True Crime On This Day April 28th

April 28th

On April 28th in true crime, hitman for hire, cold case murder, serial killer William Christenson, and a murder for hire.

1978

In Polk County, Iowa, wanted robber and murderer Daniel Russell Munro was caught and arrested for the deaths of four people in February 1978.

During a bold robbery, he shot dead his 14-year-old brother, two other teenagers and 30-year-old William Baldwin. Munro was sentenced to three life sentences in 1979 where he remains to this day.

1979

In Puerto Rico, 25-year-old Cuban refugee Carlos Muñiz Varela was shot dead while driving to his mother’s house in Guaynabo.

Varela was an outspoken supporter of Puerto Rican independence movements on the island and his murder was credited to an anti-independence group called the ‘Comando Cero’.

Varela’s murder has never been solved and remains an active case with the FBI and investigators in Puerto Rico.

1980

In Denver, Colorado, police officers responded to a report of a suspicious vehicle at an apartment block. When they searched the car, they found the body of 19-year-old LeCleta Jimerson.

She had been murdered by an unidentified killer. The investigation quickly became a murder investigation due to the suspicious circumstances of Jimerson’s death.

The identity of her killer and the reasons behind her murder, remain unsolved.

1981

In Baltimore, Maryland, 32-year-old mechanic Joseph E. Jackson was killed by a shotgun blast as he was walking toward the garage at his waterfront home.

Police initially suspected Jackson’s neighbour, Robert Francis Ewing, a former police officer turned security guard, but he had a solid alibi.

The case went cold until 1990 when a sting operation discovered a man named Jack Douglas Mayhew, who claimed he had sorted out a ‘problem’ for Ewing in the past.

Ewing was then arrested shortly after and charged with murder. For reasons unknown, Ewing had ordered the death of Jackson. He was later charged with murder and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.

In 1992, Mayhew went on trial for his involvement as a murder-for-hire killer. He too was found guilty of Jackson’s murder and sentenced to life in prison. Both men remain in prison.

1982

In Montreal, Canada, in two different locations, the bodies of 27-year-old Sylvie Trudel and 26-year-old Murielle Guay were discovered.

Trudel’s decapitated and dismembered body was found in an apartment belonging to a man named Richard Owen. 50 miles away, the dismembered corpse of Guay was found wrapped in trash bags.

Owen turned out to be American serial killer William Dean Christenson. He was known to have killed at least four people but has since been linked to a possible 30.

He would rape and then partially dismember some of his victims. Some investigators dubbed him the real American Jack the Ripper.

He was arrested in the Summer of 1984 and subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

1983

In Pikesville, Maryland, David Piechowicz and Susan Kennedy, were shot dead in the lobby of the Warren House Motel by a machine-pistol with a silencer.

Their deaths were part of murder-for-hire scheme orchestrated by American drug dealer Anthony Grandison. He had hired amateur hitman Vernon Lee Evans to kill David and Susan, to stop them testifying against him in a pending federal drug case.

Both men were arrested for their parts in the murders, and both sentenced to death. Evans claimed that he was innocent and was nowhere near the Motel that night, but his girlfriend ended up testifying against him. As of 2022, both men remain on death row.

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