said Chief Mokwa. "A very normal, average type of guy, " St. Louis homicide Detective Roy Douglas remembers. Im baffled., Suspect charged in fatal shooting in downtown St. Louis, Former Sweetie Pies TV star Tim Norman gets two life sentences in nephews death, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol slams ump C.B. One scene showed him apparently strangling one of his victims to death. checked upon at 15-minute intervals); however two consecutive checks were missed by the guards, allowing Travis his opportunity. May 25, 2002: Police find an unidentified woman's skeleton in West Alton, where the map said it would be. In many respects, Travis offers an almost textbook portrait of a serial killer, police say - cunning and self-indulgent yet almost "invisible" in the communities where he lived. And only a handful have ever been known to videotape their victims, as Travis did. But damn, this is a weird story. How about you, Buddha9?!! Whether or not his boast of 17 victims was accurate, police believe he probably killed more victims than the 12 they have identified so far. "[3] Travis was arrested on a federal criminal complaint and, while in the custody of the U.S. Number One. Photo by David Carson. He wasn't your typical type of criminal.". The teenage girl killed Saturday during an attempted robbery in St. Charles was a sophomore at Liberty High School in O'Fallon, Missouri, a so. He dressed hurriedly and joined the police in the living room - on sofas arranged in what police called a kind of "conversation pit" around a coffee table. It sits to the northeast of Berkeley. Once, Wucher said, he told Travis about a friend whose car was stolen and later found burning in East St. Louis. Harrison's son, Zabray Harrison, said he often drank a couple of beers with Travis in front of their homes. None of his 13 conduct violations were particularly significant, according to a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections. I was shocked that he was living in Ferguson at the time, and I went on line to get his address, and was shocked to see your blog post. Travis falls into a long line of killers who kept victims in their homes. He murdered at least 12 women, confessed to murdering 17 women, & is suspected of killing up to 20 women in St Louis Missouri. Maury Travis, 36, committed suicide in jail in 2002 before cops could quiz him about as many as 20 murders in the local area When police searched his home, they found makeshift cells in the. Sgt. Name I don't know. March 28, 2002: An unidentified woman's skeleton is found in Columbia, Ill. Police now suspect Travis. "I don't believe he could kill a fly, " she said. "What did you do as a child?" "Why are you here so early?". The latitude and longitude coordinates for the house are: To view directions on how to get there, you can use the Google Maps shortcut below: 1001 Ford DriveSt. He was popular for being a Criminal. In one of the ads, the description says that it has a "spacious basement for entertaining!". Net Worth in 2022. We're missing five of them," said Mokwa. May 21, 2002: The postmark date of a letter to Post-Dispatch reporter Bill Smith that includes a map to another body and suggests there may be others. The event, attended by leadership from Travis AFB, Fisher House Foundation staff, community leaders and volunteers, marked a return to operations . March 1989-June 1994: Travis serves his sentence in the Farmington Correctional Center. After reading the profile about Wilson, Travis decided to print a map from the Internet, mark the location of one of his victims' bodies on it, and then mail it into the newspaper. Victims remains. "There's some families out here that have a lost loved one, and they'll always be uncertain of what happened to them.". Sachs can still remember the sneer that crept across Travis' face. Alan Shaw will appear before the . He was 10 when his family moved to a simple ranch house in Ferguson. Kroenig said she was working as an intern for KDNL (Channel 30) news last July when Travis "asked if my station had done a story on prostitutes getting killed. Now their boss is ordering them to get counseling to help deal with what they saw. $1 Million - $5 Million. Other documents indicate he then served two years in the Army Reserve, working as a medical and dental assistant. [7] Upon being approached by the local housing authority, the landlord subsequently agreed to rescind the lease.