Criminology - Billy Mansfield Jr

Episode Date: December 11, 2022

On October 27th, 2020, 63-year-old Gary Mansfield was arrested on drug charges in Spring Hill, Florida. As he was being led to a police car, Gary Mansfield reportedly told authorities about multiple bodies buried on the property that he claimed his brother, Billy Mansfield Jr, had buried there. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the life and crimes of Billy Mansfield Jr. Police were already well aware of Billy Mansfield Jr because he had been sitting in a California prison for many years. But, authorities had to check out the claims made by his brother Gary to see what details might be revealed. Gary's claims reignited a decades-old investigation. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello everyone and welcome to episode 236 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford. How are you, buddy? I'm good. A little bit busy here, been doing some last second shopping. I guess it's not really last second for the holidays, but for me it is.

And I'm fighting some of the lines in the store and brought some stuff home trying to figure out where to hide it. So a little bit of that. What are you doing? Oh, man, last second. Geez, Pete, man. You must normally get your Christmas shopping done very early. Yeah, because I can't stand going into all the lines and the crowds and just I get, you know, claustrophobic. So I'd rather get it all done much sooner than than last week or two. Yeah. No, I get it. But your kids are still fairly young. And, you know, what has changed over the years for my wife and I is that there doesn't seem to be as many. surprises, you know, when the kids are little, everything is a surprise. And then as they get older, I don't know, my wife buys stuff with them. They know it. And then it's like they remember what they're

opening because they've already seen it. I'm like, okay, there are a few surprises, but not near as many. Yeah. And I don't know about you, we're a big Amazon family. So it sort of takes out the tradition of going out and finding something, although I do that too, but it makes it so easy when you can just scan anything you're looking for on Amazon and have it delivered in there to your house. It takes a lot of the leg workout. Well, it makes it a little too easy, which is what I tell my wife all the time. It's a little too easy to open up that iPad and just click on a button and the next thing, you know, things are showing up at the door.

Oh, yeah. All right, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Jennifer Saunders, Coniglio, Whitley, Jordan, Rosie 16. and Kyle and Charlotte. So a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much for that support. It goes a long way to help putting up the show.

We can't thank you enough. And to anyone else that is thinking about supporting criminology, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. Just a reminder, we have a special holiday Q&A slash AMA coming up. So this is your last call to get your questions, comments, and voicemails in for that episode. Yeah, so far we've gotten a few awesome phone calls that we're going to play, so that should be fun. And the deadline for getting those questions, comments, and voicemails in is December 13th. So if you're listening to this episode right now after it comes out, you don't have much time to send in your questions and voice mails.

And all you have to do is head over to our social media. We're on Facebook at facebook.com slash criminology podcast. And you can also head over to our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion in the fans. And to leave us a voicemail, just go over to speakpipe.com slash criminology podcast, and we may play your voicemail on the air. I think more if this episode should be a lot of fun, you know, a good way to bring in 2023. And I think people will get a kick out of it. Yeah, it's been a while since we did one of you. So I'm looking forward to it.

All right. So we have all that out of the way. Let's jump into this episode. On October 27th, 2020, 63. year old Gary Mansfield was arrested in Spring Hill, Florida on drug charges. That city is only a couple hours north of UMORF. Authorities found drugs, including fentanyl and LSD, as well as equipment used to produce methamphetamine in his home. So you hear this a lot, probably on newscasts in every city across the country. Unfortunately, right, there was a lot of drug activity going

on, it sounds like a pretty typical story that people would see on their local news. But in this case, police got information that led them in a completely different direction. As he was being led to a police car, Gary Mansfield reportedly told authorities loudly and adamantly about multiple bodies buried on the property that he claimed his brother, Billy Mansfield, Jr, had buried there. He apparently thought that offering up this information about the location of these supposed victims of his brother would help him get a more favorable outcome and possibly immunity for his charges. Gary was looking at a lot of charges, including sale of meth within 1,000 feet of a place

of worship, possession of meth with intent to distribute, possession of a structure for sale of controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, unlawful use of a two-way device, and possession of a new legend drug, LSD, and fentanyl. It might be easy to assume that this guy I was desperate to get a reduced sentence, and he might be making these claims up. But police knew of his brother, Billy Mansfield Jr's background, and it was a very troubled and disturbing one. And since Billy Mansfield Jr. was in prison already for murder, investigators took his brother's claim seriously.

