Criminology - The Rest Stop Murders

Episode Date: November 23, 2019

In this episode, we're covering three separate murder cases that occurred while the victims were at rest stops. Dexter Stefonek was traveling back home to Wisconsin after visiting family in Oregon. His vehicle was found burning at a rest stop in Montana. A couple later found his body at a trash site. Jane Snow was traveling with her two young sons in 1979 when her body was discovered by her sons inside the women's restroom at a rest stop. There have been several suspects in Jane's murder but no one has yet been brought to justice. Gordon and Jackie McAllister were traveling through Canada in their RV when an assailant barged in and shot Jackie to death. Gordon escaped and was able to describe the attacker. Eight years later police believed they had their man, a convicted killer who had carried out similar crimes. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss these rest stop murder cases. Be careful if you're traveling the interstates this holiday season. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology   An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 88 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you as you get ready for the Thanksgiving holiday? I'm doing good. How about you?

Yeah, I'm doing great, man. You know, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of year. It's morphed. I used the word morphed, but it's morphed over the years where, you know, early days, it seemed as though we had to pack up the car. The kids were little. We always had to pack up the car and go to everyone else's house. In recent years, I've made the decision that, no, I'm going to stay here.

I'm going to hunker down in my own home. I'm going to, you know, help out with the turkey. I'm going to eat the turkey. whoever wants to come over can come over. So that's kind of been a switch in philosophy for me over the years. Do you have a big family? No, I don't have a huge family, to be honest with you. So that's part of it.

Yeah, I think I'm in the same boat. We have a smaller size family and my father-in-law passed away this year. So this is going to be our first Thanksgiving with Adam. So it's just going to be a small scale, get together, you know, the small family hanging out. taking it easy, watching some football, falling to sleep on the couch, that kind of thing. And it's what it's all about is the family time. You know, whether... Yeah, I mean, you know, when it comes down to it, that that's really what it is. It just got to be overwhelming, you know, especially when the kids were little, having to pack them up and drive to three, four different places.

So I say I don't have a big family and I don't. But, you know, my parents are divorced. So I have multiple families. You know, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, you got to make the rounds. That, that's kind of what it became. You have to make the rounds. And, you know, at the end of the day, you're like, man, I'm just tired. Especially once the, uh, triptophan kicks in. Yeah. When, when that kicks in, you know, you want to have your, your extra large sweatpants on. You want to be on the couch. Like you said, watching football. All right. More, before we dive into this case, let's do our Patreon shoutouts. And we actually only have two. So kind of calling on everybody.

And I know it's that time of years. We get closer to the holidays. But we do need your support. We had Abby Anderson. And then we had the dark puteen podcast, podcast that you and I more, if are very familiar with. We know Mike Brown,

who happens to be another Mike. We met him on a number of occasions at some of the conventions. He's a great guy with a, an outstanding podcast. Yeah, he's a really fun guy and that podcast is pretty cool. And Abby, thank you for your support. I have a daughter at home named Abby. So that's always a fun name for me. And if you'd like to help support criminology through Patreon, you can do so by visiting patreon.com slash criminology. So we talk about the holiday season. And no doubt, a lot of us are going to be making travel plans, maybe to go visit family. It kind of gets amplified.

right, your travel schedule a lot of times around the holidays. But it really could be any time of the year when we need to travel. Maybe it's a family vacation, some type of fun road trip. When you're traveling by vehicle, right? So you've made the decision. You're going to hop in the family cruiser and you're going to go somewhere. Well, many people pull over at a rest stop to take a break from driving, stretch their legs, use the bathroom. I have done it countless times with my family, more if I'm sure you have to.

Yeah, you take those road trips. You're ready to get where you're going, but you've got the kids stopping to say, hey, I have to use the bathroom every 10 minutes. So I think in one way or another, most of us have been there. And in a lot of cases, I think we're assuming that this is safe to do, right? Pull over pretty quickly. Park. Let's get out. Stretch our legs. Go to the the bathroom, but a lot of people, I think, more if are unaware of the dangers that may be lurking, that doesn't just go with rest stops. All right. I'm not putting that on rest stops. I think just in general life, we can't always know what dangers are out there lurking. But in this scenario, we get back into our cars and we drive on towards our destination. But for some people, the outcome is

altogether different. So in the cases that we're covering in this week's episode, the murder victims were all at rest stop areas. And the first of these cases involves an elderly man named Dexter Stefanik, who 34 years ago this week started a road trip to get home and drove straight into a mystery. Dexter Stefanic was born on January 31st, 1918, in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. He married Vivian Abbey on December 15th, 1940. The couple had a son named David, who was born in 1941. The Dephonics lived in Rhinelander their whole lives. Dexter was a retired paper mill worker, and his plan in retirement was to spend his days with his wife Vivian.

