The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 4

4A THE PALM BEACH POST SUNDAY, MAY 5, 1 99 1 1986 tip leads police to Leesburg-area truck driver A Trail Of Murders l6leveland'; iToledoi An Ohio task force Is investigating a string of 11 murders In five states. In each case the victim is a woman whose body was dumped along the side of a major highway. Fruitland Park truck driver Alvin Wilson CANADA Columbus, WVa. A- Cincinnati is a suspect in the murders. Marcia Mathews, 25.

Found on 1-71 near Mansfield, Ohio on June 12, 1985. Shirley Dean Taylor, 23. Found on 1-71 in Medina County, Ohio on July 20, 1986. April Barnett, 18. Found on 1-71 in Ashland County, Ohio on Dec.

4,1986. Jill Allen, 28. Found on I-70 near Route 40 in Madison County, Illinois on Ky, V--X 40 Miles I the time, and when he was home he worked on his trucks, Bryant said. He had no hobbies, no interest in sports and wasn't one to sit in front of a television. The few friends he had were either truckers or mechanics, she said.

At 5-foot-9, 210 pounds, Wilson picked up the nickname "Bear." He has a good sense of humor and no temper, Bryant said. "He didn't argue. He'd walk out," she said. He never physically harmed her. she added.

Since the Ohio task force was organized, operators have fielded nearly 200 calls on a special toll-free line, said member John Len-hart, sheriff of Shelby County, Ohio. "It's getting a lot of attention because the media are referring to these as serial killings," he said. "And we really don't have any evidence to prove that." Still, police in Kentucky and Mississippi recently saw enough similarities in two of their unsolved murder cases to bring them to the attention of the task force. Task force investigators are particularly interested in genetic tests performed on Wilson's blood and hair samples. Results of those tests may be compared to evidence found in at least three of the Ohio slayings, investigators said.

That investigators found hair and fiber samples in Wilson's truck in itself may have been a lucky break in the case: Neighbors had told police that Wilson scrubbed his rigs inside and out before his through last year, I'm not shocked by anything," she said. Bryant was married to Wilson for 10 years. She filed for divorce after his arrest. A judge dissolved the marriage March 19. "I wouldn't say it was much of a marriage.

I don't think of him much anymore," she said. Violent family history Wilson was born in Ayden, N.C. He had four brothers and two sisters, Bryant said. One sister died of cancer. A brother, Gordon, was murdered in 1981 in Wilson, N.C.

Gordon Wilson's wife was charged with hiring her brother to kill the man, but the case against her was dropped after her brother recanted his story. The woman was arrested last month on charges that she attempted to hire a hit man to kill her new husband, according to police. Alvin Wilson dropped out of school in the 10th grade and married his first wife, Diane, Bryant said. The couple had three children together. Wilson rarely visited his children after divorcing Diane.

"He wasn't very family oriented," she said. Bryant said she met Wilson while visiting family in Virginia. They married Jan. 16, 1984. Less than four months later, Wilson was a newlywed and a prison inmate.

Wilson was sentenced to five years for the abduction of a woman from Frank's Truck Stop in Bowers Hill, in September 1982, according to Virginia prison records. The victim testified that she had iii. ind. 1 r-1 i TWVay Va I Miss. Ala- 1 I Atlantic I r- Ocean FruitJanck Dec.

19, 1986. Alvin Wilson Anne Marie Patterson, 27. Found on I-75 in Warren County, Ohio on March 23, 1987. Mary E. Reeves, 32.

Found on I-65 near Route 21 in Escambia County, Alabama on May 5, 1 987. Jane Doe No. 1, 20s. Found on I-70 near Dayton, Ohio on Aug. 10, 1987 Lamonica Cole, 19.

Found on I-70 near Breezewood, Pennsylvania on Nov. 11, 1987. Terry Roarke, 31. Found in New York state on I-87 on March 29, 1988. Katherine Hill, 26.

Found on I-280 just outside Toledo, Ohio on Nov. 5, 1990. Jane Doe No. 2, 20s. Found on I-70 at Route 37 in Licking County, Ohio on April 19, 1991.

Source: Ohio Attorney General's Office 300 Miles 7 1 I TRUCKERfrom 1A and choked by a trucker in 1986, escaped the attack and gave police a license plate number and description of the truck. The plate number was traced to a truck driven by Wilson. No charges resulted from her complaint, and the tip was lost in paper work until the task force began reviewing files. Lake County deputies impounded Wilson's trucks last month at the request of the task force. "I think the tag was traced to a North Carolina trucking company," said Randy Aleno, an investigator with the State Attorney's Office for Lake County.

"Wilson's name was on the truck's log of the vehicle they're talking about." Wilson owned just the cabs, not any trailers, his former wife said. Movements being traced Credit card receipts place Wilson at a truck stop just west of Youngstown at three of the times prostitutes were abducted there and killed, investigators say. Wilson's handwritten logs show he was in North Carolina at the time, but investigators say the logs were falsified. Aleno said he still is studying Wilson's receipts in an attempt to trace his movements. The Youngstown-area victims were: Shirley Dean Taylor, 23, found along 1-71 in Medina County on July 20, 1986; April Barnett, 18, of Akron, found at a closed rest stop on 1-71 in Ashland County on Dec.