And this drug bust would reignite a murder investigation from four decades earlier. So I don't know that this is all that out of the ordinary. You know, when someone is facing the number of charges morphed that you just laid out, and it was quite a few, how many people look to find a way out of those? And there are various avenues, but one of them is to try to give the police information about some other crime or crimes to maybe help mitigate your sentence. Yeah, in this case, you know, I could see him saying, oh, you know, I get my drugs from this supplier and you should go check him out.

That's the kind of information that I would typically expect to see. see an arrest like this, but here he's talking about bodies being burned on the property. And that was a curveball for police, I think. Yeah, that makes sense, right? Can you give up a bigger fish to use a term that they always use in movies and on television? Your supplier, your dealer, somebody higher up the chain in exchange for a lesser sentence. But that's not what we have here. we have brother offering up information on brother about possible murders. And I think for police, they couldn't just brush this off because, number one, if there are bodies there and they don't check it out, that's a tremendous disservice. And the second reason is because, as we'll get into, his brother did have an extensive background that involved burying a body.

So I think they had to take this serious. So police along with anxious neighbors braced for a gruesome discovery. When the press caught wind of the police investigation, they reached out to Billy Mansfield Jr. son, Billy. So I guess that would make him Billy the third. He told Inside Edition, personally, I think there's a lot of, I just can't see someone going to stop at one. And if there's four and five, you ain't stopping at one.

You ain't stopping at four and five. But Billy Mansfield, the third, was angry with his uncle because if his claims were true, that meant he kept a terrible secret for a very long time. He told Fox 13 News, why didn't he give these people their family members back 40 years ago if he knew their bodies were buried there? Just hours after Gary Mansfield's arrest, detectives located items on a nearby property that were deemed to be suspicious, according to the Hernandez. County Sheriff's Office, these items were not related to the narcotics investigation that led

to Gary's arrest. It was also revealed that Bones had been found on the property, which was the family home of convicted killer Billy Mansfield Jr. Following the discovery of those items, curious neighbors looked on as bulldozers and a full team of investigators descended on the property almost immediately. This wasn't the first time that the Mansfield Spring Hill neighbors had seen authorities go through that process, and it wasn't the first time that investigators had found bones on the property. In fact, over 40 years ago, authorities recovered the remains of four young women there. In the spring of 1981, after Billy Mansfield had been arrested for another murder in California,

which we'll get into shortly, authorities searched the Mansfield property in Hernando County, Florida for weeks. An anonymous tipster had called in claiming that bodies were buried on the property. There was a trailer home on the five-acre property, but there was also a large junkyard. So it wasn't an easy search for police. Using excavators, authorities uncovered four bodies on the property, all in various stages of decomposition.

One of them was just six feet from the mobile home on the property to the bodies were quickly identified. The first was Elaine Louise Ziegler, a 15-year-old girl from Ohio who was killed in 1975. And the second body was that of Sandra Jean-Gie. Grant, a woman from Tampa, Florida, who was last seen on April 27, 1980. The other two bodies could not be identified, but it was clear to police that the four bodies were homicide victims. At the time, Billy Mansfield Jr., who was 25 years old, became the prime suspect in the four murders. A bag of bones was also found under the chimney,

but they turned out to be animal bones. So, Morve, I just want to take a step back here for a minute, talk about, you know, this scene of the authorities kind of descending on a property using excavators, bulldozers, all kinds of different equipment. I'm just trying to picture what that would be like. Now, this is a five acre property, but I'm thinking of like where I live in, and kind of a subdivision, you know, there would be every neighbor in the, in the place would be out wondering what is going on? Yeah, I think it's human nature to be curious about stuff and to be a little bit nosy, especially if you see a full police crew with construction equipment trying to dig up

the ground. And I don't know what the status was of the press. Was there a lot of cameras out there and stuff as well? But it had to be a pretty big scene. And a lot of people would have been curious about what was going on. Elaine Ziegler was visiting Florida from Ohio with her family. family at a Campgrounds of America campsite to celebrate the New Year. At 10.30 p.m. on New Year's Eve, 1975, she went to take a shower, but everyone went to bed,

not realizing she never made it back. All of her belongings except the hairdryer that she took to the shower with her were left behind in the family's trailer. A heartbreaking, maybe outrage-provoking Tampa Tribune article from January 1976 features Hernando County Sheriff Melvin County, who explained, We don't conduct massive ground searches for every missing teenager, and he went on to say that Lane's disappearance appears to be somewhat typical of some missing teenagers, most of whom turn out to be runaways.