But sadly, on Christmas Day, 1984, Vivian passed away at the age of 79 while in Portland, Oregon. Understandably, Dexter was heartbroken and alone after, his wife died. He tried to keep busy around his home, but he was isolated and lonely. Months after Vivian passed, Dexter's son David, convinced him to drive out and spend time with him and Dexter's granddaughter, Karen, and Krista. The trip wouldn't be a quick one. Dexter wanted to drive the 2,000 miles from his home in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, to his son's home in Corbett, Oregon. Dexter and David originally agreed that Dexter would stay the entire winner. But as the anniversary of Vivian's death approached, Dexter decided that he wanted

to head back to Wisconsin. He was homesick. David tried to convince his father to stay, but Dexter was anxious to get home. He told David that he was not going to stop at motels to rest. Instead, he'd stop at rest stops along the way, just long enough to get a good nap in. Now, Dexter had driven to and from Oregon on several occasions. So, you know, really, there was no reason to be concerned. He had done this before. Dexter left his son's farm in Oregon on November 18, 1985. The next day, about 1,100 miles away, a burning car was found at the bad route rest stop off Interstate 94 near Glendive, Montana. Dawson County Sheriff Jim George arrived shortly after and pulled behind the burning vehicle. The inside of the car was completely engulfed in flames, but there was no one inside the car.

Sheriff George ran the plates. The car belonged to Dexter Stephanic of Wisconsin. Police searched the area around the rest stop, but didn't find any sign of Dexter or clues to his whereabouts. The bad route restop was just over halfway between Dexter's son's home and Dexter's. Sheriff George had an arson expert examined the car, and the expert found that the car had been deliberately set on fire using gasoline. The car's back seat and trunk had burned the hottest. So the expert determined that the fire had started in the back seat. Sheriff George also noticed that the driver's seat was pushed all the way back. Dexter Stefanik was a short man. He would have needed the seat pulled all the way up.

maybe not as far forward as it could go, but pretty close to be able to drive. So Sheriff George concluded that whoever drove the vehicle last stood at least six foot tall. How many cases have we heard about over the years where there's always something off about that front seat and it jumps out to investigators or to family members? Yeah, it happens quite a bit. You know, I kind of run into it when for some reason I need. to drive my daughter's car. My daughter is off at college. She didn't take her car because she's a freshman. So, you know, every now and then, if I've got my truck in the shop or whatever, I'll need to

drive her car. Well, I have to put the seat all the way back. You know, I'm fairly tall. The one thing that I do when I pull the car back in is I move the seat back to where it was. Now, I have to wait until I get out or I wouldn't be able to get my leg. out. But you look at some of these cases and think, all right, you have a killer, you have a criminal. Do they not think about that? And obviously, they don't or they would make the decision to move the seat back close to where it was. It's just not something they're thinking about, but it's a big clue, right, in a lot of these types of cases. I don't think it's natural to remember that like you putting the seat back where you found it, it's pretty unusual because

my wife and I are always sabotaging each other when we drive each other's vehicles. So one of us will leave the other one's seat and we're fussing about, hey, you didn't put my seat back where I like it. And I just wonder if some of these criminals, when there's a case like this, if it's just not a natural thing to think of changing that seat back to where it was. Yeah, I don't think it's at the top of their checklist, but, and I'm not telling criminals how to be better at what they do. We don't want that. But it's a big thing. It gives investigators insight into kind of how things unfolded because it's strange. You know, given the size of the driver, you can kind of figure out where that seat would be. And if it's way farther back, not too hard to figure out that somebody

much taller was probably driving. Three hours before Dexter's burning car was found, Fred Siegley, the custodian of the bad route rest stop, a ride for work between 8 a.m. and 8.30. He noticed a pickup truck parked there, but the driver wasn't around. At 8.45 a.m., Clyde Mitchell, a Montana Highway maintenance supervisor, made a stop into the rest area.

He saw Fred's pickup truck there and a white Chevy pickup facing southeast. Clyde took a closer look at the truck and noticed it was a white four-wheel drive Chevy with blue trim and a cap on it. The truck had Arizona license plates and a cowcatcher on the front. And I don't know, maybe not everybody morph will be familiar with the term cowcatcher. I live in Ohio.

So you see a lot of trucks with this type of thing on the front. You know, essentially it looks almost like a little mini gate that wraps around the front end of the truck to try to protect it from damage. You know, on some of these rural roads and. Ohio and, you know, in other places as well, there's all kinds of things that will jump out in front of you. The biggest problem we have is deer. We have a pretty large population of deer. And on some of these rural roads, especially at night, they just will run right out in front of you. I think that's a good way to save your truck from being smashed up if you should hit something in the road. Well, let's be honest. Trucks these days are quite expensive. You know, I did some truck shopping.

a few weeks ago. I think you looked at trucks not that long ago, but man, you get some sticker shock on some of these new trucks getting into the 50s, 60s, 70s, and even higher, depending on the model. So back to Clyde. He noticed this white four-wheel drive Chevy. The truck to him look suspicious because it was parked pretty far away from the bathrooms. He also noticed that the truck contained enough bedding and clothes in the back to suggest that someone was living in it. So he thought maybe whoever drove the truck was a rest stop squatter. Clyde asked Fred if he had seen anyone around the truck, but Fred had not. But there was no doubt.

