Cold Case Files - REOPENED: Murder On The Menu

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

A young boy is the sole survivor when his family is massacred in their Minnesota home. Two decades later - he helps cold case detectives catch the serial killer responsible.

On December 15, 1978, 11-year-old Billy Hewling hid trembling in his bedroom. He could hear gunshots and the screams of his family. A stranger had entered his home in Stearns County, Minnesota, and began to execute members of the Hewling family. Billy waited. He waited huddled in a sleeping bag on his bed. The stranger shot the sleeping bag twice. Billy wasn't hit by the bullets, but he stayed under the covers until the man left.

When the noises stopped, Billy ran down the stairs and escaped the house. He kept running as fast as he could through the dark, freezing woods, searching for help. From of Stearns County, responded to the call. He quickly made his way to the house where Billy's family was attacked. This is Sheriff Costreba. As soon as I opened the door into the porch and stepped in, I could immediately smell the smell of gunpowder. And with my flashlight, I was able to see a 12-gauge shotgun casing laying on the floor. The sheriff then made his way to Alice's room, Billy's mother. Alice occupied the only bedroom

on the first floor of the home. She was 36. I saw her laying on the bed, and she was laying with her head towards the foot of the bed with her legs drawn up, and I, just by observing her, I realized that she was dead. Following a trail of empty shell casings, Kostryba made his way up the stairs to check the other rooms. Here's Sheriff Kostryba made his way up the stairs to check the other rooms. Here's Sheriff Kostryba again. When I got to the top of the steps, I could see that there was a lot of blood and tissue in here splattered against the wall, the far wall. Upstairs, the sheriff discovered that three of the healing children had been murdered. 16-year-old Susie, 13-year-old Wayne, and 12-year-old Patty.

He moved to 11-year-old Billy's room, the youngest healing, the one who had run for help. The sleeping bag was laying on that bed and you could see two gunshot holes actually in the mattress and the pillow. And Billy had said that the guy had shot twice at him and had missed both times because he had kind of slid down inside a sleeping bag. Like in many rural communities, crimes of this magnitude were extremely uncommon, causing a huge impact on the lives of the small town residents and the sheriff's office. By Patty's bed, there was a dresser. On that dresser, there was a stack of clothing, and obviously what she had done is she had gotten her clothes out the night before, before she went to bed, and had placed them there to get put on in the morning.

And I knew that that's what she was going to do. She had plans to get up in the morning and go to school, get dressed and go to school, and it didn't happen. She didn't have a chance. The only chance she had was to cover up her head before she got shot. And I guess that's something that'll be with me the rest of my life. As morning came, a team of investigators arrived to process the scene and look for clues. They searched the house and only found empty shell casings. They followed tracks in the snow, but none of them led to the killer. On December 19th, four days after the Heumling family was executed, Deputy Gary Miller was on patrol in neighboring Wright County. He received a routine call. A customer was harassing the server at the

Clearwater Plaza truck stop. Before confronting the disruptive customer, Miller ran the man's license plates. This is Deputy Miller. And I ran the tag, the license number, to try to get a little background on who I was going to be dealing with. When that license check came back, it indicated the vehicle was stolen. Detective Miller approached Joe Turi, the problem patron, and he arrested him for car theft. This is Detective Miller again. The vehicle that he was driving was towed into our impound area there. And as was our procedure, I asked another officer to accompany me, and we did an inventory of the car. There was a number of notebooks and coasters and napkins

that had names of females and license numbers of cars, and some of them had descriptions of where they lived. A couple of them had been circled and said, get this one. Many of the women on the list in Terry's notebooks were waitresses. Gary Miller, like all law enforcement personnel in the area, knew the details of the Hewling family murders. He thought that his fascination with waitresses could possibly be a link between Terry and the Hewlings. Susie Hewling, who was 16 on the night her family was killed,

had a job waiting tables at a local diner. Here is some of the audio from an interview with Terry about his notebook. I see one other item we laid out out there, a little brown diary, names and addresses and stuff in it. Is that yours? of the audio from an interview with Terry about his notebook. at this little diary, but that was yours, or it was in the car when you took the car, or... What does it have to do with anything? Well, maybe nothing. It doesn't. In other words, it's yours, isn't it? Yeah, it's mine.

While owning and maintaining a detailed list of women is unusual and extremely creepy, it's not against the law. But the potential connection to the Hewling murders was enough to get Sheriff Costreba involved. Remember, he was the officer who responded when Billy ran for help. Here is Sheriff Costreba's description of the suspect. He was kind of a drifter.