A motorcycle was stolen in the area that night, and police believed that Elaine had stolen it and run off. But one witness claimed to see Aline talking to a man in his late 20s near the showers, and they also saw her get into his late blue 1966 Ford Fair Lane with Florida license plates. Elaine's body was quickly identified due to a false tooth that she wore, a pair of earrings that her family recognized,

as well as a clash ring from her high school. Peggy Oates Knight, who lived near the K-O-A campground and had gotten to know Elaine while she was visiting, recalled to police that a man named Billy was going to take Elaine to Miami. And I don't know if if these are still around, maybe they are, maybe they are not,

but I remember, you know, when I was younger, when we would travel from Ohio to Florida, I would see these K-O-A signs all the time. I think it was a really big deal. Yeah, I think there was a stretch back there during that time period when camping was sort of all the rage and a lot of families would do it on a big scale.

But like I said, they could be around, they could not be. I'm sure somebody will write in and tell us. I don't remember seeing the signs recently, or, you know, in the last five, ten years, like I did when I was younger. The other thing is, and we hear this so often in episodes dating back to, you know, let's say the 70s, this guy, this county sheriff coming out and saying, hey, we don't conduct massive ground searches for every missing teenager along with the, she most likely ran away.

I mean, that was just so typical. I think of the time frame. Now, I'm, I'm sure there were many times when that was. true. Kids had run away, but I think police were so quick to go with that. It was kind of almost like their default in many instances. Yeah, I think we know that that early time when someone's missing is crucial. So I think they should have erred on the side of, okay, let's treat this as if they're missing under, you know, some mysterious circumstances versus run away. And then if we see there's evidence, they ran away, then we can sort of back off. But I think they made mistakes.

and not just this case, but there are many cases where they had that treatment. It's also interesting because the names are escaping me right now, but I can think of three or four cases off the top of my head of young girls, children, stuff like that, that have gone missing in these parks. And later on, they've been found to be victims of foul play. So I think the camping grounds, these kinds of parks, there are maybe good areas for bad people to look for victims. Well, to your point, think of the scenario. You have people, you know, from outside of the area,

from all over the country, maybe, stopping at these parks for a number of days. They're going to camp there. I hate to use the word transient because it kind of has a negative connotation, but they're only going to be there for a little while. And especially in 1975, there's not going to be security cameras. There's not, going to be, you know, a surveillance. There's, there's not going to be stuff like that. So was it a situation where some people intend to do harm looked at that situation almost as like a hunting ground? I know that's kind of rough to say, but I'm not sure it's incorrect. Yeah, and I think even if foul play wasn't involved, even if there wasn't someone out stalking some of these people that are abduct or go missing in these places, you also have the possibility of them just getting lost

in these areas they're not familiar with, maybe getting hurt, falling down a ravine, twisting their ankle, whatever. So even if there's nothing nefarious, they could simply be lost. So I think just dismissing them as runaways, I think that's irresponsible as well. Sandra Graham had disappeared just over four years after Elaine Ziegler did. The 21-year-old was last seen just after midnight at Pam's liquor. lounge in Tampa on April 26, 1980. She went outside to talk to someone who was described by witnesses as looking like a

biker. And then she never returned. Her purse, glasses, and cigarettes were left behind at the bar. Dental records were used to confirm her identity. The other two bodies found on Mansfield's property were not as easy to ID. And remember, this was 1981, before DNA, but But police looked into several missing persons cases trying to ID the two Jane Does. One strong possibility in the minds of police was Sharon Herrer. She was last seen on November 26th, 1979, from DJ's Pioneer Club in Madeira Beach. She was last seen getting into a Cadillac with a man who said his name was Robert Crawford. Another possibility police considered was 21-year-old mother of three, Belinda

Harder, who disappeared on July 27th, 1980, is she walked to her boyfriend's house in St. Petersburg, Florida. 12-year-old Teresa Alfonso and 16-year-old Cynthia Gooding were considered two. They were last seen at Marathon movie theater in Marathon, Florida on August 20th, 1974. They were going to hitchhike to a party together, but were never seen again. Some investigators believed the two unidentified. Bannified Bodies could be Cynthia and Teresa. So as we mentioned earlier, at the time that the four bodies were found on Mansfield's property,

Billy Mansfield Jr. was already in jail on a different murder charge on the other side of the country. 29-year-old Renee Abbey Sailing, a mother of three, went missing from wooden nickel two, a tavern in Watsonville, California. She vanished on December 6, 1980. People there saw her show up at around 10 p.m. already drunk, and she was looking for her husband, Raymond. Raymond was there that night, but he hid in the bathroom when she came in. Apparently, they had been fighting, and he wanted to avoid her. The bar's manager made her leave soon after she arrived, because she was too drunk to continue to serve.