It had been there all morning. At 9.15 a.m. Clyde left to finish his round. It was about 15 minutes later, 9.30, that Dexter's Brown, Plymouth, Horizon pulled into the rest stop. But it wasn't Dexter driving the vehicle. The driver got out of the vehicle carrying two large jugs. Fred encountered the man and asked him if he was having any problems. The man said no. He had run out of gas and had to go get some. Fred later told police that this man stood about six foot tall. He was between 35, 40 years old, light-complected, and clean-shaven. Fred didn't think anything of this guy, and he left the rest-stop shortly after.

Within 30 minutes, Dexter's car was on fire. Clyde Mitchell was driving back towards the bad route rest-stop when he spotted smoke rising on the horizon near the rest-stop. His first thought was that Fred had set the place on fire while smoking a cigarette. When he arrived back at the rest-stop, the Chevy truck was gone, and in its place was Dexter's Plymouth Horizon, engulfed in flames. Clyde began shoveling snow onto the burning car, trying to put the flames out, but he stopped when he heard the rear tires begin to pop. He called the fire department and checked the bathrooms for an owner, but he found no one around. Okay, that's a little scary, right? That situation, it sounds like he had a really good idea. There's all this snow around. I'll start shoveling it

on the car, I'll put it out. You start to hear those tires pop, you get a little scared. Eventually, the fire is going to come in contact with that gasoline in the car. And when it does, something bad's going to happen. And you don't want to be standing too close to it. And I think everybody maybe has a built-in recognition of that and seen so many TV shows and movies where things blow up. And I remember one time I got in a car accident that wasn't major at all. and it didn't even start a fire, but the first thing I wondered was, was the car going to explode and I jumped out? So you can't blame him for trying to get away from that and being worried about that. I don't blame him at all.

Now, I know today cars are much safer, obviously, when it comes to that scenario, but still eventually, if you have a car engulfed in flames, it's going to at some point ignite that gasoline. It just, it has to. police believe that the man Fred spoke with, waited for Fred to leave, doused a car with gasoline, and then lit it on fire. Then he got into the pickup truck with the Arizona tags and drove away. The last time anyone saw Dexter Stefanik, he was getting gas at a station in Park City, Montana.

So we have Dexter's car on fire. We have this mysterious man who police believe, set his car on fire, drove away in a pickup truck. Obviously they're investigating this. No sign of Dexter. And then it's four months later in March of 1986 that a couple named Bill and Cindy Shaw drove to a remote landfill about 17 miles away from the bad route rest stop to dispose of their garbage. While they were at the dump site, they found a wallet with cash and a driver's license. the wallet also contained four postcards. This was a very significant clue because Dexter Stephanic had been writing to a lady friend back in

Wisconsin as he drove across the country. And he would write out these postcards, stop and send them through the mail as he went on his way. Bill Shaw immediately thought the wallet might have belonged to the man whose car had been on fire. at the rest stop the previous November. The couple started looking around the landfill for other clues and discovered several items of men's clothing that didn't belong there. They looked new and clean, not something you'd expect to see in a dump. These clothes would also become a significant clue.

Because the couple were positive, the clothing was not there a week before when they were last at the dump site. They continued looking around and Bill found a boot. When he went to pick up the boot, he saw a man's foot partially hidden under a master. and they left to call police. The authorities went to the remote scene and began to investigate. The Dawson County Coroner positively identified the body as belonging to Dexter Stefani. But this positive identification was no easy task.

Police couldn't find Dexter's dental records because his dentist had retired and moved to Thailand. Dexter's son David told investigators that Dexter did not serve in the military, and he was not aware of any agency that would have had his fingerprints on file. Wisconsin police sent Dexter's medical records to the Montana crime lab, and whatever contents were in there helped identify the body. The coroner said that Dexter had been beaten and shot twice in the head. Investigators recovered Dexter's suitcase from the landfill, and it contained money, so robbery was unlikely the motive. All the clothing the shawls found belonged to Dexter.

Police were convinced that whoever killed Dexter had disposed of his belongings just days before they were found. But his body had most likely been there in the dump since he disappeared in November. The condition of the body indicated it had been there since the burning car had been found. So questions here, Morph, we have to ask, we have to talk about them. why would the killer dump the belongings months later after he dumped the body? That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense when you factor in that there's a good likelihood that the killer was from Arizona, at least based on the plates from the truck that he was driving.

