Dellmus Charles Colvin, Ohio USA. (1 Viewer)

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Eat Shit And Die

★Filthy European★
colvin6.jpg
 

Eat Shit And Die

★Filthy European★
Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Long-haul trucker - Rape
Number of victims: 7 +
Date of murders: 1987 / 2000 - 2005
Date of arrest: November 20, 2005
Date of birth: August 3, 1959
Victims profile: Donna Lee White, 27 / Valerie Jones, 38 / Dorothea Wetzel, 40 / Jacquelynn Thomas, 42 / Lily Summers, 43 / Jackie Simpson, 33 / Melissa Weber, 37 (mostly drug-addicted prostitutes)
Method of murder: Strangulation - Suffocation
Location: New Jersey/ Ohio, USA
Status: Pleaded guilty. Sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole on October 2, 2006
 

Eat Shit And Die

★Filthy European★
Portable crime scene

"Your crime scene literally is portable. The crime scene might be in Nebraska by the time you find a body," said John Helm, an investigator with the Wood County prosecutor's office.

In Lake Township, two cases continue to stymie investigators. One of them, Victoria Collins, an exotic dancer from Cleveland whose naked, frozen body was found in 1996, most likely died elsewhere but was dumped in Lake Township, Mr. Helm said.

Worst of all for investigators, there's no obvious motive - a critical, tell-tale clue to any homicide investigation - and often no other link between victim and killer.

"A random act of violence is very hard to solve, and compound that with [a killer] who might travel 1,200 miles a day every day all over the country," said Lake Township Police Chief Mark Hummer.

That's the heartbreaking realization for loved ones who might wait years, even decades, for a killer to be identified.

It has been almost 10 years since Helen Zedaker learned that her pregnant daughter's body was discovered partially clothed on a Spencer Township farm. Left in a watery ditch for several days, Heidi Theisen's only injuries indicated she'd been asphyxiated.

Investigators have interviewed friends, family, and acquaintances. They have run Ms. Theisen's photo to the news media and tracked down leads.

There have been no arrests.

"I think about her all the time," said Mrs. Zedaker, 68, from her home in New Bavaria, Ohio. "I don't know if it will ever get solved."

Even with an arrest, convictions in a prostitute's murder are far from guaranteed.

Witnesses might be other prostitutes or drug users with credibility problems. DNA isn't lock-solid evidence either.

Michael Bates, 42, was arrested last year in the 1990 murder in Monroe County, Michigan, of Connie Baker Slayton, 24, whose partially clothed body was discovered by a passer-by along Albain Road near I-75.

She had been stabbed once in the chest.

Monroe County sheriff's Detective Dave Davison said a break in the case came in 2004 after investigators at the Michigan State Police Crime lab ran a test on semen collected from the scene 14 years earlier. The DNA led detectives to Mr. Bates.

But on June 15, after a four-day trial, a Monroe County jury found Mr. Bates not guilty of the murder.

"The jury felt it was proved that he was the last person who had sex with her but not the person who killed her," Detective Davison said. "Because she was a prostitute, I believe that weighed in the jurors' minds."
 

Eat Shit And Die

★Filthy European★
Unexpected breaks.

Yet, there are the unexpected breaks.

In Colvin's case, it came with a plea agreement hours before the third day of his trial for murdering two prostitutes was to resume in Lucas County Common Pleas Court.

Colvin admitted responsibility for the deaths of Jackie Simpson, 33, whose decomposed body was found April 23, 2003, under bushes near a tanning business on Creekside Avenue, and Melissa Weber, 37, whose body was found May 9, 2005, under a couch in a vacant trucking terminal behind 1045 Matzinger Rd.

He also admitted his role in the unsolved slayings of three other Toledo-area prostitutes: Valerie Jones, 38, a grandmother whose skeletal remains were found Jan. 6, 2000, near the Ottawa River and Hoffman Road landfill; Jacquelynn Thomas, 42, whose body was found Sept. 2, 2000, just across the Michigan line near Smith and Telegraph roads in Bedford Township; and Lily Summers, 43, a mother of two whose body was found April 8, 2002, in a 45-foot tractor-trailer behind B&B Repairs, 4400 Martin-Moline Rd., near Metcalf Field in Lake Township, Wood County.

All five women had been strangled or smothered, their bodies wrapped in sheets and blankets, and dumped.

Colvin pleaded guilty under a plea agreement to four counts of aggravated murder and one count of complicity to aggravated murder. In exchange, prosecutors lifted the death-penalty specification against him; they also dismissed rape charges in the sexual assaults of a 47-year-old Toledo woman in April, 2004, and a 31-year-old city woman in July, 2003. Both lived through their attacks.

Judge Thomas Osowik immediately sentenced Colvin to five consecutive sentences of life in prison.

The next day, police said, Colvin admitted his involvement in the death of 40-year-old Dorothea Wetzel of Toledo, whose skeletal remains were found Aug. 5, 2000, by a man walking his dog near the Maumee River in South Toledo.

Police said they are now investigating Colvin's possible role in a seventh murder: the death of 44-year-old Debra C. Dixon, a prostitute whose battered and severely burned body was found in an empty wooded lot in the 4100 block of Creekside Avenue early Christmas Eve, 2000.

