Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Dealing with a Serial Killer’: Deaths of 6 Women in Portland Area Sparks Fear of Reckless Murderer

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

In the last three months, six missing women have been found dead in the Portland, Oregon area within 100 miles of each other. These mysterious deaths have sparked fear among locals of a calculated serial killer. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy discusses the potential spree killings with Mark Piepmeier, a Hamilton County prosecutor who helped lock up four serial killers.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Save 10% on your entire POM Pepper Spray order by using code LAWCRIME10 at http://bit.ly/3IGNFxvLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Six women found dead in the Portland, Oregon area. Now investigators are working to see if the deaths are connected. We talk to a veteran prosecutor about whether or not a serial killer could be on the loose. I've covered a lot of crime stories over the years, many of them here at law and crime. It always gets me thinking about how important it is for all of us to stay safe. This is Palm pepper spray, and it can help you do just that.

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Portland, Oregon area. The discoveries have led to speculation on social media that the deaths could be the work of a serial killer. The first was Kristen Smith. Her body was found on February 19. Joanna Speaks's death has been ruled a homicide. Her body was found in early April. Bridget Webster vanished in early March and her body was found in late April. Charity Perry's body was also found in late April and Ashley Reel's body was found in May. The remains of an unidentified Native American woman were found in late April, but the Portland Police Bureau says her death is not believed to be suspicious. The Portland Police Bureau also said over the weekend that they have no reason to believe the deaths are connected. But law enforcement agencies are working together

to determine whether or not they are, which they say is common practice. Some of the deaths have been labeled suspicious, but the cause of the deaths have not been revealed. Joining me to discuss how these law enforcement agencies will determine whether or not they actually have a serial killer on their hands, whether or not these deaths are connected in any way is Mark Piedmeyer. He is a veteran and prosecutor out of Hamilton County, Ohio. That's the Cincinnati area. And he's been involved in investigating and prosecuting many serial killers, including Joseph Paul Franklin, Samuel Little, and Anthony Kirkland. Mark, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. You're welcome. And actually, the first one I prosecuted was Alton Coleman. Oh, okay. So it goes back quite a ways, right?

That was 1984. Wow. That's a long time ago. Did you do Donald Harvey, too? No, I did not do Donald Harvey. Okay, okay. Let's talk first of all. You read the story about this speculation, the fear in the community that there could possibly be a serial killer. In reading the stories about this, give me your take. I would agree. The victims appear to be the same type of victims. And some of the serial killers I've prosecuted, they're going after a particular type of victim. That's what I would use Anthony Kirkland as an example there. And also Alton Coleman. They both had who they're picking. And actually, Joseph Paul Frank. Franklin, who was an avowed racist, he shot Larry Flint because he had the audacity to have a white, a naked girl in his magazine with a black man. The two kids he killed in Cincinnati, he shot, he came here just because he was looking for African Americans to shoot. That was the entire reason behind. So there's a victimology there. Anthony Kirkland, who prayed on young girls. He liked to find younger women or girls. His gig was to rape them. strangled them and then set their bodies on fire. Alton Coleman was just killing for the sake of

killing. He just enjoyed killing. But again, he prayed on young, predominantly African-American girls. And then the fourth one I tried, Samuel Little prayed on prostitutes. Sam Little was a little bit different because to him, because I went out and actually interviewed him at a prison in California, his way of getting sexual gratification was to physically strangle someone. That's how he, to him that was sex. And he even told me, I'm just having sex for these women. Some people do intercourse. To me, sex is putting my hands around a lady's neck and strangling her.

And he specifically sought out people that he thought would not be missed. So he would go to inner city areas, find prostitutes, pick them up, get him in his car, and that he would do his deed. So those are the four that I actually went to trial on. And again, looking at your case, the victimology seems similar, which someone is, in my opinion, targeting those type of women. So let's talk about that because as a prosecutor, and your resume is, it's very impressive, very long.

You have a lot of experience in this realm. You often work hand in hand with detectives, with law enforcement officers. when you look at this. So tell me, you talked about victimology, obviously. Tell me what else you're going to be doing and what else you're going to be looking for or what they will be doing out in the Portland area to determine whether or not these are indeed connected, whether these are even homicides. And I'm not sure physically how close those are, but one of the first things you do is figure out is the person operating in a particular area. Anthony Kirkland, for instance, was it was close to where he was actually living, so he wouldn't actually have to drive to different

parts of town to find these people. You also then try to see, is there a time a day or a night where these people went missing? And that's really the key. Where were they when they went missing and what time a day or night was it? So you could try to maybe almost put out a trap for the person. We've never actually gotten to the point where we had a like a bait victim out there because you'd be putting someone at risk to put someone, you know, in this case, a young lady like the ones in Oregon, find someone to go to maybe a desolate area and wait to be kidnapped and murdered. It's more times than not, it's going to end bad.