I think one thing we should probably mention too is that this dump site is not like a side of the road drive by it. and you'll see a dump site, this is something that was way out off the main roads. And investigators felt that whoever dumped Dexter's body and his belongings there probably knew about this dump site. And that's something that we see in a lot of cases as well, right? If you're not from the area, are you going to be driving around and just happen upon a dump site? Yeah, maybe.

But I think in most cases, and definitely in the minds of, of investigators, it points to the fact that the perpetrator has some specific knowledge of the area. And I think it's a very good assumption. 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 in possible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your

podcasts. One week after Dexter's body was found, authorities found another clue on the men's bathroom wall at the bad route rest stop was a single line of graffiti. It read Hot Jock shot Wad from Wisconsin, 11 slash 85 Saturday the 3rd. So I think you read that and just naturally go to, okay, this is the typical kind of adolescent gross writing that you might see written on a bathroom wall. It sounds like it's sexual in nature. It's pretty common, unfortunately. But police didn't see it that way.

Police believe that hot jock with a CB radio handle and Wisconsin 1185 referred to Dexter. But Saturday the 3rd was incorrect. Dexter's date of death was November 18th, which was a Monday. It's possible this writing had nothing to do with Dexter Stephanic, where if it was the killer who wrote it, he got the date wrong. The police theorized that the reference to Shot Wad may have been a reference to shooting someone. Montana authorities tried to retrace Dexter's movements. They believe that he arrived at the bad route restop a little bit after 7 a.m. And they believed that the killer was already there when he pulled in. Now, one thing we haven't

mentioned was that Dexter was hard of hearing. So Sheriff George's theory was that the killer tried to get Dexter's attention and asked him for a ride because he had run out of gas. But the killer failed to get Dexter's attention, became angry, and then forced Dexter out of his car at gunpoint. Now, what's unclear is the timing, right? Exactly what time Dexter was actually murdered, or what movements the killer made after abducting Dexter. And it's this word abduction that I think we have to expand on just a little bit. Part of the police theory focuses on this unknown perpetrator abducting Dexter at gunpoint. Now, I don't know that they know exactly how the scenario went down, whether Dexter was forced to get into this person's truck and then ultimately

driven to the dump site or whether the killer forced Dexter at gunpoint to drive to the dump in his car, Dexter was killed. The killer then drove the car back to the rest stop, set it on fire, and then took off in his truck. In 1986, Sheriff Jim George sent Clyde Mitchell and Fred Siegley to meet with an FBI hypnotist in Denver. He was hoping that either man could remember the Chevy Pickups license plate number. Clyde was able to identify the first numbers of the plate 147. Police ran through Arizona's DMV all license plates that began with 147. They received 279 hits. In 2017, current Dawson County Sheriff Ross Canaan was able to narrow that list down to 60. He then used the 13-digit vehicle identification number, or VIN, of each truck, to narrow it down

even further. He contacted Arizona authorities to make sure those trucks were the right color. He also looked for criminal activity associated with any of the owners of those vehicles. Canaan got a few leads, but none of them led to the suspected pickup truck. On April 12, 1989, the case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries. After the episode aired, the show received dozens of calls. As a result of the broadcast, most of the calls came from law enforcement officials who had similar murders happen in their cities. But to date, no one has ever been charged.

in Dexter Stephanic's murder and it remains unsolved. Dexter's son David is now 78 years old and still resides in Oregon. 34 years later, the details of just what exactly happened to Dexter Stephanic and why, as well as who was responsible, remain unanswered. And more if you really have to feel for David, 34 years. And he still has no idea. exactly what happened to his father. I didn't see a lot of information out there about David, but you have to believe that even though it's not warranted, he probably feels some,

I don't want to say responsibility. Obviously, he didn't have anything to do with it. But I think it's natural in some of these situations to carry that burden of, okay, I asked my dad to come out. What would have happened if, I didn't make that request. Now, I don't want anybody to take it the wrong way. Obviously, I'm not putting anything on David. What I'm saying is victims' families, I think, often go through those type of thoughts. And it nags at them for years and years.

And I think the crime itself was really brutal. You have this elderly man. He's hard of hearing. He's out there traveling by himself. And someone took advantage of him for whatever reason and seems to have killed him for no real motive. His money was found. His belongings were found. His car was burned. So it seems like the only reason for killing him was for the sake of killing him. Well, and that's the thing that really troubles me in this case. You know, the questions abound about why the murder even occurred in the first place.