He wasn't able to hold a job very long. And since he really didn't have a place to live, he spent a lot of time in restaurants and truck stops and those sorts of places. And he said that he was trying to find a girlfriend. And so he would write down descriptions of potential girlfriends. The detectives found another item in the stolen car that was, at the least, a bit unusual. It was a 27-inch metal rod wrapped in black vinyl. The metal rod was another potential link between Turi and the murders of Billy's family.

Here's Sheriff Kostreba to explain. Well, we knew that Alice had sustained some beating, and we always thought that bar was a possibility, but when they weren't able to find any blood or tissue on it, then it was kind of put aside. The investigators couldn't find a direct link between Turi and the murders. To make matters worse, three weeks later, the auto theft charge was cleared and their only suspect was gone. May 9th, 1979, in Afton, Minnesota, five months after the Hewling family was killed

and 95 miles away from their home. Fran Wollenhaus was having a normal day. By mid-afternoon, Fran had finished her errands and headed home. Fran lived with her daughter, 18-year-old Marlis, who was set to graduate high school at the end of the month. She also had a part-time job. Marlis was a waitress. Here's Fran Wollinhouse.

So I drove in the driveway, which was a long driveway, and I saw Marlis' car. I opened the door to the lower level on the side of the house, and I called Marcy, and she didn't answer. Fran went inside feeling concerned. When she entered the study, she saw Marlis. Here's Fran again. She was sitting upright against the little school desk that I had when I was in third grade. And she was totally covered in blood. And all I did was hold her to me until the police came. I mean, there was no, I saw the injury and knew, I mean, her brain, skull,

was totally crushed and was on the floor. Marlis died two days later in the hospital. Commander Mike Johnson was a member of the team assigned to investigate the teenager's murder. This is Commander Johnson. There were a number of investigators that were assigned initially. Probably two-thirds of what then was our investigative division worked the case in the early weeks. But it was quickly evident that there was not going to be a quick resolution to this case. Investigators didn't have much to go on. Sadly, without a murder weapon, fingerprints, or any other clues,

the case quickly went cold. On Saturday, May 12th, the day before Mother's Day, Fran Wollenhaus buried her daughter. This is Fran. Of course, I was totally in shock, numb, had no feelings. Mother's Day from then on for many years were extremely painful. And I wanted to know in my lifetime who did it and why. I wanted to know in my lifetime who did it and why. I wanted answers.

Hi, everyone. This is Jillian with Court Junkie. Court Junkie is a true crime podcast that covers court cases and criminal trials using audio clips and interviews with people close to the cases. Court Junkie is available on Apple Podcasts and podcastone.com. More than a year after Marlis was murdered, on September 26, 1980, Diane Edwards cleared the last of her tables and clocked out.

Diane was 19 and lived in West St. Paul, Minnesota. She walked home, north on Roberts Road. She was only three blocks from her home when a brown station wagon drove over the sidewalk. An unidentified man forced Diane into the car while five people witnessed her abduction. The police were called and a search was carried out, but there were no leads on the young waitress's whereabouts. Two weeks later, a hunter found a pair of glasses and a purse as he walked down a country road. The ID inside of the purse belonged to Diane Edwards.

Chief Deputy David Hofstad, along with dozens of other police officers, began to search. Here's Chief Deputy Hofstad. Shortly thereafter, here comes a helicopter, and I would say within five minutes, one of the deputies in the helicopter radioed me and said to get in my car and drive up the road to this little hill and get out of your car and walk down into the ditch. And as I walked into the ditch, I observed a female laying on her stomach. The woman was Diane Edwards. She'd been killed by a single stab wound to the chest.

Hearing the details of Diane's tragic murder, it was brought to Deputy Hoffs' attention that this case shared a lot of similarities with the Hewling murders. Then he learned that the suspect for the Hewling family murders was Joe Turi. The investigative team was able to get a warrant, and they searched Joe Turi's property for clues that he was involved in Diane's murder. Here's Deputy Huffstead again. They found spiral notebooks with pages of names of girls. We've already accepted that spiral notebooks with names of women is creepy, but not a crime. In Diane's case, however, her name and the number to the restaurant where she worked

were in Joe Turi's notebook. Investigators believe there was a strong possibility that Turi killed Diane, so Hofstede decided to question him. Turi was incarcerated at the time, sentenced to 30 years for three counts of rape. So locating him was relatively simple. This is Deputy Hofstede again. He played with you. I mean, I think he was good at trying to think he could manipulate you

and lead you all over and not go anywhere. He never, ever said anything when we talked to him up there that you could come down on. But when you walked out of there, you really had a feeling this is the right trail. For the second time, a lack of evidence against Turi prevented the investigation from continuing. The case of Diane Edwards joined the Hewling murders and Marlis Wollenhaus' murder and the file of cold cases. Prison was especially difficult for a loner like Turi. Here's Deputy Archie Sonnenstall to explain.

