sex slaves before being murdered by Gerald Armond Gallego and Charlene Adell Gallego, AKA: The Love Slave Killers.

They were captured in November 1980 after killing at least 10 young girls between 1978 and 1980.

1981

In Troy, Ohio, the body of 21-year-old Arkansas native, Marcia Lenore Sossoman, was discovered in a ditch by three men.

She had been beaten then strangled to death by an unknown assailant, two days earlier. Despite a large investigation at the time of the discovery, she wasn’t identified until 2018, 37 years after her death.

Hers was the first unidentified cold case victim to be identified using genetic genealogy as a method of forensic investigation.

Prior to 2018, she had become known as ‘Buckskin Girl’, due to the distinctive tasselled buckskin poncho she was wearing at the time of her death.

By using genetic genealogy, her DNA was matched with a first cousin, and an identification was made. Even with ongoing investigations, the identity of her killer remains unknown.

1982

In Oxfordshire, England, two young girls aged 10 and 11 were walking along an isolated track between Harwell and West Hagbourne when they were attacked by a masked man wielding a knife.

He exposed himself then raped the 11-year-old girl while forcing the 10-year-old to watch. The assault went unsolved for 28 years until a cold case unit arrested 45-year-old Adrian De Havilland, who pleaded guilty to the offence.

He was only 17-years-old when he attacked the girls. He was found by Thames Valley Police’s major crime review team who had reopened the investigation just a few months earlier, taking advantage of modern forensic detection techniques.

De Haviland was jailed for just three years and an additional 16 months for owning indecent images of children.

1983

In Ludington, Michigan, the partial skeletal remains of man in his early Twenties, were discovered by construction workers near the check-in station for Ludington State Park.

The remains were discovered in an oval shaped hole approximately 20 feet deep and 100 feet long. Almost one year later, more human bones were found belonging to the same body.

No limbs or a head have ever been recovered. It was estimated that the unidentified person had died or been killed at least three years prior. The identity of the man remains a mystery.

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