[8]. "You want to say something to your kids? The victim was discovered after an anonymous letter was sent to local Post-Dispatch reporter Bill Smith on May 21, 2002. Victims remains. Remember this from Deaf Pirate Video?!! The motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated. Sachs questioned Travis for nearly eight hours, before giving way to Douglas and Walker, who immediately began a more direct, more "in your face" confrontational interview that had produced results with past suspects. Travis cursed: "(Expletive) computer!" July 9, 2014 / 10:13 AM Videotapes, discovered in the basement of his home, show him with bound victims. Staying in my cell and crying myself to sleep most every night will not help, but it's so very hard to believe this has happened to me. When police in St. Louis searched the killers house, they found a secret torture chamber in the basement, with bondage equipment, a stun gun and clippings about the slayings he was suspected of. Joe Spiess, who as a St. Louis County police detective arrested Travis based on a car description, said recently: "He was respectful and quiet and reserved. He forced one victim to say to him, "You are the master. He hung himself in jail in 2002 before officially confessing to any of the murders, however. He was a serial killer who predominantly murdered prostitutes potentially as many as 17 in the St. Louis (Ferguson, Missouri) area around 2000-2002. On May 21st, 2002, he mailed this anonymous letter to Bill Smith at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper. See Maury Troy Travis's age, phone number, house address, email address, social media accounts, public records, and check for criminal records on Spokeo. Sachs put pictures of the women on a table in an interrogation room and. Following his arrest, Travis was adamant that he wasn't going back to prison. But it showed that in some cases police are not sure how he chose his victims Travis would start asking the women to engage in bizarre rituals, such as having them dance in white clothes or wear sunglasses with the lenses blackened so they could not see. And true to form, he victimized people of his own race. E-mail Primetime. Travis picked up prostitutes, took them home, and tortured them before killing them. Maury Travis's home movies. They found a skeleton at the site, and traced the map to Travis' computer. Detectives in the St. Louis Police Department are looking for any information that could help them find more of Maury Travis' victims. We have estimated Maury Travis's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets. . In one segment, it appears that he uses a belt to strangle or break the neck of a woman. I am pleading that he be given leniency and probation with the condition of voluntary service at a charitable community agency . So far, at least, the answers have been painstakingly slow in coming. Only one IP address had looked at that specific spot. Prosecutors in St. Louis and the counties of St. Charles, St. Clair, Madison and Monroe were reviewing evidence against him for possible state charges. Colombia wants to deport "cocaine hippos" to stop them from multiplying, Alex Murdaugh found guilty of murders of wife and son, Alex Murdaugh testifies 4 years after fatal boat crash involving son. "There is still a lot to piece together.". July 31, 2000: The body of Mary Shields, 61, is found in East St. Louis. As an adult, he turned his basement into a torture chamber where he killed at least 17 women, all the while videotaping their suffering and eventual death. "He said I would never understand, " Sachs said. After delivering the blow which police believe was fatal Travis leaves the woman's naked body face down on the floor and is heard saying, "This is first kill. "Intelligent. "Who are these other women and where are they?" At the sentencing hearing six months later, St. Louis County Circuit Judge Steven Goldman said letters of support seemed to indicate the crime spree was "an aberration in your character" resulting from the drug habit. Oct. 8, 2001: The body of Brenda Beasley, 33, is found in East St. Louis. Forensic Files on HLN aired a piece on Maury Travis last night. By 1982, he was a student at McCluer High School. Det. I'm keeping you about a week. This is from a still from a. Maury Travis Self (archive footage) James McClain Undetermined Re-enactment Role Joe Peck Detective Bob Martin Allen Strange Undetermined Re-enactment Role Director Michael Jordan All cast & crew Production, box office & more at IMDbPro Storyline Edit You need to stay there until the lease is up,'" McGhaw said. She said that in Missouri, landlords don't have to tell applicants about crimes that have been committed on their property. ABCNEWS is also interested in hearing information you might have for a follow-up. He told the judge he was so strung out that he barely remembered the robberies. Insane. June 29, 2001: The body of Verona Thompson, 36, is found in West Alton, just 16 feet from where Wilson was found. ", "He kept trying to redirect everything, every