He was being picked on by fellow inmates. The guards were giving him a bunch of crap. Nobody liked him. He had no friends, and everybody was picking on him. Deputy Sennestahl transferred Turi to a different cell block, and Turi was grateful. Here's Deputy Sennestahl again. He says, I really appreciate that. He says, you're the first one that's ever did anything for me.

I says, well, here's my card. If you have any further problems, give me a call. Two weeks later, Terry used the phone from the jail to call Deputy Sonnestall. He felt mentally unstable and wanted to be hospitalized rather than incarcerated. He asked the man who had helped him before if he would help him again. In exchange, Terry said he'd be willing to cooperate with investigators regarding a murder. Here's Sonnenstahl again. We got into a conversation about his cooperating with authorities, and did I feel that they would cooperate back with him if he needed some

psychiatric help, etc., etc., etc. Basically, in so many words, Joe would clean up the Diane Edwards homicide. Deputy Sennan Stahls shared the message with the prosecutor overseeing Diane Edwards' case. The prosecutor wanted to hear what Turi had to say. This is Deputy Sonnenstahl again. And they said, go back and talk to him and tell him that we're receptive to the idea of cooperation. The deputy interviewed Joe Turi in May of 1981. Turi wanted to trade his cell for a hospital room,

and he was willing to discuss his part in Diane's murder to make his move possible. Here's some audio from that interview. You said you saw a gal walking up the street? Yeah. Did you stop by this gal? Yeah. Who was she? Diane.

Diane who? Edwards. He pulled up alongside of her and he recognized her and she recognized him. And he asked her to get in the car. And she wouldn't, so he grabbed her, forced her in the car. After you got her in the car, how did you manage to keep her in the car? Tied a rope around her arms.

That car. Tied a rope around her arms behind her? Yeah. Tied a rope around her arms behind her. While Diane was restrained, Turi drove 60 miles north to a rural area near Elk River, and then he raped her on the front seat. Here's more of the interview between Turi and Deputy Sennestahl. Did she say something to you or do something after you finished having intercourse the first time on the front seat?

Yeah, she screamed at me and said something that I can't remember exactly. And how did you respond to that? Blew up. You blew up. And when you blew up, what happened? I got stabbed. He said he then drug her down an inclinement down towards the woods, where he raped her again.

And he thought she might have been dead by that time, because she wasn't moving or saying anything. Wanting to be sure that Turi was being honest, investigators Sonnenstahl and Hofstede asked Turi to take them places that he talked about in his interview. This is Deputy Hofstede. And he had me turn up this little trail that I knew led to the site and we're coming up that little hill, and as we get to the spot, he says, stop right here. Terry got out of the car and started to walk down an embankment. Then he pointed to a ditch.

And Dave looked at me, and he said, you know, he's within four feet of where we found the body. That was Deputy Sonnenstahl. And this is Deputy Hofstede. And this is a very rural setting. So far as landmarks, I mean, they just aren't there. He knew. On May 13, 1981, Joe Turrey was charged with the murder of Diane Edwards, a crime he was eventually convicted of committing.

As he awaited trial, however, Turrey discovered that despite his confession, a transfer to the state mental hospital was not going to be offered to him. Turrey stayed in prison, and in December of 1981, Toby Kruminga became his new cellmate. The two didn't click at first, but eventually they got friendly with each other. This is Toby Kruminga. Well, we played cards, we played checkers.

He was waiting trial on Diane Edwards, and he talked a little bit about that. Korminga then claimed that Joe Turi dictated two letters to him. The first was about the murder of a waitress named Susie Hewling. He said that he'd asked Susie out, but she told him that she couldn't, because her mother didn't allow her to date. Turi then said he started to asked Susie out, but she told him that she couldn't, because her mother didn't allow her to date. Terry then said he started to follow Susie's mother. Here's Korminga again. We actually went over to the mother's house and told the mother he wanted to date her daughter.