Multiple witnesses saw her talking to a man that night and leaving with him. She was found dead in a drainage ditch along Buena Vista Drive near her campground the next morning. Her jeans were at her ankles. Only one pant leg still actually on. Her shirt was ripped, and a black cord or nylon rope was wrapped tightly around her neck, and was embedded in her skin. Billy Mansfield Jr. had been staying there at the K-O-A campground with his brother Gary after fleeing from charges of false imprisonment and battery in Spring Hill, Florida.

He was also working at a mushroom farm at the time. Authorities investigating Renee's murder took photos to employees at the inn where she disappeared from who recognized Billy and Gary Mansfield as the men who were with Renee the night she was murdered. And police put out an APB on the brothers. On December 10th, 1980, just four days after Renee's body was found, Gary and Billy were arrested while driving through Winamaca, Nevada. They tried to lie about who they were, but the officer was suspicious and felt that they matched to the description of the Mansfield brothers wanted out of Santa Cruz, California. Billy Mansfield Jr. was charged with first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty.

Gary was charged with accessory to murder for the killing of Renée. May sailing. And first pleaded not guilty. He later chose to testify against his brother Billy. In return, the charge against him was dropped. In the media, the two brothers were called the bag brothers because they wore paper bags over their heads to their first court appearance. From all accounts, this Mansfield family was bad news. 18-year-old Robbie Mansfield, the younger brother of Gary and Billy, was charged around the same time in Brooksville, Florida, on unrelated charges of burglary of a dwelling and grand theft of a rifle. On January 31st, 1977, Billy Mansfield Jr., pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual misconduct

involving a 16-year-old babysitter in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he was sentenced to serve six months there at Southern Michigan State Prison at Jackson. Billy was also sentenced to 36 months of probation, which he promptly violated upon release. On December 31, 1977, he held a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old grand. at knife point in a secluded area and sexually assaulted them before fleeing the state of Michigan. On February 6, 1979, Billy was arrested in Tampa for a warrant out of Michigan. After testifying against his cellmate, 29-year-old Albert Lee III, who was in prison for murder, Billy was able to lighten his sentence by pleading to a lesser charge and earning credit for

time served. In November 1979, Billy was sentenced to serve one year in prison. And with his time served, he was released from prison in February of 1980, leaving him free to murder Renee Salon. And just a bit of background about that cellmate Albert Lee III that Billy testified against, he was convicted of the murder of 11-year-old Linda Vanderveen, who was found in a snowbank. She had been strangled with the tie of her school uniform. His conviction was later overturned, due to the use of hypnosis on a large number of witnesses, but he was convicted again after a second trial. Lee maintains his innocence.

He told mlive.com, I did not commit that crime. I did not know that victim. I'm puzzled just like everyone else. Despite his denial of being responsible, one of Linda's Barrettes was reportedly found in Lee's car, which was spotted at the scene of her abduction. 16 blonde hairs,

identical to Lenders were found in his backseat and carbon fibers from the car were consistent with fibers found on her body. It seems Billy Mansfield Jr. didn't throw an innocent man under the boss to save his own skin when he testified against Lee. So here's another instance, right, where someone gives up information on someone else

to try to lighten their sentence. And really, it worked for Billy. I mean, he did very little. time for what was really a vicious sexual assault against two young girls. But the one thing I really want to talk about is, okay, we're saying that this guy wasn't innocent. And he was convicted, Albert Lee the third. But when you think about the time frame, right, 70s, 80s. And you get into hairs being identical, carpet fibers. being consistent. Well, fast forward 20, 30, 40 years later, and what are we finding out that the science

they used back then to convict a lot of people may not have been anywhere near as good as what it was thought to be back then. Yeah, when we hear those terms consistent with, It's not the same as 100% matching, you know, via scientific methods, DNA, that kind of thing. So, you know, it does make you think about some of these cases. But then again, in his case, you've got the victim's barrettes in his car. So that's a little bit of a smoking gun, I think, in this instance. I just really wonder how many people were wrongfully convicted over hair and fiber. identification because, you know, I can think of one case. I can't remember the name where the hair

evidence was so damning that it was said to have been really kind of the lynch pin in the prosecution's case. And then it later turned out that it wasn't even human hair. It was a dog hair, but it was used to convict someone. It's a scary thought. Yeah. And I'm sure there's a lot of people, her in prison that say, oh, I was innocent. You know, they made a mistake. And a lot of them obviously are lying, but I'm sure there are some who are there unjustly. And it's sad that because of the limitations at the time, that that kind of science back then is the best they could do. We touched on Billy's criminal history a bit, but we have to go back and take a closer look at his record and his life.