Now, you can say that about a lot of murders, but with some murders, you know why it happened. You don't agree with it, you don't understand it, but there's a motive behind it. Money, jealousy. You know, you can tick, tick them off right down the list. With this one, there seems to be nothing. I mean, is Dexter at 78 years old was not a romantic rival to anyone, as far as I can tell. You wouldn't think he would be. The guy had some money with him. It wasn't taken, it's just a real head scratcher, Morp. And then you have the whole aspect of his body being found at a different time than his belongings were, and the possibility that the belongings were put out there far after the fact. So it seems to be some fascinating clues there

that just didn't lead to an identification of anybody. Our next case takes us just outside of Gaylord Michigan, just a little over 300 miles from Dexter Stephanics home in Wisconsin. This is where the brutal 1979 murder of Jane Snow, Shocked Area Residence. Jane Snow was born on April 11, 1948, to John and Marion Barabo, and she was one of six children. Jane grew up in Escanaba, Michigan, and attended a strict Catholic school where she enjoyed testing the nun's authority at any opportunity. Jane was a strong-willed young woman, but with a kind and loving heart. Jane graduated from the St. Joseph School of Nursing in Hancock, Michigan and became a registered nurse. After graduation, she worked in Lansing and around the Detroit

area. Jane married Joseph Snow on June 9th, 1969, and they later had two sons, Eric and Mark. But the marriage didn't last and the pair divorced. Jane and the kids moved to Grand Rapids, around 1973, where she got a job first at St. Mary's Hospital, and then later at the Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital, where she worked with paraplegics and quadriplegics. Jane was dedicated to both her work and to her sons. It took a while for Jane to get used to being a single mother. With her life centered on the kids and her job, there was little time for anything else. In 1979, Jane decided she wanted to raise her boys in her hometown of Escanaba, Michigan, where it was safe and away from the crime of the big city. She had a job lined up at St. Francis Hospital in Escanaba and enrolled

the boys in Holy Name School for the upcoming school year. On May 15, 1979, Jane, along with nine-year-old Eric and seven-year-old Mark, started the long drive from Grand Rapids to Escanaba. This is about a 380 mile drive. Jane tried to avoid driving at night, but made the decision that for this drive, it was the best way to go. The family left home at around 5 p.m. So most of the driving was done in daylight because sunset for that day was around 902 p.m. At around 7.30 p.m., Jane and the boys pulled into the Loon Lake rest stop area just south of Gaylord Michigan. Eric and Mark went to use the men's restroom and Jane used the women's restroom. After the boys were done, their mother hadn't come out of the bathroom yet.

So like typical boys their age, they got bored, they started throwing rocks at frogs in the lake. After a while, they started to become worried. They were wondering why their mom hadn't come out of the restroom, so they made the decision to go in. Eric and Mark found their mother dead in a pool of blood on the restroom floor. Horrified, the boys ran off for help and flagged down a motorist who took them to the state police post at Gaylord around 8.30 p.m. Police raced to the scene and started to investigate, but there was no evidence found in the crime scene. and the murder weapon thought to be a knife was never recovered. Police searched the area around the rest stop, the median, and the other side of the freeway,

but they came up empty. Divers combed the bottom of Loon Lake, but they too came up empty-handed. The autopsy report showed that Jane had been stabbed 23 times in the chest, back, and on both of her arms and legs. She also suffered a broken wrist. To law enforcement officials, it's. seemed as if Jane's murder was a crime of passion, and they began investigating Jane's ex-husband, Joseph Snow. But Joseph Snow had an alibi that checked out. Just three days after Jane's murder, police made an arrest. It was around 7.25 p.m. on May 15th, just a few minutes before Jane's murder,

that a state trooper named Eugene Cyble picked up a 28-year-old man. named John McGaulay. McGali was hitchhiking on Interstate 75, about a half mile from the restop. The state trooper told him that it was prohibited to hitchhike on interstate highways in Michigan. The trooper took down his name and dropped him off at the next exit. When the trooper found out about the murder, he gave the information to his colleagues and the police traced McGaulay to the home of a friend named Michael Dean in Pontiac, Michigan. When police questioned Michael Dean, he had lots to say about McGaulay, and what he said got the full attention of investigators.

Dean told them that McGaulay owned a large black-handled knife that he referred to as, quote, a show knife. Dean said that McGaulay kept the knife in a leather case and sometimes strapped it to his leg. Dean also said that McGaulay had recently sold the knife. John McGaulay was a former Marine and had a tattoo on his right arm of a bulldog wearing a military helmet with the inscription Mad Dog, which is what people called him. In 1972, McGali was sentenced to three years in a Rhode Island prison for breaking and entering. He was paroled in June 1973, but returned. to prison three months later on a parole violation. He remained in prison until January 1975. On the Friday before the murder, McGailly and his wife, Gene, left the Pontiac area

for Indian River, where Gene's father owned a restaurant. McGali told friends he had hitchhiked back to Pontiac on Tuesday, May 15th, the night of Jane's murder. He apparently arrived in Pontiac around 2 a.m. on the 16th and stayed at the home of a friend named Frank Burns. Burns lived at the home with a man named Leo Elwirt Jr. and his father, Leo, Sr. McGaulay told the men that he had gotten into a fight with his wife, Jean. She kicked him out and he needed a place to stay. So McGaulay spent the night there and the next day called Michael Dean. Frank Burns gave him a ride to Dean's home. And as they arrived, police were waiting for McGaulay with their guns drawn.