question, " Sachs said. As he sat in the interrogation room at police headquarters downtown on the afternoon of June 7, the 36-year-old waiter drummed his fingers nervously on a tabletop. Linda Harrison, whose home shared a common wall with Travis', said there was "not the tiniest" of problems while he was there. Missouri State Law 442.600. Maury Travis's income source is mostly from being a successful . It was revealed that her landlord, who would not return the money or break the lease when confronted, was Travis' mother. Catrina McGhaw signed a lease for that house in March. Cold Case Files covered the story in the episode "A Map to Murder". The house being featured in various crime scene photos on the tv screen was the very one they were sitting in. Killers like BTK genuinely got off on the idea of killing someone, and Maury Travis fits right in with that. This is a common trait among sadistic serial killers, as many of them get an "added kick" out of instilling fear in the community and seeing their "work" being reported on in the news. Travis was found hanging from a bed sheet tied to the air vent. At the time of the killings, Travis was still on parole for a spate of shoe store robberies that he had committed back in 1988. Rachael Ray has announced that her daytime talk show will be ending this year, bringing its stellar 17-season run to a close. It was, they said, "a very normal living room" in "a very normal house.". He seemed more wiry, but still strong. According to the property listing website Zillow, the house was sold for an undisclosed price one month later. He met them in his underwear - groggy and agitated. The basement pole where some of the victims were tied up. In this county, you only need to report physical defects of the home (I assume thats true for a lot of counties, actually). It worked. At the time of the murders, he was a hotel waiter, and on parole for a 1989 robbery. Written on congressional stationery, it asks the court for leniency. The house Catrina was living in previously belonged to serial killer Maury Travis, son of her landlady, Sandra Travis. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The station reports that Catrina McGhaw currently rents a house in Ferguson, Mo., that was once home to Maury Troy Travis. February 1998-January 1999: He returns to prison for violating parole by possessing drugs. "Maury told me that East St. Louis was a good place to dump things because there's not many police around, " Wucher said. The letter had a return address of I THRALLDOM, a bondage website, but no other identification. Thanks to Travis committing suicide after his arrest, it's impossible to know his true motivations behind killing so many women and recording himself while doing it. Thats entire bullshit, this is still an asset of Sandra Travis, regardless of the terrible deeds committed by her son. Instead, he seemed more interested in finding out how they had tracked him down. Travis, who hanged himself in his jail cell in 2002 before ever facing a trial, is suspected of killing at least 11 women, many of whom were prostitutes, in the St. Louis area but that number could be as high as 20, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported in 2002. The St. Louis Housing Authority eventually intervened, and McGhaw is moving at the end of this month, despite what Sandra Travis said. Travis is currently dating Keeping Up With the . Details of Travis' early life are sketchy. It shows an 8-foot-by-8-foot cell with two inner cells where Maury planned to keep women. According to their nephew Maury Travis, the adjacent homes of the brothers Samuel and David shared a tennis . [4] He committed suicide by hanging in custody in St. Louis County, Missouri, after being arrested for murder. McGhaw, who receives a Section 8 stipend, had to seek outside help to negotiate the lease. He's Maury Travis - a twisted man who taunted the police, took delight in torturing his victims and completely mentally devastating them before the murders. Maury Troy Travis (October 25, 1965 June 10, 2002) was an American serial killer. Letter Maury Travis sent to reporter at the St Louis Post Dispatch, that lead to his capture. Updated on April 20, 2021. She knew him by his nickname, Toby, and said he was a pleasant child with a soft heart. