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The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Each week, The Murder Book will present unsolved cases, missing persons, notorious crimes, controversial cases, and serial killers, exploring details of the crime scenes and the murderer's childhood. Some episodes are translated into Spanish as well. The podcast is produced and hosted by Kiara Coyle.
The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Jeffrey gorton's Deadly Secret Part XL Deadly Prints
The hunt for a killer ends with a thumbprint and technology that didn't exist when the crimes were committed. After fifteen years, the brutal murders of Margaret Ebby and Nancy Ludwig—killed five years apart in different Michigan cities—are finally connected through DNA evidence, launching a renewed investigation that faces political obstacles from the start.
Detective Dan Snyder, who had lived and breathed the Ludwig case for a decade, nearly gets pushed off the investigation until forensic scientist Heather Helton intervenes, recognizing him as "the investigation embodied." What follows is a masterclass in cold case detective work as a multi-agency task force systematically collects DNA samples from hundreds of people connected to both victims—former lovers, contractors, students, and acquaintances.
When the breakthrough finally comes, it's through a partial fingerprint from the Ebby murder scene that sat in evidence for fifteen years. The FBI's new Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System matches it to Jeffrey Wayne Gordon, a man with a disturbing history of sexual assaults in Florida who had been released from prison just days before Ebby's murder. Remarkably, Gordon was living just miles from the Flint crime scene, hiding in plain sight all along.
The episode also powerfully recounts the story of Marie Gagliano, one of Gordon's early assault victims in Florida, whose attack foreshadowed his escalating violent behavior. Her journey from trauma to recovery provides a window into the lasting impact of violent crime on survivors, ending with her finding both healing and strength.
This chilling case demonstrates how advances in forensic science, combined with relentless detective work, can finally bring justice to victims when traditional methods fail. For everyone involved in investigating these murders, the identification of Gordon validated years of dedication and proved that no case is truly unsolvable when technology catches up to evidence preserved by diligent investigators.
Welcome to the Murder Book. I'm your host, kiara, and this is part 10 of Jeffrey Gordon's Deadly Secret. Let's begin. When Barna got word of the case-to-case hit, he tracked Helton down to say they have been a breakthrough, that they were on track of a serial killer killer and that she needed to meet with Kilbourne ASAP. So he would need to know things like what evidence did they have stored? What kind of samples were still viable? What was the scene like?
Speaker 1:Barna found her on vacation in the small Upper Peninsula town of Garden. He reached her through the landline number and she agreed to come to a meeting at the Flint Post as soon as she was back in a couple of days At the Flint meeting. From what Cahum said, quote I have inklings or tibbets that then would not be in the loop. End quote she was and is a big fan of Snyder's, having worked several bad scenes with him, and she would say that you would never find another more dedicated individual like Dan, never, never. What you see is what you get. He's sincere, he's sincere, he's genuine, easily one of the finest detectives I have ever worked with. If this had to happen to Nancy then thank God it happened in a place where there will be someone like Dan, and those were, you know, very meaningful words. Now none of her cases ever hit Hton the way the Ludwig case did. Nothing pumped her up more than finding that they would make a breakthrough on it and nothing irritated her more than finding out that politics were going to keep the one guy off the case who absolutely had to be there, not one to normally have an agenda. After the first meeting with Kilbourne she says quote my only goal was to get Dan back involved. He was the investigation embodied. He had every detail because more physically and mentally organized. You could ask him any question about any aspect of the case and he could respond he was the investigation end, quote.
Speaker 1:Her second meeting on the case was with Larson, kilbourne and Early at the Northville Crime Lab. Early again said he and Romulus were swamped and that maybe it would be best if they just turned the case and the Renew investigation over to the Michigan State Police and tips that came into Romulus how about they just forward them on? Early also told them he had brought himself up to speed by reading the file. But Helton was dubious. She thought there's no way you can learn what you need to know by reading from a file. She would try to be fair, give him a chance. But almost from the start it was apparent to her that Dave Early didn't know a hill of beans about this case and she said quote, I would tell him things about the case. He didn't know a hill of beans about this case. And she said quote, I would tell him things about the case he didn't know. I was appalled. It was a disaster. End quote. It was about to get worse.