Dean told the local media in 1979 that John was a frequent drug user and could get violent. The year before, he had punched Dean in the face and broken his nose. Police arrested John McGaulay at Dean's house and took him to the Pontiac State Police Post and then on to the Oakland County Jail. The next day, he was taken to Gaylord, where he was questioned by state police. blood was found on John McGulley's clothes, and it was later tested in a crime lab. But that's where things took a strange turn. The blood didn't match Jane Snow's blood type.

There was another killing in the area at the time that police thought may have been related to Jane's murder. Four days after Jane was killed, 17-year-old Victoria Livermore was found dead by mushroom hunters in an Antrim County field. this was about 15 miles from the rest of it. Victoria was last seen at 2 a.m. leaving her brother's van after an argument. An autopsy showed she had been hit several times in the head with a hammer. But a man named Ramon Scola confessed to Victoria's murder pretty quickly. After it occurred, Scola said he killed Victoria at a family summer cabin.

Police found his bloody fingerprint at the cabin. and the blood turned out to be Victoria's. Scola had picked up Victoria hitchhiking. He was ultimately sentenced to 50 to 80 years in prison. So after looking into any possible connections, investigators were pretty confident that the two cases were not related. Without any solid physical evidence linking John McCauley to Jane Snow's murder, police had to release him.

In July 1979, Jane's parents, offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the rest of their daughter's killer, but no one came forward. Investigators could never establish a motive in Jane's murder. She wasn't robbed, were sexually assaulted, and the attacks seem unprovoked. It seemed as if Jane was targeted by a perpetrator whose only intention was to kill for the sick of killing. Jane Snow's murder made Michigan's Department of Transportation take a closer look at the safety

of the state's rest stop areas, they installed better lighting, and they asked state police to patrol more often at the rest stops. They also installed telephones at all rest stops where callers could dial a toll-free emergency number 24 hours a day. In 1989, police used some of the new advances in forensic technology to test evidence from the case. In an attempt to link John McGaulay to the murder, but nothing came of it. To date, John McGaulay remains the prime suspect in Jane's murder, but he's never been tried or convicted for it. In 2009, McGaulay was in prison in Kinross Correctional Facility in the Upper Michigan Peninsula for 2007 conviction for retail fraud. He was discharged from prison

on September 23rd, 2017, but the 69-year-old's current whereabouts are unknown. In the wake of their mother's brutal murder, Jane's children were raised by their father, Joseph Snow. Jane's mother died in 1995, followed by her father in 2004. Her surviving siblings still firmly believe that John Magali may have killed Jane and gotten away with murder. So this was a tough one, Morif, I mean, obviously they all are, but when you're talking about a mother with two small children, and not only that, but it's these two. These two, two small children that find her dead. That's brutal. That's something that is going to stay with them for the rest of their lives, not only the loss of their mother, but having to discover her body.

And then when you talk about, okay, who committed this heinous murder, this John McGailly guy is a very interesting person of interest. I don't know suspect versus person of interest, but he's an interesting guy to look at. There's no doubt about that. One of the parallels between this and the Dexter Stephanic case is the complete lack of any real motive. But one thing that's different is, unlike Dexter Stephanics case, there is a prime suspect in this case, John McGaulay. And for whatever reason, despite that, he has never been tried or convicted for this crime. And I think in some of these unsolved.

cases where there is a leading suspect. I'll term it as that. It's frustrating, right? Police a lot of times come out and say they believe that this person had something to do with it, but they just can't put the case together. And you can think that somebody had something to do with a murder all you want, but that's not enough, right? We know that. You have to have the physical evidence. You have to have have some circumstantial evidence. You have to roll it all together to be able to get a jury to say, yeah, this guy did it. And they obviously just don't have it. That's a real shame for her family too. All right. Morph. Our final rest stop case takes us north of the border into Canada where a couple enjoying their life together, traveling around in an RV crossed paths with a cold blooded killer.

Gordon McAllister married Jackie Ferguson in September of 1952 in Ontario, Canada. The couple eventually had five children, three girls and two boys, and raised them in Lindsay, Ontario, a small community about 85 miles northeast of Toronto. On June 27, 1991, Gordon and Jackie were traveling around Ontario in their RV when they decided to find a place. to stop and sleep for the night. They wanted a quiet spot and they found it when they came across a place called the Blind River Restup, about 85 miles from the U.S. Canadian border on Highway 17. This is part of the Trans-Canada Highway. Gordon and Jackie stepped outside of the RV and looked around. It was peaceful and quiet and nobody else was around. So they decided to stay the night there.