And she told him to call him a pervert and told him to get the hell out. The letter went on. I grabbed her by the hair, and I told her that before she died, she would go through more physical and mental pain than she'd ever gone through in her life. He then described killing the oldest three children in great detail. In a second letter, Terry went on to describe the murder of Marlis Wollenhouse. The letter read, I freaked and hit her three or four times in the head with a hatchet.

I heard the dog going crazy upstairs, so I left in a hurry. Terry signed and dated both statements. Korminga signed as a witness and handed the letters off to a jail guard to be delivered to a judge. His letters didn't make it to the judge. Instead, Turi's confession was a leading story on the local evening news. In the Hewling murder confession, Turi says he knew one of the Hewling daughters, but her mother refused to let him see her.

He planned to tie up the family and rape one of the daughters. But when he went into the house and entered Mrs. Hewling's bedroom on the main floor, she recognized him and said, and we quote, leave my house, you pervert. Turi then says he shot her above the knees and hit her a couple of times. Turi and Kraminga were together during the local news broadcast. And Joe Turi was extremely angry that his letters had been leaked. Here's Toby Kraminga again.

Oh, he just freaked. He kept on saying to me, you double-crossed me, you lied to me, the judge is supposed to get it all out, you know. Once the letters were made public, Joe Turi denied making them. He claimed that he had signed a blank piece of paper. He thought the paper was a petition for better food. Turi goes even further by offering an alibi to investigators. He claimed he was working at the Ford production plant when Marlis was murdered. The alibi checked out, and the letters no longer looked as solid. Turi's denial of the letters, and Kruming's claim that he had dictated them,

was just one inmate's word against another. Marlis's case, and the Hewling family case would stay cold for another 15 years. It's summertime, and with Pluto TV's Summer of Cinema, the streaming is easy. Stream hundreds of free movies on all your favorite devices all summer long. Chill out poolside with Mission Impossible and Transformers.

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Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is where the coldest state case files are sent. In 1996, Special Agent Everett Doolittle and Special Agent Randy Stricker dug into the file of Marlis Wollenhaus. This is Special Agent Doolittle and Special Agent Randy Stricker, dug into the file of Marlis Wollenhaus. This is Special Agent Doolittle. And I met with the investigators and they said, no, we cleared him. Turi was at work at the time of the murder and couldn't have done it. And that's been said all along. The cold case detectives were not satisfied with the verbal confirmation. They asked Ford to locate the actual time card for the day in question. Later, one of Doolittle's detectives called him with the results from the search. And he said, yeah, Joe Turi was at work on May 8th at the time of the murder. Joe Turi, date of birth 1911 was. And I said, he said, yes, his dad was at work at the time.

There's no record showing Joe Turi was at work. That was Special Agent Doolittle. It was starting to look like Joe Turi Sr. had been at work, but his son, the Joe Turi in question, hadn't. This is Special Agent Stricker. Going back and rechecking identified that they were both employed there and that Joe was working the later shift, which afforded him the opportunity to commit the crime and still make it to work on time.

So that was the big break. It blew away his alibi. Because the alibi that invalidated the letters was unconfirmed, the investigators reexamined them for clues or mistakes. Here's Special Agent Doolittle again. We took it apart piece by piece by piece. What he said he did, where he went. And then there were little things in there. And one of the little things, they didn't seem to matter that much, but they mean everything.

On the third page of the letter confessing to Marlis' murder, the investigators discover a story that might be one of those little things that matter. It's a story about a little girl. Here's Stricker and Doolittle to explain. He talked about coming out the end of the driveway and spinning his tires and blowing gravel all over this girl. His quote, I see this little and I put it to the floor, I spin gravel and I take off. And there's a statement from a little girl who was eight years old at the time who got out of school, was walking to her girlfriend's house and she's walking right by the entrance to the long driveway. And she's interviewed back then and said, I saw this, she called it a cream colored little car come out. And this guy threw gravel and dust all over her and took off.

That's never been in the media. That's never been out because they're really worried about she's 8 years old. The family was scared for her safety. In this business, you'll have people confess to crimes that they didn't commit, but they don't know the particulars. Joe knew the particulars. There's information in there that nobody would ever know and couldn't know but the person that committed the murder.