Speaker 1:Hilton finished her line of conversation at some point and Early chimed in with his theory of events in the Hilton hotel room. It was his considered opinion that the killer had in fact killed Ludwig by hanging her over the curtain rod in the bathroom. When he said this, there was this heavy silence. Hilton looked at him as if he had a twitching rat's tail sticking out between his closed lips and Hilton said quote. I was stunned. I thought that's the stupidest thing I ever heard. This guy has no investigative skills at all. He got no experience with crime scenes. It's a mindless comment from dumb bureaucrat. End quote. She didn't show anger. Her skills honed by years of precise testimony at trial. She went point by point through a demolition of Early's theory. And she told him out flat of Early's theory. And she told him out flat there is no way, no way. They would have been entirely different bloodstain patterns at the scene. She was quiet and professional. She laid out the factual information why the evidence was clear. It didn't take long to slam dunk him and put the kibosh on that whole harebrained theory.
Speaker 1:Now, after that, the meeting soon ended, early didn't try to contribute anything else as soon as he left. Helton says, quote I had a hissy fit to get Dan involved. Early pissed me off. It was stupid politics and no one was going to use politics to cause this case to keep being from self. End quote. She told Kilbourne she was not going to stand for it, that it was unconscionable for him to conduct an investigation without going to the source. And the source was Dan Snyder. And she said, quote I was standing in for the victim and I was not going to stand for this. I was fit to be tied. It was shameful. Was Romulus at all interested in Nancy's interests? Absolutely not. It was shameful and almost another violation of the victim. End quote.
Speaker 1:Things are hazy at this point, the team guy Kilburn not wanting to claim credit for calling Kirby early and laying out what had to be done. Somehow the message was delivered, though. By the end of August Early was off the case. Snyder was back on. Romulus was not going to turn over responsibility for the renewal investigation to the state police. Snyder would be part of the task force. He was going to work this thing as hard as he had 10 years earlier In November, a Romulus police patrolman named Al Lambert with a long history in local politics.
Speaker 1:In addition to being a cop, over the years he had also been a city councilman and a member of the school board and a direct descendant of the old boy network that had long run. The city won the election for mayor. Lambert reportedly didn't like Early. Early was out of the DB and back in uniform. On December 1st Snyder was named to head up the DB and promoted to executive lieutenant.
Speaker 1:Snyder pulled Melianak out of his patrol car and out of uniform and put him back in the detective bureau again. Melianak was assigned to the task force too. We'll be right back. Things happen sometimes, and Melianak knew that We'll be right back. Things happen sometimes, and Melianak knew that you make mistakes. But the more he thought about it, the more it took him off that Dave King had blown him off so readily more than 10 years earlier when he had called to follow up on Mark Eby's tip that the two murders seemed related. Up on Mark Eby's tip that the two murders seemed related, melianak had a blood type but it didn't match Stone's and so the cases were unrelated according to King. And Melianak had filed Eby's tip away as just another of many that were dead ends. And Melianak says, end quote out of all the tips you work you hope you don't screw something up or miss something. I was happier than hell to get the cases linked but I will always wish I would have taken the extra step in 1991. I never went to Flint, I never interviewed King directly. In hindsight I wish I would have worked it harder. I don't know If I would have had the experience I have now. I would like to think I wouldn't just have taken his word for it, but he was so sure, end quote.
Speaker 1:In 1991, melianak was a young and experienced homicide detective in a small town. King was the Redmond Big City detective. Sometime shortly after CODIS linked the two cases, snyder ran into King at a police convention and they exchanged introductions. King was still sure Stone was the murderer. When Snyder said something about the two cases being linked, after all, making that point having been the reason he would have wanted to meet him, king replied how do you know? Stone didn't do it and his answer was because he got the wrong DNA. He got the wrong DNA and King then said well, you know he had a dog, don't you? Referring to a dog Stone had always traveled with and who accompanied him to Flint for his 1986 visit. And Snyder? He just looked at King stunned, taking a moment to digest the implication.
Speaker 1:Taking a moment to digest the implication. What was he saying? That Stone took semen from his dog and put it into Margaret Ebby's vagina when he killed her and five years later took more of the dog's semen and put it in Nancy Ludwig's vagina. Yeah, that's what he was saying. So Snyder said quote. At that point I knew there was nothing I could say and end quote. It's an exchange that King acknowledges when he says quote. I still held out the chance we have been manipulated by Stone, because he was such a strange fellow and because of his knowledge In my mind I wonder if it was something from an animal. He was that bizarre end quote. Now, this is the thing.
Speaker 1:Dna told them that the Ebby and Ludwig cases were linked. So too did the crime scene photos. Kilbourne had fixed the photos in his memory, not that you could forget them, having seen them. As soon as he saw the Ludwig photos, it was clear the same killer had committed both crimes. The photos were almost like duplicate prints the slash throat, the torture marks, the body rolled over on its stomach.