Early the next morning, June 28th, at around 1 a.m., the couple was sound asleep, when all of a sudden they woke to a man pounding on the door of the RV. The man said he was a police officer, and he wanted them to open the door. Jackie got out of bed and answered the door. When Jackie opened the door, the man who had been knocking, barged into the motor home, carrying a 22-caliber rifle, as well as a 20-gauge shotgun. He demanded their money and valuables. Jackie gave him money and some of her jewelry. But even though Jackie did exactly what the man said to do, he shot her.

And Jackie fell to the floor. It was at that point that Gordon made a run for the door, jumped out of the RV and rolled underneath it. The intruder shot at Gordon as he dove under the RV, grazing him with the shot. At that very moment, another car pulled into the rest stop. The driver was a 29-year-old man named Brian Major. After he saw the gunman exit the RV, Brian tried to drive away. But the man shot and killed him. Brian was only about a 30-minute drive from his home in Elliott Lake, Ontario.

He left behind a wife and a young son. After killing Brian Major, the gunman drove off. And after he did, Gordon crawled out from under the RV, got in and drove it out to the highway to try to summon help. He got out. He started trying to flag down motorists. It wasn't until that point that he noticed he had been shot. A trucker came along and offered to go get help. But when the help arrived, it was too late.

Jackie McAllister was dead. Gordon was transported to St. Joseph's Hospital. in Blind River, where he was listed in stable condition. His injuries weren't life-threatening. A massive manhunt began with dozens of police officers, tracking dogs, and a helicopter trying to find the suspect. A nationwide alert was issued for the suspect because police believed he had fled the area. Five days after the double murder, police released a drawing of the suspect based on Gordon McAllister's description. The man was around 30 years old with blonde, wavy hair and stood about six feet tall. Days later, a witness came forward.

This witness said that he was driving on Highway 17. A few minutes after 1 a.m. on the night of the murders, a blue van took off at a high rate of speed from the Blind River Restop and headed straight toward his car. The van swerved out of the way and continued east towards Sudbury, Ontario. The witness couldn't tell if the van had Canadian or U.S. license plates, but the witness said the vehicle was a full-size 1980s Chevrolet van with white full-size mirrors and white mud flaps. Police ran a check on 3,500 blue vans on both sides of the border, but found no matches. Investigators had Gordon looked through hundreds of mugshots, but none of them were his wife's killer. Police then turned to computer technology hoping to improve the original sketch, but that also didn't help identify the killer, who today remains unidentified. It wasn't until about eight years after the murders that police had their first solid suspect in the case.

It was a man named Ronald Glenn West, a former police officer who in August 1999 had been linked through DNA to two unsurbed. solved murders from 1970. He was charged with first degree murder in the 1970 killings of two women, both nurses and both young mothers. On May 6, 1970, 34-year-old Doreen Morby was at her home in a small rural town north of Toronto with her 21-month-old son. Her husband, Albert, was a schoolteacher. He arrived home from work and found Doreen dead on the living. room floor. She had been raped and shot five times in the back of the head and two more times in the back with a 22 caliber weapon. Doreen's son was also in the living room but was alive and unharmed. On May 19, 1970, another similar murder took place. That day, Helen Ferguson was home with her nine-year-old

son Dale. He was sick with the mumps and stayed home from school. Someone knocked on the door and then Dale heard his mother talking to a stranger. As Helen passed by Dale's bedroom, she holler at him to stay in his room. She said he was getting medicine for a sick child outside in a car. Twenty minutes had gone by since his mother told him to stay put. Dale then heard his mother and the stranger pass his door going down the stairs. And a moment later, he heard three gunshots. Helen had been shot once in the back of the head and twice in the back with a 22-caliber weapon.

She had also been raped. Dale was able to give police a description of his mother's killer that provided investigators with several leads. But they turned out to be dead ends. These two cases had many similarities. Both women were nurses, both were in their 30s and married to school teachers. They both lived on rural roads. They were raped and shot with a 22 caliber weapon. Ballistics ultimately linked the two crimes together, and seaman was taken from both crime scenes to establish the killer's blood type. But with all that, police back then were unable to track down their killer. In 1995, West was arrested for a series of robberies in northern Ontario. He was later convicted. He was serving an eight-year sentence at Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario, when his name came up in connection with the 1970 murders. In 1999, Detective Inspector Don McNeill was reassigned to the case. At the time of the murders, he was a constable with the Ontario Provincial Police