But that's really what you're trying to do. Try to foresee, well, what is he looking for? And you get a guy like Joseph Paul Franklin and Sam Little, they operated across the entire country. So it was kind of hard. It'd be hard in that situation. but if you have a local, localized serial killer like you have in Oregon, I would think that if I would meet with the police there, that would be our thing.

Who's going to be his next victim? As best you can predict who he's looking for, what time of day or night, and where. One of the detectives, or at least a police officer with the Portland Police Department, really kind of poured cold water on the idea that this could possibly be a serial killer. But are we possibly too early to make that statement? He wanted to kind of back off that claim or that speculation. We have victims who appear to be of similar backgrounds of victimology, as you mentioned. I think it's only logical to look at whether or not these could be connected.

I would agree. And I think you are dealing with a serial killer. There may be a strategic reason for doing what they're doing. Sometimes you get pressure from the elected officials, say, we don't want you to call this a serial killer i could see saying because it's going to scare people from coming to our community i mean it may be something as innocent as that or maybe strategically they may think that by calling him a serial killer it's going to lessen our chances of capturing him or it might spur him on to do it again so i could see a number of reasons why they may put out that message for one strategic reason or

another, but from what I read of what you sent me, you're clearly dealing with a serial killer out there. So you are saying, based on what you have read, on what we have sent to you, that you believe there's a serial killer on the loose out there? Yes, yes. Based on my experience, and again, I don't know how I would approach it. If I would approach it the way they're doing it or not, that's more of a psychologist thing. You know, if we call him a serial killer, how is he going to react to that?

Is he going to amp up his game? Is he going to back off? What's he going to do? And again, that may be, you know, sometimes the police, I notice there's very little information put out on most of those, which is usually what the police do, because if someone comes in and says, hey, I'm the guy you're looking for.

He's not just going to parrot what he read in the paper or from a broadcast somewhere. You know, they want to get the details from him. Or if a witness comes forward and says, Angelet told me she did it, and this is how she did it. If it's information that's never been put out there, then maybe she did give that person this information. So there's a lot of reason to be closed mouth when you're in law enforcement, when you're dealing

with something like this. What should the next steps be, in your opinion, by law enforcement, the public, obviously, if there is this suspicion, they need to be aware. People need to be on guard. If this was happening in Cincinnati, we'd be at the homicide squad. We'd have a big map on the wall of the area where these murders took place. We'd be putting down, you know, there'd be pictures up there of where the person was last seen, where they were found. You try to make a connection there and just try to put all these things together and try to find from all those eventually people are going to notice similarities.

You know, maybe it's every one of these happened by McDonald's, let's just say. Every one of these women was within a quarter miles of McDonald and walking when they disappeared. Well, maybe that's something you want to focus on. But when you put them all together, it may just be a coincidence, but eventually you're going to find similarities between these cases, which will help you predict who you're looking for. That's the way we would approach it here. Let's say this is a serial killer. I would assume, hopefully, there would be some forensic evidence on these women. women, depending on the level of decomposition to their bodies, that could help maybe provide a link.

I mean, we have cell phone data these days. There have been a lot of advancements. Yeah, you can do geo-fencing, which is a relatively new thing, where you can track movements of cell phones. And if you get a suspect cell phone, it's really helpful. The whole idea about DNA and the Kodis data bank is something that, you know, when I started prosecuting, DNA wasn't even a Jules Verne fiction kind of thing yet. No one would ever even thought of something like that. And now most states are in the CODIS data bank, which anybody that's going to prison is going to have a DNA sample taken and put in that data bank. And that's been going on for maybe at least a decade, I would think. So if you can recover any kind of bodily fluids from any of these victims

that is not theirs and run a CODIS hit on something like that, then you're almost home free. of the greatest advancements we have but the other thing is there's cameras everywhere anymore and i would think they're looking at where these women again what their path was or their normal path before they disappeared and so there might be a a blue Chevy pickup truck that's seen in a couple of these areas when these women disappeared so those are the kind of things i think that the police were looking for i would say dna and then cameras out on the street or ringed doorbells things like that are two of the most recent advances that really help solve cases. Well, Mark Pete Meyer, thank you so much for coming on to talk with us and offering your time

and your expertise. We appreciate it. Thank you. Glad to help. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar Podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.