4, 1986; and Anne Marie Patterson, 27, of Findlay, Ohio, found along I-71 in Warren County March 23, 1987. The task force also is focusing on the murders of: Marcia Mathews, 25. Found on 1-71 near Mansfield, Ohio, on June 12, 1985. Jill Allen, 28. Found on 1-70 near Route 40 in Madison County Dec.

19, 1986. Mary E. Reeves, 32. Found on 1-65 near Route 21 in Escambia County, on May 5, 1987. Jane Doe No.

1, 20s. Found on 1-70 near Dayton, Ohio, on Aug. 10, 1987. Lamonica Cole, 19. Found on 1-70 at 1-76 near Breezewood, on Nov.

11, 1987. Terry Roarke, 31. Found in New York on 1-87 on March 29, 1988. Katherine Hill, 26. Found on 1-280 just outside Toledo on Nov.

5, 1990. Jane Doe No. 2, 20s. Found on 1-70 at Route 37 in Licking HEIDI KLIEH. MARK HEMPHILL SI aff Artists All of the victims were bludgeoned, strangled or suffocated.

Several were last seen climbing into a truck. All seem. to have one thing in common they were alleged prostitutes. lisa brown Spokeswoman for Ohio Attorney General Lee Fisher The Palm Beach Post A CO newspaper Main Office 2751 South Dixie Highway West Palm Beach, FL 33405 Home Delivery Service General Office 820-4663 820-4100 1800-654 1231 1 800-432-7595 County on April 19. "All of the victims were bludgeoned, strangled or suffocated," said Lisa Brown, spokeswoman for Ohio Attorney General Lee Fisher, who created the task force in March.

"Several were last seen climbing into a truck. All seem to have one thing in common they were alleged prostitutes." While the task force is sufficiently interested in Wilson to send two investigators to Florida, the trucker is not the sole target of their probe, Brown stressed. "By no means is Wilson the only suspect in the case," she said. Wilson has been locked in the Lake County Jail for more than a year on unrelated charges. On April 18, 1990, just as he sat down to a dinner of baked chicken, police came to his green cinder-block house in Fruitland Park and read him his rights.

He was charged with two counts of sexual battery, armed burglary and armed kidnapping. A 25-year-old Lady Lake woman accused Wilson of breaking into her home on Oct. 14, 1989. She said Wilson beat her with a saucepan, attempted to drown her in a bath- been sleeping in her car when it was rammed from behind by Wilson's truck, according to a 1984 article in the Virginian Pilot-Ledger Star. The victim said Wilson tried to stuff a gag in her mouth and threatened to kill her if she resisted, the newspaper reported.

She escaped. He went back to truck driving after his parole from the Nanse-mond Correctional Institution on June 17, 1986. In addition to teaching Wilson woodworking, the prison term gave him an alibi for one of the murders. He was in the Lake County Jail when two of the other murders occurred. The couple lived in North Carolina until early 1988, when they moved to Fruitland Park.

Bryant, who said she was born to a military family in Jacksonville, wanted to live closer to family. No hobbies, few friends Wilson was on the road most of down his license plate number, and police traced it to Wilson. On Sept. 12, 1990, additional charges were lodged against Wilson accusing himof trying to hire fellow jail inmates to kill the woman accusing him of rape. He has pleaded innocent to all the charges and is scheduled for trial next month.

News of Wilson being named as a suspect in the interstate highway murders stunned residents of Fruitland Park, a community of fewer than 4,000 on the outskirts of Leesburg. "He was a real cool guy and a hard worker," a neighbor said. But his former wife, Judy Bryant, wasn't surprised by the news. "After everything I went tub and then raped her, according to a police report. Wilson threatened to kill her and her child if she went to the police, she told investigators.

The woman told police that Wilson said she was his fifth rape victim. Clothing items taken Before leaving the victim's house, Wilson took her purse, credit cards and some items of clothing, according to police. Items of clothing were missing from each victim in the murders being investigated by the Ohio task force, Brown said. Three months after the victim talked to police, Wilsonfried to run her car off the road, the victim told investigators. The victim took Home Delivery Rates, Per Week: Seven days, $2.25 Monday to Friday only, $1.15 Saturday and Sunday only, 1 1 0 Mall Subscription Rates: Rates, which are payable in advance, vary by zone and are available by calling 820-4231.

Published every morning by Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc. Second-class postage Is paid at West Palm Beach and additional mailing office. USPS 418-720 Postmaster: Send address change to The Palm Beach Post, P.O. Box 24700, West Palm Beach, FL 33416-4700. 5r Mother's Day May 12 WHITE LEATHER (Lir ballet slipiers.

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