In 1970, it is 14 years old. Billy Mansfield Jr., the oldest of six children, dropped out of school and forged a birth certificate so that he could join the army. He was discharged soon after due to substance and alcohol abuse. In 1974, when Billy was 18, he was charged with forcing two 27-year-old women to perform an immoral act, but he was acquitted because the jury didn't believe that he could have assaulted both women at once. After his acquittal, Billy worked with his father and brother at the Milton Electric Company in Largo, Florida. He quit after just two months. At the time, Billy was married to Phyllis Spielmaker from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who was just 16 years old when they got married.

They had one son together around 1975, the same year that Elaine Ziegler was murdered, and another child soon after that. In 1978, Billy was treated for addiction at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Tampa. He and Phyllis divorced in 1979. Phyllis claimed that Billy was a violent drunk and secretly. bisexual. She recalled multiple occasions where he would bring home a man from the bar and they would have sex right in front of her. She also claimed that he once told her about a murder. In 1980, Billy was once again treated for addiction at the VA hospital in Tampa on April 28, 1980. Just two days after Sandra Graham disappeared, Billy and a 16-year-old girl inquired about a marriage license in

Spring Hill, Florida. The two were given applications, but they did not return to fill them out, and they didn't get married. The girl's mother later took her daughter out of state, perhaps to get away from Billy Mansfield, Jr. So I think we see from all the stuff that's going on, these girls that Billy is involved with and hanging out with, it seems to think there's a certain age range and they're young, even the one that he married was under 18. And these, Here we have him trying to marry another girl that's under 18. So I think that alone tells you a little about this guy and some of his predilections. Well, I think at the very least, it gives us a glimpse, perhaps his victim type.

He preferred younger girls. I don't think there's any way around that. So if we're talking about, then murder victims, would it not make sense? that he would target younger girls as well. And I wonder if he targeted them, one, because they were young. Maybe he thought they wouldn't be able to fight back or defend themselves, but also because maybe he could manipulate and control them easier than he could an adult. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.

I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved, until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. 18-year-old Pamela Sherrill claimed that Billy abducted her when he was driving his van, taking her to his mobile home on June 25, 1980.

Billy held her against her will and slapped her so hard that her lip was cut and her neck was bruised. She was able to take his knife from him and escape. Billy was charged with false imprisonment and batteryed by Hernandez County authorities. He had already fled to California by the time the charges were filed. On November 19, 1980, Billy was arrested in Santa Cruz, California, when authorities realized he had a warrant for his arrest out of Hernando County. He posted bail and was released from custody. So I think the one thing that is very clear.

Up to this point is that Billy Mansfield Jr. had a very troubling criminal history of violence against women and girls. Some people believe that Billy is even responsible for the death of his 18-month-old sister Wendy. She drowned near their home in Grand Rapids. Though it could have been an accidental drowning, many believed that Billy's calm demeanor was suspicious. Per a Sarasota Herald Tribune article, apparently when Billy spotted Wendy in the water, He told his step-sister, hey, your sister's in the water.

Don Tompkins, a neighbor who heard Wendy's older sister screaming and saw her dragging her sister out of the lake, rushed over to help. He gave Wendy CPR and mouth to mouth. The thrusts brought up food that she had eaten, but no water. He recalled seeing two or three bruises on her face. Tompkins said, the way that Billy alerted them to the girls drowning was, just non-committal. Like it was a toy lying in the water and not a child. This is all per the Sarasota Herald Tribune. He went on to say, it was like it was nothing, like it wasn't a person. It was quite peculiar. And this is something that I know we've talked about on many different

occasions. How does someone act in a certain situation? And how do those around that individual perceive those actions? And a lot of times it's just like we're talking about here. They're not displaying the kind of emotions or, you know, they're not doing the things that most people believe they should be doing or feeling. We hear that all of the time. time. I think every situation's different the way people act are different, but usually we would expect someone whose family member is drowning a young child. There'd be some urgency, some nervousness, anxiousness, whatever you want to call it. And he just seemed like he was stone cold. And whether he was responsible or not, I think it shows just maybe there was no empathy there,

no, something that a normal person might experience. Yeah, the way it was described, it was almost as if he's telling his step-sister, look at that rock, or, hey, there's a beer can floating. You know, it's almost like that. That's the way it was described. They say an apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And in looking at the Mansfield Patriarch, Billy Mansfield, Sr., that seems to be true here. Because his history is quite disturbing itself. Billy Mansfield Sr. fathered Wendy with his own stepmother. In November 1980, William Mansfield, Senior was sentenced to 30 years in prison for multiple lewd acts with young girls. He pleaded no contest to four of 40 charges involving dozens of victims, one as young as nine months old.