Speaker 1:The first thing Kilburn did in August after filing in Romulus on the Ebi link, was to take the photos and all the boxes of information Snyder and Mellinac had amassed back to Flint. He, larson, corona and Diggs then went through it all. They started going through the tips, setting up a computer program and ranking the tips according to several parameters. Tips according to several parameters. And Kilburn says in quote we could tell they have done an excellent job on their tip sheets and follow-ups. I could tell they have spent a tremendous amount of time. End quote.
Speaker 1:Kilburn says Snyder and Malianak later, when he joined the task force, fit right in. They could have groused about an outside agency and in fact critiquing their old work. They certainly could have groused when asked to help go back through 2,300 tips that they have already cleared. But they were terrific clear, but they were terrific. And he says I got total cooperation from those two guys. I knew Dan knew his case. We were there to learn from them and get information out of them. This is what Kilbourne is saying. So they quickly win. We know the 2,300 down to 100. And that was the easy part. And Larson later says, quote you should see some of the crap people had called in Scorned women, nutcases, angry next door neighbors ticked off over long grass or broken fences. The best 100 they looked at in detail, eliminated them one by one.
Speaker 1:The task force also began interviewing principals and witnesses in the Ebi case, trying to find a tie to someone in Romulus or the Detroit era. It was always part of the philosophy of the task force that new or improved technologies would help solve cases once thought to be as dead as the victims. Now with a DNA link from established between two such prominent murders, it was time to work technology hard. The Flynn PD didn't think they have civil logical evidence. Romulus had plenty of it and more than 10 years of technological advances since they have gathered it to support their investigation.
Speaker 1:Many subjects and would-be suspects had been cleared by saliva or blood tests in Romulus. When they came across the names in the Romulus case they had not been given saliva or blood tests at that time. They visited them armed with swabs. More important, it was past time to definitely clear people in Flint. So Larson says, quote we went to every male acquaintance of Ebby's in every shape or form and asked for DNA swabs of Ebbes in every shape or form. And asked for DNA swabs. Larson or another state cop would vigorously rub the swab against the lining of the cheek. Later the collective tissue would go to the crime lab in Lansing for a DNA probe.
Speaker 1:Former lovers had been reluctant to talk when the case was new. Fifteen years later they were not happy especially the ones who had been married and having an affair with Ebi to see police back at their door dredging up their sexual past, and this time with swaps in hand. Nearly everyone cooperated and those who did were cleared. Kilbride and Larson flew to Milwaukee to swap one of Abby's former lovers, soon. The feeling was that Kayla wasn't someone she was intimate with. They took swaps of family and friends, of co-workers at UM Flint, of my employees. They tracked down William Reneker, the organist at Ebby's Church, who had been at the dinner party with her. That night she was killed at the Cypress Retirement Home in Charlotte, north Carolina. That night she was killed at the Cypress Retirement Home in Charlotte, north Carolina, and had the Charlotte-Merkenberg Police Department swap him at the old folks' home in August 15, 2001.
Speaker 1:That's the same day they went public with information that the Abbey and Ludwig cases were linked. They had wanted to sit on it while keeping a secret from the killer, but news had leaked out of the Romulus PD. Channel 4 in Detroit had called the Flint Journal asking a reporter there, and so that same day they went public with information that the Evick and Lubbock cases were linked. They had wanted to sit on it for a while to keep it a secret from the killer. The news, of course, had leaked out of the Romulus PD. Channel 4 in Detroit had called the Flint Journal asking a reporter there. What he knew. The reporter called the Flint PD and at 4.30 pm Chief Barksdale held a press conference and announced that DNA tests had linked the two unsolved murders. They were back in the headlines and a tip line was set up and the tips poured in. Police swapped Jonathan Ebby in August and he too was cleared. He also told them how angry he was to find out the cases were linked, something he had suspected and tried to alert police.
Speaker 1:In the days after Lowick was killed, police compiled a list of hundreds of horticultural students from Michigan State who had worked at the estate during the summer. Over a period of several months about 130 swabs were taken and 130 persons cleared, including one would-be suspect that tracked down in the Pinellas County, german, florida. Hal Settle, who was pulled off the prostitute case, and Charles Diggs, travel the state giving buckle swaps to former Flint residents who had moved. Other police agencies in Florida, pennsylvania, wisconsin, texas, ohio, mississippi and Washington visited people from the too-clear list who live in their states and swapped them. If they couldn't get approvals they resorted to other means to gather DNA. On August 18, they got the okay from the owners of the Heritage Food and Spirits restaurant in nearby Fenton to take an empty bottle of Killian's Irish Red beer, water, glass, napkin, dinner plate and utensils they watched a suspect use. On August 31st the lab reported that the DNA had cleared on him.