Colvin's confessions have prompted investigators to examine other area cold-case murders, particularly those involving prostitutes. Police have also contacted more than 100 police departments nationwide where the Toledo truck driver was known to have traveled.

"We have no idea what they have or what we'll find," Toledo police Sgt. Steve Forrester said.

Colvin has repeatedly denied requests for media interviews unless he's paid.

In a brief telephone conversation with a Blade reporter, he wanted to know first: Would he be compensated for his information?

He was told paying for stories is neither ethical nor negotiable, and no news organization most likely would pay him for his story.

He disagreed.

"Oh, they will. Believe me, they will," he replied. "There's a lot of things you don't know [that] people want to know. Thank you and good-bye."

He hung up.
 

Eat Shit And Die

★Filthy European★
Letter from jail

Later, he sent a letter from jail to The Blade, criticizing the newspaper's unwillingness to pay him for an interview.

In Harrisburg, Pa., last week, Colvin's case was presented at the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program's Truck Driver Serial Killings meeting, where investigators nationwide swap information about still-unsolved murders and still-unidentified bodies.

In Wood County, Mr. Helm continues to scan headlines and police databases as serial killers, and their travels, continue to be identified.

And in a tidy Oregon home, Ms. Palacio smiles in snapshots taken years ago: as a little girl in her Brownie uniform and later with T-ball equipment, as a high school senior, and as a young mother with her infant son.

Colvin's confession refreshed Ms. Angel's pain, but hope that her daughter's killer will be found diminishes with each passing day.

"First you go nuts. It's all you can think about. You can't sleep. You can't drive well. You're crazed," she said. "Then you realize: I have to accept that I may never have those answers."
 

Eat Shit And Die

★Filthy European★
Prosecutor says accused preyed on prostitutes

Death penalty sought in trial

Friday, September 29, 2006

A Toledo man accused in the slayings of two women and the sexual assaults of two other victims preyed on prostitutes who needed money to support drug addictions, a Lucas County assistant prosecutor told a jury yesterday.

"To put it simply and use a general term, he is a serial killer," Timothy Braun, the assistant prosecutor, said in his opening statement to the Common Pleas Court jurors.

Dellmus Colvin, 47, is charged with aggravated murder in the deaths of Melissa Weber and Jackie Simpson. The charges include death-penalty specifications.

Mr. Braun said both of the victims, to support their addictions to crack cocaine, descended into living on the streets and working as prostitutes. "But these women were people and they were all victims of Dellmus Colvin," he said.

Ms. Simpson, 33, the mother of two children, had been missing nearly three months before she was found April 23, 2003, under bushes near a tanning business at 4200 Creekside Ave.

Ms. Weber, 37, was found May 9, 2005, in a vacant trucking terminal behind 1045 Matzinger Rd. Her decomposed body was wrapped in a sheet and hidden under a vinyl turquoise couch.

A truck driver, Mr. Braun was charged with the murder of Ms. Weber in October after police linked him to the crime through a DNA analysis.

Mr. Braun said genetic testing of evidence taken from the victims at autopsies linked the defendant to the homicides: fingernail clippings of Ms. Weber and vaginal swabs of Ms. Simpson showed the existence of Colvin's DNA profile.

He said the pattern of the crimes were consistent: The victims were strangled and suffocated, wrapped in sheets and blankets, and dumped in desolate areas in the city's industrial north end.

Colvin also is charged in the sexual assaults of two Toledo women, ages 47 and 31, who were assaulted in April, 2004, and July, 2003. Mr. Braun said the women, also prostitutes, lived through their attacks.

Theresa Weber, the mother of Ms. Weber, looked down and appeared saddened when photos of her daughter were displayed to jurors on the courtroom computer monitor while the assistant prosecutor spoke.

Defense attorney Jack Viren cautioned jurors to keep open minds during the trial because Colvin is presumed innocent, and the state must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

"You have to listen to the evidence the state presents. We ask that you afford Dellmus the same rights you would expect if you were sitting in Dellmus' seat,'' he said.

Mr. Viren also said that the existence of Colvin's DNA doesn't mean that he inflicted the injuries that killed the women. "Nobody knows how it got there. No one can testify when it got there," he said.

Judy Simpson, the mother of Ms. Simpson, testified later yesterday about reporting to police that her daughter, the second eldest of five children, disappeared in mid January, 2003.

She said her daughter was a "good person'' even through her three-year addition to crack cocaine.

Also testifying was Nicholas Vaugh Weber, the 19-year-old son of Ms. Weber, and eldest of her three children. He told jurors they lived apart, but he attempted to keep in nearly daily contact with her.

He said Ms. Weber disappeared in early February, 2005, after she left the South Toledo home where she was staying with another woman.

Terry Cousino and Jerry Schriefer, detectives with the Toledo police scientific investigations unit, said the murder victims appeared to have been dumped in the locations, which were about two miles apart.

Ms. Weber was wrapped in a purple comforter that had been bound with strips of bed sheet. Detective Schriefer said the linens were tagged with the logo of the Toledo Budget Inn Motel on South Reynolds Road.
 
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