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? The scenes on the tape were so disturbing that Police Chief Joe Mokwa ordered psychological counseling for the officers who viewed them. Killer believed to have murdered 2-20 women and killed himself in jail after being arrested. When the FBI and police tracked down suspected serial killer Maury Troy Travis, they didn't need bloodhounds, lab tests, fingerprints or other standard tools of criminal investigations. Episode 2 - Maury Travis WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS BELOW Maury Troy Travis Maury's house in 2002 What the house looks like in 2018. The lessee said she had no problems with the home until a family member told her to check out a cold case documentary about serial killers that was airing on television, KMOV reports. U.S. marshals ask jailers to put him on a suicide watch. To contact the investigators, call (314) 444-5371. This was before any connection between the slayings had been made public. Name I don't know. Seriously underwater., Neman: Missouri womans saga of trying to find common sense at Walmart, I can still hear the roaring of the engine, says father of teen maimed in downtown St. Louis, Travis is found hanged in his cell. LouisMissouriMO 63135United States. March 19, 2001: He is released from prison. Uncover Maury's photos, videos, and more . By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. [2] Although Travis appears to have acknowledged at least seventeen murders, the police believe his victim count could be as high as twenty. Several times, as the full realization of what was happening struck him, Travis dropped his head. Included is the computer that Travis used to contact an Internet mapping service so he could pinpoint the location of one of his victims. Travis, a 36-year-old hotel waiter, hanged himself in jail before admitting to any of the murders, but St. Louis police believe he killed between 12 and 20 women. "[The child] looked over like she was scared. He attached a computer-generated map to the letter, marked with an X where he said police would find a body. Estimated Net Worth in 2020. Published November 17, 2018 Updated December 9, 2021 These colorized versions of vintage black-and-white crime scene photos reveal a unique perspective on the murders, mobsters, and mayhem of decades past. So does a tire track on one victim's leg. Forensic Files covered the story of Travis' crime spree in the episode "X Marks the Spot". Catrina McGhaw signed a lease for that house in March. He would then begin to torment them, either in the bedroom, or after dragging them downstairs to the basement and shackling them to a wooden post. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a profile piece on Wilson, to which Travis responded by sending an anonymous letter and a computer-generated map. Some of the victims were discovered there, tied to a pole. Police now suspect Travis. Maury Travis was a serial killer who was active in St Louis, Missouri, from 2001 to 2002. We use cookies to deliver personalized advertisements, improve your online experience, and to analyze our site's performance. They found what appeared to be blood spatters throughout his . After one murder in 2001, he taunted police by anonymously mailing a map to the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper showing the location of the victim's body. WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS BELOW Maury Troy Travis Maury's house in 2002 What the house looks like in 2018. Maury Travis timeline Oct. 25, 1965: Travis is born in St. Louis. Travis (October 21, 1995 - February 16, 2009) was a male common chimpanzee who, as an animal actor, appeared in several television shows and commercials, including spots for Coca-Cola, as well as on television programs including The Maury Povich Show and The Man Show, which is disputed. By the time he died, Travis was charged on two federal kidnapping counts that could have carried a death penalty. But it was a conversation between Travis and Wucher's girlfriend, Julie Kroenig, that continues to haunt Wucher and Kroenig. In one clip, he taunts one of the women by asking her if she wants to say something to her kids. In the case of Maury Travis, it wasn't a physical piece of his victims that he collected for his demented reflection but a series of horrifying videos. Jan. 30, 2002: An unidentified woman's skeleton is found near Mascoutah. "You know what we found in your basement, " police told him. He hung himself in jail in 2002 before officially confessing to any of the murders, however. This is a private property. A suspected gunman on Tuesday was charged in the fatal shooting of a man in downtown St. Louis one day earlier. West Alton Doe 2002 is connected to Monroe County Jane Doe, Madison County Jane Doe, and St. Clair County Jane Doe by Maury Travis, who sent a letter to the St. Louis Post Dispatch with directions to the still unidentified remains of West Alton Jane Doe 2002.Maury Travis hanged himself while he was being held in jail in 2002 but police now believe that he killed between 12 and 20 women, many of whom died in the basement of his Ferguson, Missouri, home.Learn more about