True Crime On This Day February 9th

February 9th

On February 9th in true crime, a killer pilot, serial killer capture, murder in Colorado, Ted Bundy, cold case murder in Illinois.

1978

In Lake City, Florida, 12-year-old Kimberley Leach was reported missing from her junior high school. Over two months later her decomposed body was discovered in a wooded area near the Suwanee River.

Leach had been raped and killed by infamous serial killer Ted Bundy. A school crossing guard had seen Bundy lead Leach into a van on the morning of her disappearance.

Bundy was arrested shortly after and sentenced to death for multiple murders.

1979

In Des Moines, Illinois, 23-year-old Gene W. Williamson was shot dead shortly after pulling into the car park of an apartment block.

When police secured the scene, they found that Williamson had been shot in the back of the head in the style of an execution, with his foot still on the brake. Investigators found no motive for the murder and it has remained a mystery ever since.

1980

In Denver, Colorado, the body of 37-year-old David Sullivan was found in an alley behind Smokey’s Bar on North Osage Street. The report had been phoned in by a bartender from the bar.

Sullivan worked two jobs, at night he worked at the Regency Inn and during the day worked at the Stop n’ Go in the city. He was found with multiple stab wounds and died a few hours later in the hospital.

Despite a murder investigation and multiple leads, the case remains a mystery and no suspect has ever been caught. It has been suggested that the killer may have been a customer in the shop or guest at the Inn.

1981

In Bexar County, Texas, 19-year-old Walter Key Williams and an accomplice Theodore Edwards took William’s mother’s gun and walked to a nearby gas station.

At around 9pm, Edwards went to the service window and shot the gas station attendant, then reached in and grabbed some money from the cash register. They fled the scene and split up the money in the early hours of February 10^th.

Edwards turned to Williams and said now that he’d killed someone, it was Williams’s turn. At around 2am, the pair drove around looking for a victim, and decided to rob a nearby Circle K convenience store, a place which Williams had previously worked.

The pair walked into the shop and Williams shot 19-year-old store clerk Danny Liepold in the back, a man who he had worked with before.

Williams left the store, but Edwards remained to attempt to break into the cash register. Williams drove off, spooked by a nearby vehicle.

A police officer went to the store and found Liepold lying in a pool of blood. Edwards was still on the property and was arrested after being caught hiding in the grounds of the store. The officer called for back-up and was then led to Williams’s address where he was arrested.

Williams was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection in Texas on October 5^th 1994. Edwards was sentenced to life in prison.

In an ironic twist, when officers arrested Williams, they found the murder weapon lying next to the only birthday card Williams received. It was from Danny Liepold, the man he had killed.

1982

In Japan, on approach to Haneda Airport, Japan Airlines Flight 350 was deliberately crashed by its pilot.

35-year-old Captain Seiji Katagir was reported to have disabled the autopilot and pushed his controls forward to crash the aircraft nose first into shallow waters, just short of the runway.

The cockpit section of the plane was torn off from the rest of the fuselage. 24 people were killed in the crash.

150 people survived including Katagir, who claimed to be a passenger to avoid being identified as the captain. He was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and was later found not guilty by reason of insanity.

1983

In England, serial killer Dennis Nilsen, AKA: The Muswell Hill Murderer, was captured. Nilsen was one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers.

He is often compared to Jeffrey Dahmer, and in a lot of ways, the similarities are striking. They both killed gay men and they made their first kill within five months of each other in 1978. Nilsen killed 15, Dahmer killed 17, and they both carried out necrophilia acts upon the bodies of their victims.

Nilsen later pleaded guilty with diminished responsibility but was sentenced to life in prison. He was convicted of six murders and two attempted murders.

The Home Secretary later imposed a whole life tariff, which meant that he would never be released and would subsequently be denied any requests for parole. He died of natural causes in 2018.

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