Episode 207:

Not Enough Ednas

The Fairbanks Four and the Dixmoor Five Cases

Georgia

The Pillowcase Rapist

Karen

Episode 207: Not Enough Ednas

Karen and Georgia cover the Fairbanks Four and the Dixmoor Five cases and the Pillowcase Rapist.

The Fairbanks Four and the Dixmoor Five Cases

The Fairbanks Four and the Dixmoor Five Cases Notes:

Header Image Source: Photo by Papaioannou Kostas on Unsplash

Other Images:

The Fairbanks Four shortly after release from prison (via Ktoo.org)

Various photos/slideshow of The Fairbanks Four (Mike Mathers/News Minor Archives via NewsMinor.com)

John Hartman's Obituary (Fairbanks Newsminer via AlaskaPublic.com)

Cateresa Matthews (via Finance.Yahoo.com)

Theresa Mathews holding photo of daughter Cateresa (Leslie Adkins/AP via NYDailyNews.com)

Sex Offender Willie Randolph Mugshot (NYDailyNews.com via Illinois.gov)

"On the night of October 11th, 1997, Hartman was found unresponsive, lying unconscious across a curb at the intersection of 9th Avenue and Barnette Street. He had been brutally beaten, stomped on, and kicked. He died two days later at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

Four young men, George Frese, Kevin Pease, Marvin Roberts, and Eugene Vent — now known as the “Fairbanks Four” — were arrested within a couple of days on suspicion of the murder, based on eyewitness testimony and a bootprint on Hartman’s face that appeared to match the tread on the boots worn by Frese. Interrogations the night of the attack and into the next day resulted in confessions from Frese and Vent. Separate trials for each of the Four ensued..."

— Source: Pacific Standard article by Elizabeth Fairfield Stokes

"Cateresa disappeared in November 1991 after she left her grandmother's Dixmoor residence to return home. Three weeks passed before her body was found in a field near Interstate 57 with a single gunshot wound in the mouth. She had also been raped.

The crime went unsolved for close to a year before five teens were arrested. Primitive DNA testing failed to link any of the five to the crime, but three of them confessed and implicated the other two. Two — Robert Lee Veal and Shainnie Sharp — agreed to testify against the other three in exchange for reduced prison terms. The other three — Robert Taylor, James Harden and Jonathan Barr — were convicted and sentenced to lengthy terms.

In 2009, a judge granted DNA testing sought by lawyers for Taylor, Harden and Barr. But police in Dixmoor were unable to locate the evidence, delaying the testing. By 2011, the case began to unravel after DNA tests failed to link any of the teens to the crime and instead pointed to Randolph, who had been paroled and released near Cateresa's home before her death. Later that year, prosecutors cleared the men, although Alvarez said she had struggled to reconcile the confessions with the DNA evidence.

Alvarez, who called the case "convoluted and confusing," balked at declaring the five innocent, even though teens are particularly susceptible to making false confessions. She suggested, too, that the DNA evidence alone did not prove that Randolph had raped and killed Cateresa..."

— Source: Chicago Tribune article by Steve Mills and Todd Lighty

The Pillowcase Rapist

The Pillowcase Rapist Notes:

Header Image Source: Photo by Ilona Panych on Unsplash

Other Images:

Christopher Evans Hubbart mugshots (CDCR/Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept. via SanFrancisco.CBSlocal.com)

An Associated Press article from February 17, 1986 (Newspapers.com/Fort Myers News-Press via Sun-Sentinel.com)

CNN News video of trial (via CNN.com)

Robert Eugene Koehler in court (Tim Shortt/Florida Today/AP via WashingtonPost.com)

Karen's Story suggested by listener Vanessa

Miami-Dade prosecutors’ hotline for victims of the Pillowcase Rapist: 305-547-0441

"He terrorized women from South Miami to Deerfield Beach in the early 1980s.

He would enter their homes through unlocked sliding glass doors and open windows, threatening them with a knife, assaulting them and sometimes stealing cash. He would later become one of the most wanted criminals in South Florida.

Edna Buchanan, the Miami Herald’s legendary crime reporter, relentlessly covered the hunt for the rapist in 1985. The task force was disbanded in 1987, without finding a suspect, who remained a mystery for years. Now, a man believed to be the notorious rapist has been arrested..."

— Source: Miami Herald article by Edna Buchanan