Speaker 1:The task force also began working through the population of people the Flint PD had overlooked contractors and some contractors. Mott has the most unbelievable records that everybody can have seen. The police found meticulous records of who was on the estate doing what at what time of day, and he says, quote we wanted to know what kind of contractors might have been affiliated with the Mudd estate that might have given them access to the gatehouse. They came up with the names of 32 contractors who had done work at the estate in 1985 and 1986, including landscapers, electricians, architects, insulation companies, pavers, asphalt groups, excavators, painters and a lawn sprinkler company. They even swapped a former journalism student at Wayne State University whose professor, ben Burns, had assigned the case to his students. But this student continued to hang around the Romulus PD asking for the case for years. He, even after dropping out of school, seemed so preoccupied by it that the police finally thought that they would better clear him. So they took his swap on December 17, 2001. The task force subpoenaed records from UM Flynn and compiled a list of 150 names and addresses of Abby's former pupils, and then they drafted letters asking if they would submit to swabs. They put the letters in yellow manila envelopes, but they would never be mailed. The envelopes still sit at the Michigan State Police post in Flint unstamped, just before settled could run them through the postage meter and before they could finish going through the list of employees of all the subcontractors, they got in trouble, so they got another dramatic break in the case. We'll be right back Early on Born that among the physical bits of evidence from the Ebi crime was a color photo of a bloody fingerprint on the bathroom faucet.
Speaker 1:It was, according to Bonnet, one of those lo and behold moments. Nothing much had been made of the print at the time. It was too much of a partial given the technology at the time to be of value. In 1986, unless you had a perfect full print, the Fed's computers were useless. The Michigan State Police would not have a rudimentary computer fingerprint ID system until 1989. And the only way you could link a partial print to a killer was to already have a suspect in mind, take his prints and see how they compare. Even if the killer's prints were on file with the FBI, it would have taken thousands of man-hours to physically pull prints out of files and visually compare them to the partial. But times have changed. That was the whole point of the task force.
Speaker 1:One of Larson's job was to work the fingerprint angle to enter the EB partial into an automated fingerprint identification system called AFIS, and the results were immediate Nothing, no match. Larson assumed that that was the end of it. He and many other cops thought the state computer system tied into the Fed's national database. But he asked Smith if there was more they could do and Smith said yeah, there might be something else, though it wasn't standard operating procedure yet. So the AFIS system in Michigan only tied into Michigan cases and perps.
Speaker 1:The Michigan system had come online in 1989, the Michigan system had come online in 1989, and no cases were entered after that as time permitted, no-transcript. So a new AFIS system was supposed to allow the State Department databases to interface with the FBI's. But the system was behind schedule and not online yet. But perhaps the FBI's AFIS system was able to make the connection in reverse, so go from the federal to state databases. So he told Larson he would call the feds, see what they could do. It was a long shot and that same day Smith called the FBI headquarters, asked them how to go about trying to get a match on a print he had on an old case. The feds did have a more powerful computerized system for matching prints with of course a more powerful acronym, iafis, the I standing for integrated. So he was told to drop his print in the mail On September 4th.
Speaker 1:The print arrived at the FBI, was routed to Heather Kron, who had been a forensics examiner in the latent print division of the FBI crime lab in Washington DC for three years. Her job was to classify, compare and identify inked and latent fingerprints. Ink prints are those taken by police of suspects rolling the fingertips in ink, rolling the fingers on a card. Latent prints are those left at a scene from the oils on a finger, usually invisible to the naked eye, but which become visible by the use of lasers, chemicals or fingerprint powder. There were other requests ahead of Smith, but she wouldn't be able to get to it soon, so she sent a letter to Smith acknowledging receipt of the prints and a quick response If everything went well. She hoped to have an answer one way or another by mid-September.
Speaker 1:Everything did not go well. Everything went to hell On September 11, as we know, a bunch of hijackers started crashing planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. As 9-11 took on new meaning, suddenly a 15-year-old murder case in Flint was about as far off the beleaguered FBI's radar screen as it could be. Nope, and that's not quite true, because the subsequent anthrax, mailings, murders and frenzy pushed the Flint court case even further from the radar screen and Krohn would be kept busy on more pressing matters for months, for the rest of 2001 and into 2002. Starting to run out of leads and not wanting to leave any stone unturned, on October 17, larson wrote to the producers of Unsolved Mysteries asking them to produce a show profiling the Abbey and Ludwig murders.