In May, 1990, William Mansfield Sr. was released after serving just 10 years for his crimes. In 1946 in Michigan, 21-year-old William Mansfield Sr. was charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, but he was acquitted after the jury did not find her testimony. to be credible. She claimed that Mansfield Senior, her neighbor, had taken her to the movies and then tried to sexually assault her. Later that year, he was charged with armed robbery. He served time from 1947 to 1951 when he was released on parole. He was also charged with sexual assault in Reno, Nevada, while on probation in 1952. But he was for some reason never prosecuted, even though. though that was a clear violation of probation. He was paroled again in 1958. So Billy Mansfield

senior was certainly no role model for his children. And I think you have to kind of factor all of this in his own disturbing criminal path. Did any of that factor into his son, Billy Jr's path? Yeah, I don't think there's any excuse for Billy Mansfield Jr. for what he did. in his crimes, what he experienced as a child witnessing the things his father did, that doesn't excuse what he did. But I do have to wonder is, did any of that play a role in his psyche in the way he was brought up, what he saw, what he may have witnessed, maybe some of it genetically. It makes me wonder if there's any of that that plays a role when somebody commits awful crimes if they're predisposed to that or again being in that environment does that somehow

affect them and cause them later on to do things so not that it's an excuse what billy mansfield junior did was awful and it's not excusable but i do wonder if any of that other stuff had any effect on him well i do think it's that whole nature versus nurture thing it to some extent and in this instance, you know, you kind of said it, was he born predisposed or was some of this learned behavior? We don't know what he may have witnessed his father doing. Yeah. And whenever we have a case like this, I always go back and think of the Golden State Killer Joseph DeAngelo, things in his childhood, his father disowning the family and moving away and starting a new family naming all his kids the same names, and then he witnesses his own young sisters rape as a child.

What does that do to their mind? You have to think that's not good and that's going to play some of the role. So I always wonder what path that puts them on if it affects them in any way. At Billy Mansfield Jr.'s first California murder trial in 1981, the jury couldn't come to the unanimous decision. The only physical evidence linking Billy to the crime. was a single fiber from his pants that was found on Renee Saling's body. Besides that, all they had was Billy having spoken to the victim at some point before she was

killed. Nine jurors believed he was guilty, but three didn't, and a mistrial was declared. Later, in 1981, while he awaited a new trial, Billy and fellow inmate Ben Berrigan unchained themselves and escaped from the recreation yard by climbing through the roof. Billy was found just 11 hours later, and Berrigan was found shortly after that. Billy Mansfield Jr. was sent back to jail to wait trial. At the second trial for Renee Saling's murder, Billy was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. In 1982, in order to avoid the death penalty in Florida, Billy also pleaded guilty to the murders of the four victims found buried in the yard of his Spring Hill home,

and one count of attempted sexual battery for the woman who escaped. He was handed down four more life sentences for those crimes. In July 22, more than four decades after her remains were unearthed on the Mansfield property in Florida, it was announced that one of the two previously unidentified victims found on the property in 1981 had been identified as 16-year-old Teresa Caroline Fillingham. Teresa, just one week away from turning 17, was reported missing out of Tampa in May 1980 by her sister, Margaret, who she had been living with after she didn't show up to a job interview. When Margaret was finally contacted by a detective in her hometown of Cape Coral, Florida, about the news she was shocked. She told Fox 13, it just kind of came out of the blue. And to put it lightly, it floored me.

After the initial visit and a DNA sample was taken from Margaret, the wait for a match took an excruciating six weeks. But finally there was an answer. Margaret said of the ID, It gives me peace because I know I didn't lose her, that she was taken. The sad part of it is my whole family never knew what happened to her. My dad died without knowing. My mom died without knowing. My sister died without knowing. Teresa's remains were split between her sister, Margaret, and their brother. Margaret's identification was made. in part using Parabon snapshot, something we've discussed countless times on the show. Many times we see the Parabon snapshot next to a suspect description, almost like a composite

sketch. But this time, Parabon made an image of the unidentified victim, allowing investigators to look through yearbooks, family photos, newspapers, and at people living in the area for resemblance. So this is fascinating stuff. Morfew and I continue to be amazed by what technology is done. doing nowadays, you know, when you think about being able to kind of create this, what's almost like a composite sketch, but from DNA, then you have a lot of options from that. Obviously, you can circulate that, but also, you know, technology is to the point

today where, you know, can you use software to try to scan for images that would match that? I mean, I don't know if that's been done. I'm just kind of thinking about different ways that this technology can be used. Obviously, it is solving a lot of mysteries. From catching killers to identifying unidentified people. It's just absolutely amazing. but I want to go back to something that Margaret said because it was heartbreaking. Yes, it's amazing that her sister was identified. But because it came so many years later, you had multiple members of her family who died, never knowing what happened to Teresa.