and was on the initial task force investigating the murders of Doreen and Helen. McNeil started digging into West background. He then took the carefully preserved semen samples from the two victims, as well as a saliva sample from the seal on a letter to Wes's wife, and had all of this tested using modern DNA technology. West DNA matched the saliva sample on the letter, as well as the seaman found at the crime scene. On August 26, 1999, Ronald West, who was 52 years old,

was charged with first-degree murder in the 1970 murders. He pleaded guilty and received two life sentences. It was around the time that West received the two-life sentences, that he became a suspect in the 1991 Blind River Restop murders. At the time of those killings, West lived near Blind River with his second wife and two sons from a previous marriage. His wife said that he resembled the drawing of the Blind River suspect, but with a blonde wig. He also owned the same caliber of guns used in the rest stop murders. Ronald West has never been charged in the murders of Jackie McAllister or Brian Major.

as was the case with Dexter Stefani. The Blind River Restop murders were featured on a memorable episode of Unsolved Mysteries, but the attention didn't really help move the case along. And today, the murders remain unsolved. Gordon McAllister passed away in 2012 without ever knowing who murdered his wife. He was 84 years old. At the time of his wife's murder, the couple was just three months shot. of celebrating their 39th wedding anniversary.

So heartbreaking, right? More for this guy that had spent 39 wonderful years with his wife, but was deprived of spending many more years with her. And then I think to, you know, spend the rest of your life up until the day that you die, wondering every day. Number one, who did this? who took my wife away from me. And then number two, why?

For what reason? I think unlike Jane Snow and Dexter Stephanics cases that we talked about earlier, this one seems to have a motive, which was robbery. But when you think about it, is that really a motive? Or was this killer looking for an excuse to kill just using robbery as a way to get that done? because even though Jackie complied, he shot her at point-blank range. So we're dealing with somebody here who seems to have wanted to kill her regardless. And I have a lot of trouble with these robbery slash murders.

I don't condone robbery at all. But what I can't figure out is, okay, the person is doing what you are asking them to do. They're handing over their cash. they're handing over their valuables, but you make the decision anyway that you're going to take their life. I just don't get it. It seems even more senseless than, you know, murders with different types of motives because it's just no need. You've already accomplished what you set out to accomplish unless, as you said, Morf, that was just a small piece of it, right? The person was there to rob and take some things, but they already had in their mind that they were

going to kill. And you could probably argue that he did that to eliminate witnesses so he wouldn't be caught and go to jail. But at the same time, he could have wore a mask and gotten away without being identified. Yeah. I mean, that's a good point that you bring up. I do think a lot of murders committed while a robbery is taking place are committed to, as you said, eliminate witnesses. Nobody wants to get caught. But there are very easy ways to hide your identity. If you wanted, I just think some of these people, they just don't care. They're so callous.

They have such little regard for human life that it doesn't matter to them. And I think for most of us listening, that's tough to wrap our minds around. So these were three interesting cases, Morve, but they should also serve as a reminder, whether it's this holiday season or really any time of the year. We need to be aware. We need to be alert. A lot of times I call it keeping your head on a swivel, especially, you know, late at night, dark, you're stopping at a rest stop.

Those can be dangerous places. And maybe some advice is to keep your doors locked, don't stop off in those kind of places. If you can avoid it, keep your car fueled up and just stay out of those situations where you can keep on driving to a more populated area or more populated rest stop. Yeah, I think they've tried to make them safer over the years. Security at some video surveillance, some, you know, some of those types of things. But, you know, still at the end of the day, if you're stopping off at three, four o'clock in the morning, there's probably not going to be that many people there.

I think the flip side of that is in today's society, we have a lot of, let's say, gas stations that are open 24 hours a day. Is that a better option? I don't know. Thanks to Debbie Buck at TruecrimeDiva.com for writing and research assistance. this episode. As always, if you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. That goes a long way, as does, continuing to tell your true crime-loving friends about the podcast. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology podcast. We also have a Facebook discussion group you can join, which is called Criminology Podcast,

discussion and fans. Right, Morth, that is it for another episode of criminology. I think before we go, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday, those of you that are celebrating Thanksgiving, and even if you don't, spend some time with family, cherish the people around you in your life that you love. If you take anything away from the cases that we do, it should be that, you know, personal security matters, being vigilant, keeping your head on a swivel, knowing what's going on around you. All of that's important. But the other thing is to cherish the loved ones in your life

because you just never know. You don't know what's going to happen. None of us do. I think Thanksgiving is the perfect time to take stock of what we all have and what we all can be thankful for, you know, for a lot of people that's family. So, you know, I just want to say, have a happy Thanksgiving and happy holiday season to everybody out there that's listening. And Morph and I will be back with you next Saturday night with an all-new episode of criminology. So until then, this is Mike. And Morph. And we'll talk to you next week.

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