Speaker 1:On January 24, 2002, Krohn called Galvin Smith to say his prints were about to go back on her front burner. Early in February Krohn picked up the envelope she first glanced at. Five months earlier she took the negative of a partial fingerprint to the lab's photographic unit and had it photographed. It was a small partial, about half an inch by half an inch of the upper left quadrant of the right thumb. It showed a right slant loop pattern. When the new photo came back to her, she scanned it into the IAFIS system.
Speaker 1:Though casual fans of TV crime dramas and even many police across the country think the feds had all-knowing fingerprints capabilities, the partial print she scanned in would have been fruitless as recently as 1999. The AFIS system that had just come online when Abby was killed in 1986 would not have been able to make a match of such a partial print. You would have needed an entire, pristine impression of a fingerprint to make an identification possible. Iafis works by searching its database and returning a top 20 list of possible matches based on reference points to the printer in question. The examiner, in this case Krohn, then pulls the cards and visually starts eliminating suspects. By the time Kroone was done, one name remained On February 6th, cronko Smith, with the news she had a match to a guy who had been convicted of assaulting a woman in Orlando, florida, in the early 1980s and spent nearly two years in prison in northern Florida at the Lancaster Correctional Institution.
Speaker 1:His name was Jeffrey Wayne Gordon. He was still alive, age 39, and guess what? He was living in Michigan on Tuscola Road in the Flint suburb of Vienna. Smith called Larson, pretending to be as cool as a cucumber, and he said I didn't want to overly excite him, but he was calm, understated, playing the thing for the drama he knew he would bring. And Larson even said that it was one of those days that he would always remember where you were, or where you were with Larson, who was working on an afternoon shift that day, having driven over to Grand Rapids with his wife that morning to pick up his three-year-old grandson Griffin, whose parents were heading to Vegas on vacation. Whose parents were heading to Vegas on vacation.
Speaker 1:Larsen was at the Flint PD with how to settle in the basement office that the task force had expanded into. And then the phone rang and it was Smith, and Smith said we got the results of that partial print back from the FBI. Larson could hear defeat in his voice. He said oh God, it's another dead end. And Smith said that he was very ecstatic. It was a big, big, big case and we have no one to tie it to these kinds of cases you dream of in Boston. So Larson said, and Because he thought well, the worst is coming, he said we got a match. Give me a pencil, I'll give you a name. And then he gave him Jeffrey Wayne Gorton's name, his date of birth, his current address, just a few miles up, 475 from downtown Flint, and Larson's heart started to raise. It was like, according to him, the God of policemen, reaching his hand down and saying you have worked long and hard. I'm going to give you a hand. Enough is enough Of all the thousands of names they have seen and entered into computers, cross-indexed and swapped and cleared. It was the first time they have seen or heard of Gordon.
Speaker 1:Kilbourne was out on an interview and was due back at the Flint State Police post soon and Larson couldn't wait to get there and tell him. So on the short drive over, larson called him on the car radio twice without an answer. So he pulled into his spot near the door to the post, ran inside and there was Kilbourne walking down the hall and he said come on in here, I got some real good news for you. And so he led him into a small office and closed the door. Soon they were both zooming on nearly overdose level rushes of adrenaline. A good thing too, because they have worked 35 of the next 44 hours. And on february hours and on February 7, kron mailed out her official findings to Smith. It was FBI number 54834CA3, case number 95A-HQ-1347984, lab number 610904028MX and in the Common Understated Language of Crime Technicians wrote one latent fingerprint appearing in Q2, a negative source not indicated has been identified as a fingerprint of Jeffrey Wayne Gordon.
Speaker 1:Gordon has been released from prison in Florida on December 24, 1985, after serving less than two years of his four-and-a-half-year sentence. On October 9, 1984, prison psychologist HV Bartlett had reported that Gordon was attending group therapy up to three times a week and that he was eagerly sought help and had been the most productive contributor to the group and I believed quote in the inmate upon who I would be willing to wager for the future. End quote. Yet on April 10, 1985, gordon was placed in administrative confinement for improper contact with a staff member. He admitted trying repeatedly to touch the employee, including reaching out with his toes to try to arrange the employee's clothing, and said he felt he was losing control of his emotions. Nonetheless, prison authorities decided to release Gordon eight months later. It was a Christmas present for him and for the extended Gordon clan back home. But had the Christmas carols Gordon heard on the 25th been a death knell for Margaret Ebby? Who knows? We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Let's go back to April 1983. We're going to look at exactly April 29th and this is going to be something that happened in Orlando, florida.