And that is absolutely heartbreaking to me. Yeah, and I think the good news is that with the advancements we have in DNA technology, you know, whether it's a Parabon snapshot or whether it's, you know, genetic genealogy, which is catching so many killers, we can't lose sight of the fact that that also can identify Jane Does and John Does. And hopefully they use that in every case of an unidentified person because it can solve a lot of these cases and we can really clear the. books on a lot of people and give their families some kind of peace. Well, the technology is there. I think the issue that I'm assuming is going on right now is that there are so many cases to work. There's such a backlog.

How long is it going to take? And where does the money come from? A film called The Man in the White Van, loosely based on the life and crimes of Billy Mansfield Jr., is in. post-production, according to IMDB, it is set to star Sean Ashton and Ali Larder. In the film set in 1974, a 14-year-old girl from Brooksville, Florida, named Annie, believes a man in a white van, is stalking her, but no one believes her until around Halloween when things turn deadly, and it's too late.

And you know you have to be a pretty bad person for a film that sounds like it's sort of a horror movie to be based on some of your actions and deeds. Yeah, it's kind of the, uh, one of the benchmarks, right? And I, I hate to say that for bad people and their infamy, but it's kind of true. You know, once they start making films about you or, you know, television shows or whatever it is, you know you were a bad person. But it sounds like they've got some pretty big stars. I mean, Sean asked.

Rudy, Ali Larder has been in a lot of stuff over the years. So I don't know. I'm sure I will check it out when this thing is available. 66-year-old Billy Mansfield Jr. are still incarcerated at the California health care facility in Stockton. In 2012, Mansfield's attempt at parole was denied. The parole board also imposed a 10-year period where they would not grant parole, making his next appeal possible in 2022. The decade parole ban, for lack of a better word, was because Mansfield had committed his crime in an especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel manner, and because of his violent past in need for further insight into his crimes.

Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Michael Gilman doesn't believe that he will ever be granted parole, and nor should he, saying, he's eligible for parole, but he can continue to be denied and die in prison. It doesn't appear that he filed for parole this year, but he's eligible again now. The difference this time is that Teresa's siblings and the family that never got a chance to meet her would be eligible to give victim impact statements at his hearing. Though the parole board has never needed their statements to see what a monster he was, their statements would help solidify a denial for his next request for parole. And more if I did want to talk about parole for a minute, it seems to me, and I think this varies by state, but it seems to me as though some of these people come up for parole quite often. you know, every couple years, whatever it is. So this 10 year ban kind of caught my eye. Because I always think about the victim's families and how tough it must be.

Every time, you know, one of these killers comes up for parole, their lives are tough enough, right? They have to live and deal with the loss of their loved ones and what happened to them. But every time, you know, one of these monsters, comes up for parole, you have to believe that it just kind of stirs everything up again. And it's really sad for them. Yeah, as far as parole, we know that some people can turn their lives around. They learn from their mistakes. They maybe get an education.

They find religion, whatever it is, and they try and become better people. But we also know that in many cases, maybe more often, the people, the people, in prison for doing these kind of things when they do taste freedom, they're right back to doing the same thing. So I think in a lot of the cases we discuss, some of these people just need to remain behind bars. Well, and I also believe that some people's crimes are so heinous. You know, pretty much like this guy said, they were committed in such a way that they really shouldn't be granted parole. I mean, I do think there are people like that. And, and maybe, you also factor in their actions in prison and all of that. But I don't know, I just keep thinking about

how often some of these people come up and how tough that must be for the family. The bones found on the Mansfield property in 2020 turned out to be animal bones and no new human remains were uncovered. We were able to find only one mention of this outcome among a sea of articles that mentioned a 2020 find of human remains, but no follow-up on a victim. So it sounds like papers were running with the human remains aspect, but in the end, every sign that I saw pointed to the fact that there were no human remains. In the end, we don't know what Gary Mansfield was expecting to gain from talking about decades-old murders that had already been closed.