her case in our group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/awarenessformissingmopersons/permalink/445814326129488/ He asks that his sentence be replaced by a 120- or 180-day "shock" imprisonment. The details of his hanging don't really point to suicide.) Mar 23, 2018; 1 min; Episode 1 - Listen here. they asked. Aug. 25, 2001: The body of Yvonne Crues, 50, is found in East St. Louis. Four people are dead and four others critically injured after a car ran a red light and crashed into their SUV. The bodies of at least four of Travis' suspected victims were found in the East St. Louis area. The woman told the station her landlord was unsympathetic. He slid back and forth in his chair, sometimes pushing to the very edge of his seat and staring intently, almost defiantly, into the face of St. Louis police Sgt. 1985: Travis graduates from McCluer High School. This originally was published on June 23, 2002. Under Review. 2 men found drugged after leaving NYC gay bars were killed, medical examiner says. Net Worth in 2020. Heres where the story gets a lot weirder, 12 years after Travis himself committed suicide: his mother, Sandra, is still the owner of the home where the torturing occurred. Hes Maury Travis a twisted man who taunted the police, took delight in torturing his victims and completely mentally devastating them before the murders. Since he was 14-years-old, he fantasized about killing. She is a victim of serial killer Maury Troy Travis. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. For more information, please read our Privacy & Cookie Policy. When they examined the basement after his arrest, police found that the walls had been repainted several times, with layers of paint, then blood, then paint, then blood. Police have linked Travis to DNA in semen found in her. "I am not going back to prison, " Travis told his interrogators. smh . What did you do? They did not discuss specifics, which included restraints that appeared stained with blood and the videotapes, which show at least one woman who was among those found dead. Maury Troy Travis (October 25, 1965 - June 10, 2002) was an American serial killer. Police have set up a separate, locked evidence room just to store and catalog items seized from Travis' home. 6-17-2. Police technicians said DNA from semen found in two victims links their deaths to Travis. You can set your cookie preferences below. $1 Million - $5 Million. Many serial killers speak about a need to commit the horrific and violent acts that they do. Post not marked as liked. Travis was paroled after five years and three months behind bars for the robberies, working in the prison's janitorial and food service areas. A year later, he pleads guilty to five counts each of robbery and armed criminal action. 1986-88: He attends Morris Brown College, a private college in Atlanta. The exception is a scene in which Travis is seen wrapping a belt around a woman's neck and snapping it tight, choking her until her body goes limp. On the one hand, I cant relate to what the mother of a serial killer (suspected or otherwise) must go through. He said he'd been like this since he could remember.". "I have known Mr. Travis and his family for a number of years and I feel he is deserving of special consideration in this matter, " Clay wrote. His overconfidence loss is your gain:now his dungeon is one of the many. His killings are also discussed on Last Podcast on the Left, Episode 91: Black Serial Killers Part 1: Call Me God. Detectives also say they found nothing in Travis' past, such as child abuse or an unusually traumatic relationship with a close family member, that might have festered and ultimately triggered the killings. Is that all right? Still, as the evidence against Travis mounted through the day, he often nervously tapped his fingers on the table. "He wanted to be in control.". "He claims he killed 17 women. Wake up to the day's most important news. [4], Before he could be put on trial for the crimes, Travis hanged himself on June 10, 2002, in his jail cell. "You know why we're here, " they told him. He had written a suicide note. I don't give a f---.". Travis himself acknowledged killing 17 women. A picture of Maury Travis Source: UGC Maury Travis was an American serial killer. April 1976: His family buys the house at 1001 Ford Avenue in Ferguson. A lot of true crime and music but I throw in life stuff too for the times I need a greater understanding of why I'm like this. He attended St. Louis Public Schools from 1971 to 1975. When Catrina asked to be let out of the lease, Sandra refused, telling her she had to stay until it expired. Serial killer Maury Travis, who hanged himself in jail in 2002, is believed to have slain between 12 and 20 women.