Speaker 1:Marie Gagliano got out and as she and this is going to be something that happened in Orlando, florida Marie Gagliano got out and as she walked behind her car she noticed off to the right a man heading for her. You know her way. She immediately thought guy walking his dog. She turned to face the rear of the car, put in the key, opened the hatchback and lifted the brown bag, and as she did, her subconscious mind flashed a warning. She wouldn't necessarily have seen a dog, given the car sent a lot, but something about the way the man was walking meant no dog.
Speaker 1:A jolt of fear hit her and as she straightened up the back, still in her arms, she turned to her left. By then, given his rate of speed, he would have been past her Ten yards, twenty yards, somewhere to her left and receding. But the man wasn't walking and he wasn't past her. He was standing right there, his face filling her vision, a foot from hers. In a slasher movie it would have been one of those moments where the audience jumped. A tight shot of a woman in a car. Woman turns man's head, enters, shot from left. Audience gasp in mass.
Speaker 1:Marie screamed as the man reached down, lifted her skirt, grabbed her lower legs and flipped her over backwards. She landed on her left wrist and butt groceries flying through the air and scattering across the pavement. He grabbed her ankles and lifted and she went flat on her back. She screamed one long scream and he held her tightly by each ankle and dragged her toward the nearby dumpster. The boogeyman never made it with her to the dumpster. She screamed so loudly in the not-so-dark parking lot that the boogeyman went to plan B. After dragging her for 10 or 15 yards he let go of her legs, reach out or I should say reach up, grab her, slip, rip it off and ran to his car.
Speaker 1:As she lay there, people started coming to their windows, hollering out to ask about what was going on. If she was okay, his car squirreled out of the parking lot. Two of the faces at the window above her were friends, a rare husband and wife couple in the singles complex. They came down, helped her gather her groceries and monitor her condition. Nothing broken. The baby of heavy bracelets on her left arm, odented in having taken the brunt of her fall. Her right elbow was cut and bleeding, but not badly enough for stitches. Her skirt was ripped. The right cheek of her butt, where she landed on, hurt like a hell. It would later swell up like a grapefruit.
Speaker 1:Back in the apartment she couldn't stop shaking. What if she had not worn a slip? She usually didn't. What if he hadn't been able to get an easy trophy? The cops arrived just 10 minutes after her neighbors called them and took a report. She told them he struck me as a clean cut, a Joe College type nice slacks, a polo shirt, brown. They asked if she needed medical attention and left when she said no. A few days later two detectives stopped by Bourdain's to see her. They had a composite sketch sketch.
Speaker 1:Another woman, betty CQ Dixon, had been attacked in broad daylight the day after Galeano Same MO. She was reaching into her backseat of her car at her apartment complex when she was attacked from behind, knocked to the ground and hit and kick, while the man pulled on her half-slip, eventually ripping it off. He got away but this woman had clearly seen his face and had helped with a composite sketch. After she had ID'd his car a Buick Regal, gagliano said it looked like her assailant. One other thing there would be another assault that they were linking to this guy would be another assault that they were linking to this guy there was a woman named Gita Fisher who also worked at Bourdain's and had been grabbed in the store parking lot on April 8th.
Speaker 1:On Friday night, may 6th, two female Navy recruits were walking on the grounds of the Naval Training Center. A male came up behind them, dropped to his knees, reached up under one of his recruits' skirts and ripped off her slip. Both women started fighting with him. They could hear his dog tags clanging so they knew he was in the military. Meanwhile two patrolling base police cars had seen the commotion and when the man ran to his car and drove off, they pursued him. Unfortunately the two police cars collided with each other and the assailant got away. The guy the Navy police lost was, it was thought, the guy responsible for a one-man crime spree of perversion and assault. In addition to his most recent incident, there had been numerous reports on the base of some guy running up to women pulling off their panties as they stood at phone booths or on street corners. The neighbor investigative service was hot on his trail and there have been numerous stories on TV and radio reports of the various incidents.
Speaker 1:On May 18, police called a break. Earl Demond, the manager of a small 40-trailer Conway Shores mobile home park in Orlando, not far from Marie Galliano's apartment complex, afraid an impending rainstorm would cause a leak, had gotten to one of the trailers to fix a window in need of repair. The trailer stood on lot 18 where a young family lived, jeffrey Gorton, 20, his 18-year-old wife Dawn and the little baby Jeff Jr. Dawn was out of town at the time, having caught a cheap military flight back to Michigan to visit her folks. They have seemed like nice kids at first, not your cliche of trailer tenants. Gordon was in the Navy, stationed in the Orlando Naval Training Center, studying high-tech stuff at the nuclear power school. Sharp guy going places, but something about him rubbed Damon the wrong way. They even had a confrontation recently when the manager asked him about a missing canoe. The sailor denied any involvement.