And it might make some people wonder if somehow other victims were missed or maybe left somewhere off the property. The fourth victim found on the Mansfield property in the spring of 1981, the last Jane Doe, remains unidentified as of the time of this recording. She was found huddled in the fetal position, wrapped in a red and green blanket with a wire still wrapped around her wrist and her neck. This Jane Doe was also found with a small, blue ceramic pendant with a pink heart, a red heart, and yellow wings.

Thirteen yellow lines extend from the hearts, probably like sun rays. On the back of the pendant, the letters E.E are visible and possibly a P. Melinda Harder, who police once looked at as being this Jane Doe, was ruled out as a match using a DNA sample from her daughter Nicole by 2008. Melinda was found to be buried in St. Petersburg's Maxmo Park in spring 1989. Her case is still unsolved. Reading a few web flu's comments, it looks like Sharon Herrer was also ruled out as being Jane Doe.

Sharon's case is also still unsolved. Cynthia Gooding was also ruled out as being Jane Doe, which makes it very unlikely that Jane Doe is Teresa Alfonso since they vanished together. One interesting possibility for Jane Doe's identity that we don't see ruled out in any of the research, is that Jane Doe may be Leanne Colleen Huffman. who also used the last name, Gillespie. She was last seen in Tampa, Florida. On June 5th, 1978, her car was found three days later, parked at a holiday inn in Tampa,

but she is still missing. The time frame is right, and both Leanne and the way she spelled Colleen had double ease, and Gillespie has a peak, like the worn down pendant found with Jane Doe. It will be interesting to see if, This identification can be made via genealogy. If you have any information about the possible identity of this Hernando County, Jane Doe, or Namus UP, 12589, please contact the Hernando County Sheriff's Department. So, Morph, as we wrap up this episode, you know, we started with Gary Mansfield,

who obviously got into a lot of trouble around drugs. it seemed as though he was trying to, you know, mitigate his sentence by telling the police that, you know, his brother had other victims. They should check it out. They should excavate. It doesn't sound like it turned out to be anything as far as we could tell. But it did reignite this old case of Billy Mansfield Jr., which on its own is an extremely. It is an extremely horrible one. You know, the one thing that jumped out at me in this case and jumps out at me in a lot of cases is because of the time frame that we're talking about, it seems as though, number one,

acts of violence against women, sexual assaults, rapes, they were not prosecuted to the extent that they are today. They just weren't given the serious. weight, and that really upsets me. It does every time I see it. So what ended up happening in a lot of these cases is that, you know, these individuals got out very early. You know, even if they were held accountable, they got out quickly. And a lot of them went on to commit other further acts of violence against women, more sexual assaults, and even murder. Yeah, it's hard to imagine the amount of victims that might still be alive had some of these predators, serial predators,

been held in prison for longer terms. Some of these people wouldn't have come into contact with them, which is, as you mentioned, is really sad and upsetting. And again, I go back here and look at, is it nature versus nurture? What was going on with this guy that made him the predator that he was because he had a nonstop history of violence and terrible acts? And we hear a lot of cases where someone does a one-off crime. It's awful. But then you look at their history and there's nothing else there. They stayed out of trouble somehow after that.

This guy wasn't that type of person. He had a nonstop track record of doing bad stuff. So a lot of that is something I think about as we close this episode. And I'm wondering about his father. You know, if your dad is doing a bunch of terrible things. You know, how much did Billy C? How much did he know? And how much of that fueled, you know, maybe some of his crimes that would come later. And we don't know the answer to that, but it's all interesting stuff to, you know, ponder, question, think about. But I think you said back earlier in the

episode, there were a lot of members of this family who were not great people did a lot of horrible things. So what do you make of that? You know, we have, we tell so many stories about, you know, individuals who come from great homes. They have a good upbringing. They're not abused. They are, you know, well taken care of, but they go on to do horrible things. Now you have a story like this where that's not the case. So obviously, we know it can happen both ways. And the first. And the flip side to what you just said, you have a lot of people that have gone through horrible upbrings and witnessed terrible things that grow up to be good people and don't do awful things. So I guess there's environment doesn't always mean that you're destined to go down one path

or another. No, absolutely not. And I think it's part of the fascination, right, with true crime in general. What's going on in these people's minds? how can they do these horrible things? It's what a lot of us are trying to figure out. But that's it for our episode on Billy Mansfield Jr. If you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out,

give us a rating, leave a review. Keep telling your friends about criminology. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with a handle at criminology pod, where you can find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com Criminology Podcast. And you can also join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcasts Discussion and Fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand

new episode. So until then for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.