Joe Terry was being investigated a third time for Marlis' murder, 17 years after the crime was committed. This time, it stuck. In 1996, Terry was finally arrested and charged with the young woman's murder. On October 14, 1998, Turi was convicted of the murder of Marlis Wollenhaus. But the case doesn't end here. John Fristick, from the Washington County Attorney's Office in Minnesota, was the prosecutor on Marlis' case. Fristick had done

some research on Turi to prepare for the trial and discovered that he was under suspicion for the murder of the Hewling family. Fristick reviewed the documents from the Hewling family murders investigation. He looked at the inventory recovered from the stolen car driven by Turi, a metal bar, a list of women's names, and a toy Batmobile. At the time, no link was developed between these items and the healing murders. Nineteen years later, John Fristick believed he had found a connection. This is Assistant County Attorney Fristick. And I thought to myself, what is Joe Turi doing with a Batmobile in his car?

Everything else in the car I can understand somewhat. What is he doing with a child's toy, a little tiny Batmobile? And then it occurred to me. Alice Hewling had two small sons, Billy and Wayne, the same age as boys who would play with toy Batmobiles. And so I thought to myself, where do you get this car? Did this come from the Hewling house? There was one person who might be able to answer those questions, the sole survivor and witness to answer those questions.

The sole survivor and witness to the killings. This is Billy Hewling. Being as young as I was, I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to do anything. And I just wanted to continue on with my life and forget that it ever happened. But it's something that you never really forget. And as you grow older, you start thinking about it more. You know, it hits you. And you're like, man, you know, my family's not here.

The witness coordinator in Washington County called up and said that they had some evidence that they wanted me to look at. And just, I don't know why I said it or where it ever came from. It's just like, oh, did you find my Batmobile car? The next day, Billy positively identified his toy, a toy found in the car of Joe Turi, four days after the murders. Here's John Fristick again. Joe Turi took from their house, after he killed Alice Hewling and her children, he took from their house Billy Hewling's Batmobile.

He took a souvenir. Special Agent Stricker opened the cold Hewling family case file and looked at the autopsy photos of Alice Hewling. He noticed an unusual pattern of bruising. This is Special Agent Stricker again. In reading the reports that have

been generated by the officers that were conducting the investigation, they had indicated that the bruise on the body could have been caused by a shotgun butt or a shotgun barrel, and I couldn't see the correlation there. Stricker brought in an expert, a bruise expert, to help him determine the cause of this particular pattern. Here is Dr. Michael McGee. She had a bruise that was elongated. It looked like it almost had a cylindrical or tubular appearance. The bruise has a distinct upper border and lower border, and in the midst of it are small punctate areas of hemorrhage, suggesting to me that whatever object had struck her was long, probably metal, had a rounded edge,

and had a series of circular to oval-shaped depressions cut into it. At least that's what I told the BCA they should be looking for. Based on the description from Dr. McGee, Stricker wanted to look at that metal pipe pulled from the stolen car. He was able to locate it and shared it with the expert. Here's Dr. McGee again. They left it for me to look at. I measured it, compared it to the autopsy photos, compared it to the autopsy measurements,

and based on that I told them, I think this is it. So you can see the edge of the bar matches the edge here. The edge of the bar matches the edge here. The small holes present in the surface of the wrapping match the small focal areas of bruising and abrasion on the surface of the body. The strap in the middle of the bar that holds the wrapping in place can be seen as this blanch mark running down the course. So when the bar impacted the body, it imprinted this pattern of the bar strap and the holes on the body, causing a reverse image. Dr. McGee's testimony was the final link in the chain of evidence the investigators had been building. In 2000, two years after his conviction for Marlis' murder, a jury found Terry guilty of four counts of murder. It took the jury less than 12 hours to deliberate. Terry was sentenced to another four consecutive life sentences. Terry's actions hurt so many people.

The victims paid the ultimate price. But those who lost a family member, or their entire family, also suffered. There's not a right way to deal with trauma. Billy Hewling accepted the judgment and sentence. But he felt no relief. I'm at a point now where it doesn't matter. It's not going to change anything. He's doing his time in jail. He's never going to get out. I'm happy with that. I can live with that. 20 years ago? No, that probably wouldn't be enough. Billy's perspective might be hard to hear, but he's not wrong.

Justice can't be fully achieved after a murder, because no sentence will bring back the victim to their loved ones. For Fran Wollenhaus at least, Terry's sentence lifted the weight of uncertainty she had lived with for so many years. She was no longer a mother hoping to help her daughter one last time. She was free. For us, we went for so many years without knowing who killed Marlis. And I say it was like a freeing of my soul

when I finally had answers. This has been hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. We're distributed by Podcast One. Cold Case Files Classic was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by the one and only Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com. Or learn about more cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at aetv.com slash realcrime.