Speaker 1:Demon wasn't so sure and lately some residents had begun to complain that the young man seemed to be prowling around and was giving them the creeps. Others had complained that some of their underwear had gone missing off clothesline. Anyway, demon goes in the trailer and what does he see in one of the bedrooms? He would tell police later that it was two grocery bags filled with panties, bras and pantyhose. He pulled some out, could readily tell that they would never fit Don. Among the first things that he saw to his shock were some of his young daughter's underwear. Not that the tail needed embellishing, but Demon would later seem to embellish it Instead of finding them in grocery bags. He was caught as telling an Orlando reporter. It was spread out on the bed like he had been counting and organizing it. There were panties, bras and other things all laid out neatly. Demon called the Orange County Sheriff's Department and alarms went off when he told them Gordon drove a Buick Regal. The Navy then gave Orlando police a photo of Gordon as well as photos of other similar-looking naval personnel to be used in a photo lineup. Gordon as well as photos of other similar-looking naval personnel to be used in a photo lineup for the assault victims. The photo of Gordon was of poor quality and neither Gagliano, dixon or Fisher could identify him as their attacker.
Speaker 1:On May 23rd, orlando police visited the trailer park to interview Gordon. He had been evicted by Demon in the meantime and left no forwarding address, so they went to look for him at the base. That same day Don had worked the midnight shift at Taco Bell. They had found a nice apartment but it was out of the price range, so she had taken a part-time job to help make ends meet. Jeff was supposed to pick her up at 5 am but never showed. She called home and got no answer. She walked up to the corner of my home finding Jeff gone and their infant son locked in a closet. A little while later Jeff walked in. He said he had been out for a morning run, which seemed odd since he had never done any running or been involved in any physical exercise as far as she knew. He changed into his uniform and left for work. There Orlando police, in cooperation with Navy investigators, pulled him in for questioning. He first asked for an attorney, then waived his rights, said he had some psychological problems and admitted to assaulting Gagliano and Dixon.
Speaker 1:When asked about the assault on Gagliano, gorton said quote, I think I saw her at Albertson's. I stopped there to get something to eat end quote. And so they asked him did you think she was attractive and decided to follow her from that point or what? And he said no, I just she probably was just bending over or something. I could tell she had a slip on. Then something came over me. I probably, decided. He said he followed her to her apartment complex. Then he said quote, I just walk up behind her and grab her slip. End quote. He was hazy on details explaining. And then he said the next thing quote. I don't pay enough attention to things I do to keep it in my memory. I guess, end quote Gordon agreed to let police search his new apartment there.
Speaker 1:He went into the attic and came out with a cardboard box filled with undergarments and one pair of women's shoes. Don was sitting there when Jeff and the Navy police walked in. Though Orlando police reports don't mention it, dunn would say that police also took out a large military duffel so stuffed with women's clothes. It couldn't be zipped. Jeff left under arrest and was arraigned the next day in Orange County Circuit Court. Included in the haul were a black slip taken from Dixon, a beige slip taken from Galeano, a green slip that had belonged to Mrs Demon Soon.
Speaker 1:Detectives were back at the Bourdines showing Marie Jeff's arrest photos. It was definitely the same guy who attacked her. They told her they would be in touch regarding any court proceedings. Seeing the photos brought back fresh memories of him. She lasted out her shift barely holding it together inside, trying to sell cosmetics as if nothing were wrong. At least he was behind bars.
Speaker 1:A week, maybe 10 days later, marie was back in the same Arbison's near her apartment doing some light shopping, waiting in line. She glanced over at the line next to her and there he was, her attacker, standing with a young woman who was holding a baby. She was young 18, and looked younger. And Galeano said, quote. My first inclination was to run up to him and scream at him, but fear took over. Then I wanted to say to her what's your problem being with this guy? But I saw the baby. It was real young and I felt bad, end quote. So she ran with her groceries to her car because she freaked out. She raced home and called the police to tell him that Jeff had gotten out somehow, and they knew, of course. He posted a $2,500 bond on May 26th and was released. Jeff's grandparents lived in nearby Leesburg and Don had borrowed the money from them. And she starts screaming on the phone he's out on bond. Couldn't you at least have told me he was just at my grocery store? He lives in my neighborhood, and so the cop told her. Couldn't you at least have told me he was just at my grocery store, he lives in my neighborhood, and so the cop told her. Well, you didn't hear me say this, but get a gun and if he bothers you again, do us all a favor. It would have been a favor for a 26-year-old woman named Christy Walker While out on bond.
Speaker 1:On September 16, gorton will strike again. It was the same day the Navy gave him a less than honorable discharge, though it's hard to imagine what you would have to do to get a dishonorable discharge if knocking down Navy women and ripping off their slits isn't enough. About 11 pm, walker was sitting in her ground floor apartment in Orlando when she heard her front room curtains rustling. She looked over and saw a white man reaching through the window. She screamed and the arm pulled back. Police found that the screen had been pried out of its frame. They also found prints which were quickly matched to Jeff. His bond was revoked and he was charged with breaking and entering. This time Don borrowed $5,000 from Jeff's parents for bond, getting the money via Western Union. But instead of getting Jeff out of jail, she used some of the money to hire United Van Lines to move her things back to Michigan. When she got back she returned the rest of the money to the Gordons.
Speaker 1:Marie slipped into a deep depression in the weeks and months after her assault, a gradual slide that she didn't notice but her roommate, friends and co-workers did. She could still go to work and function normally and that she did her shopping, banking, bill paying and the like. But if it wasn't doing chores or at work. She found it impossible to leave the apartment. She was afraid to go out because she was worried or afraid that someone would follow. Her Nights were not so bad, only the occasional nightmare.
Speaker 1:On Saturday afternoon she got a call. It was her roommate's boss, robert Greenberg, who ran the jewelry department and a catalog showroom. Marie had met Greenberg before. He had a reputation as a nice guy, a great boss. He was always having cookouts for his employees, an avid fisherman. If he caught a mess of fish he would call folks up and invite them over to his apartment or Lake Frederica, a nice one with a big pool, for a fresh fry. Dunn had told him that she was worried about Marie and he had told her that he would try to work some charm on her. But he kept the reason for calling a secret and he told her hey, come on over, I'm having some friends over to go swimming. And she said, no, thanks anyway, but I'm going to just hang around the apartment. So he said, okay, then I'm coming over to get you. You don't have any choice, I'll be there in 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:They now describe that swim as their first date. But as first dates go, it was unusual to say the least. Trying to engage her in some horseplay in the pool, greenberg splashed her, she splashed back a good sign. He splashed harder, she splashed harder, he grabbed her and started twirling her around in the water and she hit her foot on the side of the pool and broke her little toe. Surprisingly enough, the first date led to a second and a third.
Speaker 1:Though she was at least getting out of the apartment, had taken up taekwondo, was interacting with people, she was still and told Green Bird about her fears and he said well, my uncle in Georgia has got some clay pits. That's where we all learned to shoot when we were kids. Come up with me and I'll teach you to shoot. So they took some vacation days and went up to his uncle's place near Jessa, not far from Savannah, out in pine forests and swamps, crocodiles in the water. All I had to do this is her talking was pretend the target was that guy and I hit it every time. My God, bob, you got a regular. Annie Oakley there, said her uncle, his uncle.
Speaker 1:And back from Jessup, she attended Gordon's trial, which ended up as a plea bargain, and she says I had my eyes fixed on him but he wouldn't look at me. Several serious charges, including assault, were knocked down to two counts each of robbery and one of burglary. Gordon gave the judge this adulterated crap to Marie's thinking about his remorse, hell, he ended up sounding like the damn victim. He had compulsions, he needed help, fighting. If only someone would help him. And he said I know I did something wrong and I want to get help. I know I did something wrong and I want to get help. I just hope I can have a chance to prove that I can. So at sentencing on February of 1984, the judge gave him the statutory maximum of four and a half years. Marie was livid that someone so obviously unbalanced and dangerous, who could do what he did to her and all those others who could fill her with the fear that she had been battling ever since, would get off so lightly. Marie and Bob were married a year later and a year later that Gordon was parole.
Speaker 1:In 1992, marie and Bob moved to Jessup and bought 20 acres out in the country. Marie had planted 1,387 slash pine trees, a hybrid, hardy, fast grower favored by the logging industry. Just to say, he helped out. Bob planted one. It was her project, maybe a lingering bit of therapy. You know she figures. Today Bob is retired from the jewelry business but works part time in a friend's store in town where it doesn't interfere with his hunting and fishing.
Speaker 1:Marie never got tired of shooting off of guns. She works at the nearby Walmart selling guns and ammo and when the armadillos get to overrunning the property she picks up the loaded .22 that she keeps handy and goes out in the clearing in front of their house and, surrounded by already towering slash trees, picks those armadillos off one by one. If she's out there shooting and bops off fishing, a caller gets a message that says quote we're probably out fighting mosquitoes or shooting armadillos. End quote Leave a message at the tone. And there were a very happy ending in the boogeyman's odyssey. She was the one who got away. Thank you for listening to the murder book. Have a great week.
